Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs (1965-2023)

[eschiss1]

Dedicated and searching musicologist Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs died on November 21st.

[Alan Howe]

I'm ignorant of Cohrs except for his work on Bruckner. Aside from the part he played in the completion of the 9th Symphony, I'm not sure what I think about the multiplicity of versions of the other symphonies - which, I'm pretty sure, Bruckner didn't intend to leave us. That is now an absolute minefield, with listeners largely in the dark as to what they're hearing - unless one is an expert.

[Mark Thomas]

Worse than a minefield, it's an industry! The people involved do Bruckner no favours in the long run, I'm sure.

[Alan Howe]

Absolutely right. I thought Bruckner wrote 11 symphonies: some listings give details of over 30 different versions. The industry must be rubbing its hands - I've lost count of the number of releases conducted by Schaller or Poschner.

[Justin]

Expect to see more releases next year for his 200th anniversary.

[Mark Thomas]

Bruckner is surely over-exposed now? What is especially galling is that he apparently left behind a list setting out explicitly the version of each symphony which he regarded as the definitive, final one.

[Alan Howe]

Both Bruckner and Mahler are seriously over-exposed now. It's absolutely mad - and the result is an awful lot of bad recordings. There was a time when conductors took time to learn this sort of repertoire and to my mind, with very few exceptions, the older generation did a better job than their younger counterparts.

[eschiss1]

Let's consider, maybe, possibly, eventually, not to rush you all, returning to the thread topic, Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs, a musicologist who left editions of Schubert, Bruckner, Lili Boulanger (edit: fixed. Not Nadia, my mistake. Her "Thème et variations : Morceau pour piano (1915)"), Chadwick (his "Tam O'Shanter"), among others (in some cases - the Chadwick? - these may have been not editions but prefaces to reprints written for MPH, but the Boulanger and others are, I believe, reprints), and whose connection with what you are saying seems tenuous at best.

[Alan Howe]

Fair enough, so now that we've aired the Bruckner versions issue, perhaps we should consider Cohrs' work on neglected music.

[adriano]

Ben-Gunnar gave me once the score of his excellent orchestral arrangement of Ravel's "Toccata" and "Fugue" from "Le Tombeau de Couperin".
He had already planned a concert with the Göttinger Barock-Orchester, on 20th April 2024, with a program including his string orchestra arrangements of rare Bruckner chamber works.
He has also prepared a new completion of Mozart's Requiem.
On the label Accentus Music one can hear Cohr's new critical editions of Bruckner's Requiem, Missa Solemnis, Tantum ergo Magnificat and 8 other sacred choral pieces - as performed by the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, codnucted by Lukasz Borowicz.

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, Adriano, for telling us about these projects - of which I, for one, was completely ignorant.