Bruckner 9th -- complete

[mbhaub]

Last week I participated in a performance of the Bruckner 9th with the unfinished fourth movement. It was thrilling, to say the least. Every now and then you play a concert where everything just seems so right and the adrenalin flows. The performance was well received by the audience. I felt good about it.

But I was wondering how any of you feel about any of the various completions of the finale. In this case we used a newly minted and revised version by William Carragan. It is quite an improvement over his 1983 version if you know the Chandos recording. It really ends the symphony in a blaze of glory. Yet at times I couldn't help but feel that it's not a Bruckner sound. Carragan added a contrabassoon part which Bruckner never scored for as far as I know. But he should have! If any instrument has a deep, profound organ sound it's the contra.

I'm also famiiar by recording of the Samale-Mazzuca-Cohrs-Phillips version. There are at least two others that I don't know: one by Sebastian Letocart and another by Jan-Peter Marthe. Do any of you know these versions? Any opinions?

It's funny how no one seems to really question various completions of the Mahler 10th, but somehow the Bruckner completion is taboo. Not one major conductor has taken it up, yet from hearing the passages that Bruckner did complete (Talmi or Harnoncourt) it's clear that he had a much more exciting and upbeat closing in mind, and the traditional three movement version ends on a note that it shouldn't.

Bruckner is hardly unsung, but the complete 9th sure seems to be!

[Amphissa]

Plenty of most prominent Mahler conductors have stayed away from completions of the 10th, including Bernstein, Tilson Thomas, Boulez, Kubelik, Haitink, Abbado, etc. I've heard most of the completions and don't really like any of them much. As for Bruckner 9, I've got the Wildner recording with the group completion and the Talmi recording on Chandos. What can I say? I don't really like either of them. And I'm not real sure Anton himself could have improved upon the 9th even had he worked out his own sketches for the 4th movement.

I'll certainly seek out new attempts, though. I'm not philosophically opposed tro completions or re-working of the works of a composer. The many orchestrations, re-orchestrations and completions of Mussorgsky's works are examples of success.

[Mark Thomas]

Martin wrote:

somehow the Bruckner completion is taboo

Maybe its me, I respect but don't love Bruckner, but there seems to be an almost mystical reverence accorded to Bruckner by his enthusiasts which isn't granted to Mahler by his. Perhaps its this which militates against wider acceptance of any completion of the Ninth?

[Jonathan]

I'm actually on a bit of a Bruckner pilgrimage at the moment - trying to get to grips with the bewildering array of versions.  Anyway, I have the Naxos Wildner recording and it sort of works, if not completely, so I agree with Amphissa.  I think a completion is more of an interest for completionists than a proper, conscious effort to complete the work which, I personally believe works well enough ending with the adagio (after the apocolyptic scherzo).

Interestingly, there is a recording of the bit Bruckner did complete but sadly it only lasts around 2 minutes (I recorded it years ago from Radio 3) which I assume the various people who have written completions of this work have carried on from.

[mbhaub]

Actually, there's quite a bit that Bruckner did write and orchestrate, which is why you here a lot of the same music in the two versions I know. Talmi recorded almost 16 minutes of Bruckner's own work, but there are many things I question, like some clearly wrong notes in the trumpets that Bruckner would have cleaned up if he had had the time.

Jonathan: I know what you mean about the bewildering array of versions and editions. It's all very complex, and the status of symphonies 3 and 4 are the worst! As much as I like the original 3rd, I can see why he rewrote it. And the usual scherzo for the 4th is much better than the original. But the 8th? Haas or Nowak? For the most part Nowak seems preferable to Haas, but not in the 8th.

Amphissa: you're right, most prominent conductors have stayed away from the completion of Mahler's 10th. But there have been enough major conductors who have done it that it at least has achieved a degree of acceptance. Chailly, Rattle, Sanderling, Ormandy, and Slatkin took it on. But not one has taken on the Bruckner. Perhaps the interest in Bruckner is so low that no one cares. His music sure shows up rarely on American orchestra programs.

[Alan Howe]

I have a spectacularly good recording on the Camerata label (Japan) with the Bruckner Orchestra Linz under Kurt Eichhorn: it uses the completion published in 1992 by Samale/Phillips/Mazzuca/Cohrs. I found it fascinating, but have yet to come to grips with the unfamiliar fourth movement - my own fault, no doubt.

[Alan Howe]

Am now listening to the recording under Eichhorn of the completion. It is certainly music way beyond anything else Bruckner wrote in a finale - only the 5th and 8th are comparable in terms of scale (the completion is 30 minutes long, making the entire symphony over 90 minutes - i.e. Bruckner's longest), and the actual music in the completion is considerably more advanced harmonically. I find it fascinating - and moving. Actually it's pretty glorious stuff.

Maybe the best performing solution would be to play the first three movements in the first half of a concert and have the completion following the interval...

And here you can find an excellent account of the issues involved:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2008/Apr08/Bruckner9_vanderWal.htm

[Jonathan]

Actually, there's quite a bit that Bruckner did write and orchestrate, which is why you here a lot of the same music in the two versions I know. Talmi recorded almost 16 minutes of Bruckner's own work, but there are many things I question, like some clearly wrong notes in the trumpets that Bruckner would have cleaned up if he had had the time.

Thanks for that mbhaub - always nice to discover something I didn't know!
I've just a few minutes ago bought Imbal's recording of the first version of the 5th symphony although it might be the same as Tintner's version on Naxos.  How confusing is this!! 

