Rattle records Bruckner 9 completion...

[ahinton]

I also have a problem with the sheer length of the finale (although this may be down to Bruckner himself not quite getting to grips with the unusual length of the emotional and spiritual journey on which he had launched himself)

At first I thought you meant that you found the Finale too long! That said, I don't think it's too long; in fact, it is about the same length as Mvts 1 and 3! And about as long as the Finales to Symphonies 5 and 8, and the 9th's Finale is a kind of combination of those forms. (NB: Kurt Eichhorn takes just over 30 minutes for the 1992 version of the SPCM. While he does take that time because of a slower tempo (in certain sections)  rather than a longer Finale, the effect is quite noticeably darker and more torturous. It does have something...) I don't know if you know this Eichhorn recording?

No, I fear that I don't!

The Carragan completion, by the way, who uses a slightly different approach to SPCM, also comes to about the same length. Both lengths are based on the amount of bars Bruckner left behind and some clever guessing about how much are missing. It is quite possible that Bruckner, had he lived to complete the Finale, might have come to a greater number of bars while working out the 'emerging score' This had happened to the original Bifolio 2, which was, when working out the orchestration, lengthened to the extend that he had to replace the original bifolio with two new ones, containing 34 bars (a single bifolio would have contained normally 16 or so measures). So yes, perhaps the final Finale might have been longer than it stands now. But I think it would not have been much longer, for I believe that the general shape of the Finale had been clear to Bruckner, leading to perhaps here some bars more, there a few less. To me, it doesn't feel too short or rushed.

Well, that's perhaps the one issue on which we differ somewhat. The tghought that Bruckner didn;t quite get his proportiona dn duratons right seems as absurd to me as it must to do you and most other people familiar with Bruckner's symphonic work-processes - but this is uncharted territory even for the composer...

What does feel rushed is the Finale completion by Nors Josephson (which is about the size of SPCM's and Carragans, for obvious reasons), at least the way it is played by the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland Pfalz conducted by Ari Rasilainen. Playing it in just over 13 minutes is beyond unceremoniously rushed...

I don;t know that one either and it sonds as though I'm better off in my ignorance!

For a longer version of the Finale, well, there is Jan-Peter Marthé's. Not that it has much to do with Bruckner, the 9th, or even its Finale...

Harrumph!...

Anyone interested in another version of that Coda, I'd happily recommend having a look at this link: http://www.abruckner.com/downloads/special_downloads/joanschukkingscoda/. It is a MIDI presentation of a scored attempt at creating a Coda that is based on main motives/themes of the symphony, and I think it comes closer to the intentions of Bruckner here than do SPCM. This Coda was created by a fellow countryman of mine, and he generously supplied me with the score and the MIDI thereof. I also know SPCM's reaction to it...

I'm inclind to agre, even though it's still not quite there, for me. SPCM's view on it may indeed be imagined; sad, really, for this isn't a competition and Bruckner above all others would surely have been horrified at the prospect of people competing for his vision of and to God!...

rarely in anything else of Bruckner does he descend so far into the depths and, following the ultimately serene close of the magnificent Adagio, this descent comes in any case as something of a shock

One of the (main) reasons for people to dismiss the Finale, I think! Once you've reached the lovely warm glow of the last bars of the Adagio, it's quite unpretty to be presented with all kinds of troubled things that are hard to swallow and even more hard to digest.. After all, we come to be entertained by what we know, not to be hit by what we don't know...
NB; I have become to find the close of the Adagio not exactly serene. Yearning, aspiring, hoping, yes. We see the light, we want the light, but we can't reach it yet. Why not, ah, here comes the Finale....!

That's it! You've go it perectly! It seems serene but we know it's not the end of anything, so there must always be that question mark between the end of the Adagio and the opsening plunge of the Finale; the close of the Adagio seems serene in and of itself, but the whole point ios tht it ISN'T "in and of itself", since it's the third of four movements of a symphony!

the subjectivity aspect

...is quite important and unavoidable (and doesn't need to be avoided!). Subjective is how we respond to what we hear, objective is how we think about what is done how and why and if such is the right way. As for the SPCM version, objectively I very much agree with their method and how it sounds in result, barring the final bars for reasons I have stated. Subjectively the Finale to me sounds splendid, and the Coda makes impressive sounds indeed (but my objectives do cut in here). But purely subjectively, everyone's (sincere) opinion is alike, I think.
For ex, the Sebastien Létocard completion (basically taking the SPCM as a starting point – not to the joy of SPCM – but working to a much more extended and quite darker and convulsed Coda) is to me, objectively, going awry on that too long, too dark and too convulted Coda. However, subjectively – I'm a sucker to dark and convulted music – I can't help but be moved by it.

Létocart's take hjas much going for it but it is perhaps this more than the others that makes me worry about the proportions and duration; there HAS to be quite abit of this kind of darkness, in view of the way in which Bruckner inaugurates the movement - but it has to keep rising and rising from it until we're on the way to that glorious peroration and this is why it needs enough time to achieve that inevitable and glorious goal.

But I do hope the SPCM's hard work, often against the grain, will pay off in the end in establishing the 9th as the 4-movement work is has been all along. If the new Rattle recording does rattle a few old and fairly dusty, mouldy and quite far beyond the 'best-before' date  prejudicials out of the way, all the better!

Agreed - and I'm confident that it will do just that, given time!

PS: If I may be allowed some commercial talk: I did write down some (dark and convulted and going on for too long) notes about the 9th and it's Finale. In need for revision.
http://www.abruckner.com/articles/articlesEnglish/vandermeijden/
For those inclined to  sadomachism by reading...

Members - ignore the last comment - just go find and go read!...

[Alan Howe]

THANK YOU to Alan and others making us aware of this recording. It is totally moving and stunning. Gerhard

You are most welcome.

[Alan Howe]

Here's MusicWeb's very positive review of the CD:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2012/May12/Bruckner9_Rattle_9529692.htm

[Nils Neuenfeldt]

For along time I thought that a symphony dedicated to God the Almighty should end when He has decided it should. But after having listened to the completed symphony performed by Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Symphonic Orchestra I was shaken. Whilst the symphony, ending with the adagio, ends in agony it now ends in triumph. This is Bruckner's real elevation to heaven; the victory of a pious mind over death. Really upsetting - I was shivering after the symphony had ended.