[Ilja]

I think I can add a slightly different perspective, because I started out with Bruckner quite late and so the first recording of the ninth I ever heard was *with* the fourth movement (the first Carragan). Listening back to, e.g., the Furtwängler 9th, is slightly strange because it seems to end in 'nowhere'.

On a wider note, one of the things I'm genuinely allergic to is the way in which I've heard several conductors elucidate on how 'fate meant' the Schubert 8 or Bruckner 9 to be incomplete, how the 'composer felt' he couldn't improve on the extant parts, and so on. Of course the composer isn't around to contradict, and it's very convenient to confirm current orchestral practice. Even Georg Tintner, whom I greatly respect and who probably knew more about Bruckner than anyone, fell for this type of gobbledegook.

Listening to completions is facultative; for me, I'm *always* interested in how pieces might have sounded. Music is a creative enterprise, and a completion (or 'elaboration') just shows one musical contingency. So bring on the Bruckner 9ths, Mahler 10ths, Schubert 8ths, Elgar 3rds and PIano Concertos - the Rufinatscha 4ths. Please?

[Hovite]

I think I can add a slightly different perspective, because I started out with Bruckner quite late and so the first recording of the ninth I ever heard was *with* the fourth movement (the first Carragan). Listening back to, e.g., the Furtwängler 9th, is slightly strange because it seems to end in 'nowhere'.

This is going back about three decades, but I think that I first heard the 9th in a radio broadcast, and then bought a performance on cassette. I found the recording unsatisfactory; something was wrong somewhere. On pulling out the notes from the cassette box I found that I had purchased the first three movements of four movement symphony. Annoyingly, there was no clue on the outside of the box to indicate that the recording was incomplete. I tried to rectify the error by playing the 1st movement again after the 3rd, but that didn't seem to help.

I eagerly acquired a copy of the (first) Carragan completion when it was issued, and, at the time, that version seemed right. When I first heard the 4th movement, I thought that I could detect links towards Mahler, but now, having played to many times, it just seems like pure Bruckner.

Since then I have acquired as many recordings I can get hold of, and I always check to make sure that I am getting the full four movements.

[mbhaub]

So bring on the Bruckner 9ths, Mahler 10ths, Schubert 8ths, Elgar 3rds and PIano Concertos...

I concur. I can't stand it anymore when a concert features just the Adagio and maybe the Purgatorio of the Mahler 10th. Do the whole thing! I don't care who wrote it, it's great music. Now the Elgar 3rd is a bit different for sure. But I like it, I know it's not genuine Elgar, but who cares? It's beautiful anyway. Then there's the Tchaikovsky 7th which is highly enjoyable. And I'm sure glad no one stops Turandot at the point that Puccini stopped -- what a loss that would be. That goes for Lulu, too.

But I must draw the line somewhere, and I draw it on Barry Cooper's highly speculative Beethoven 10th and Brian Newbold's Schubert 8th (which I don't care for anyway).

[Hofrat]

Listening to completions is facultative; for me, I'm *always* interested in how pieces might have sounded. Music is a creative enterprise, and a completion (or 'elaboration') just shows one musical contingency. So bring on the Bruckner 9ths, Mahler 10ths, Schubert 8ths, Elgar 3rds and PIano Concertos - the Rufinatscha 4ths. Please?

I agree with the above 100%!!

[Alan Howe]

Yes, I buy all the completions too...

[chill319]

Another completion that custom has favored: Mozart's Requiem. While it seems unlikely that any reconstruction of the Bruckner 9 finale will ever be 100% Bruckner, the thorough van der Wal article cited by Alan Howe above shows that Cohrs's (et alia's) current version surely has more of Bruckner than the Requiem has of Mozart -- more perhaps than the Mahler 10 has of Mahler (incidentally, also recorded by James Levine). Is the achievement perfect? No. Impressive? Way beyond impressive.

mbhaub, since you've heard other versions, do you happen to have any sense of whether the new Carragan completion finds its own way to the effective finish you describe or whether it also incorporates philological clarifications seen in Phillips or other recent editions?

[Hovite]

And I'm sure glad no one stops Turandot at the point that Puccini stopped -- what a loss that would be.

In addition to the dozen or so symphonies, Bruckner also wrote many choral works, including several masses, of which No. 2 (Bläser-Messe) and No. 3 (Große Messe) are well known.

A few years ago I was browsing through a box of bargain discs when I came across a unfamiliar Bruckner mass. Not having any text books to hand, I assumed that it must be the early Mass No. 0, or Windhaager Messe (for alto, two horns, and organ). But when I got it home it proved to be a different work. There were no notes with the disc, but the track listing referred to the work as Choral-Messe (1844). Turning to The New Grove, I found that there was indeed Choralmesse dating from 1844, so that seemed to clearly identify the item. But later I realized that there were problems. The disc stated that the work was for "mixed choir and organ", whereas The New Grove gave the forces as "4vv". Furthermore, The New Grove remarked "no Ky, Gl" whereas the first two tracks were unambiguously 1. Kyrie and 2. Gloria. It turns out that what I have is a 1941 performing edition, or completion, by Joseph Messner: "Kyrie und Gloria wurden aus anderen Elementen der Messe hinzukomponiert, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus und Agnus Dei entsprechen zwar der Choralmesse, wurden aber bearbeitet (im Original fehlende Textstellen wurden ergänzt) und mit einer Orgelbegleitung ad libitum versehen".

Of course, this is more or less the same situation as for Mozart's famous Requiem, which was put together by Süssmayr. Mozart's wife's cousin Weber also left an incomplete work, his opera Die drei Pintos, which was completed by Mahler in 1887.

Devotees of incomplete works should also watch out for Schickele's Unbegun Symphony.