[8/7/2011] Sunday Classics: Bruckner begins to establish his voice, hushed and clear (continued)

LIke Günter Wand, Riccardo Chailly performs the more expansive Haas edition of the Bruckner Second Symphony, and -- as we hear in his middle movements -- performs it very expansively.

SORRY, BUT WE HAVE TO WADE INTO THE SWAMP
OF BRUCKNER EDITIONS (FEEL FREE TO SKIP)

Believe me, the last thing I want to do is to drag you into the eternal morass of multiple editions of the Bruckner symphonies, especially since, real and substantial as many of the differences are, in the end I don't think they change the symphonies all that much. But for the Second, I'm afraid the Clash of the Versions isn't escapable.

SHORT VERSION: The Haas edition contains more music than the Nowak, which also follows certain other revisions Bruckner made.

LESS SHORT VERSION, still oversimplifying wildly: In the mid-1870s, having composed his first five numbered symphonies, Bruckner undertook some serious overhauling, including a certain amount of cutting -- in some cases a whopping amount of cutting, as with the gigantic chunk lopped out of the finale of the originally ginormous Finale of the Second Symphony. It remains hotly contested how much he himself believed in these cuts.

For his 1938 critical edition, Robert Haas used basically Bruckner's revised version (sometimes referred to as "1875-76," more often as "1877") but restored some material from the original 1872 version and unincorporated some of Bruckner's revisions. When Leopold Nowak prepared a new edition in 1965, he unrestored some of the Haas restorations to produce a sort of "1877-ish" version. In fact, both editions are kind of mishmoshes, though Haas's might be described as being vaguely "1872-ish." Eventually William Carragan (who had actually been an assistant to Nowak when he prepared his edition) and Rüdiger Bornhöft were charged by the Bruckner Society with producing the cleanest possible editions of both the bigger 1872 and streamlined 1877 versions, ostensibly rendering both the Haas and the Nowak editions obsolete, or obsolete-ish. (The Barenboim-Teldec recording from which we're going to hear the first movement was the first to use the then-new Carragan-Bonhöfft "1877 version.") Just for laughs, in his 1872 version, Carragan reverses the order of the middle movements. (Shades of the Mahler Sixth.)

Sorry about that. We had to do it, I'm afraid.

Now we're going to hear the whole of the gorgeous Wand recording of the movement -- an Adagio chez Haas, an Andante chez Nowak. And then I've added the rather different, more personally radiating recording by Carlo Maria Giulini, and the characteristically confident as well as soulful Jochum recording (the DG one, from 1966), and for good measure the most expansive performance I've heard of the more expansive Haas version, Riccardo Chailly's.

BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 2 in C minor:
ii. Adagio [Haas], Andante [Nowak]. Feierlich, etwas bewegt (Solemn, somewhat lively)

[ed. Haas] Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, Günter Wand, cond. Sony BMG, recorded 1981
> Excerpt 1 at 1:14-2:35, Excerpt 2 at 7:13-10:37
[ed. Nowak] Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond. EMI/Testament, recorded Dec. 8-10, 1974
[ed. Nowak] Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Eugen Jochum, cond. DG, recorded December 1966
[ed. Haas] Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly, cond. Decca, recorded October 1991

Our Excerpt 3 is the Trio of the Scherzo. This seems to me a less successful movement than the Adagio/Moderato. You might think that the lumbering, almost tubby quality is a fault of Wand's performance, but I figure if Georg Solti and the guns-blazing Chicago Symphony couldn't detubbify it, then the quality is built in. However, the central Trio is pretty magical. I've thrown in the Giulini and Chailly versions for pretty much the same reasons as in the slow movement. (We'll hear more of the 1966 Jochum in a moment.)

iii. Scherzo: Schnell (Fast) [Haas], Mässig schnell (Substantially fast) [Nowak]

[ed. Haas] Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, Günter Wand, cond. Sony BMG, recorded 1981
> Excerpt 3 at 2:34-3:45
[ed. Nowak] Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded Oct. 12 and 14, 1991
[ed. Nowak] Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond. EMI/Testament, recorded Dec. 8-10, 1974
[ed. Haas] Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly, cond. Decca, recorded October 1991


OK, IF YOU MUST HEAR THE REST OF THE THING . . .

My strong impulse is to leave the Bruckner Second with just the Adagio/Moderato and Scherzo covered, but I'm sympathetic to the wish to hear what surrounds them. These movements sound to me like Bruckner announcing the sort of symphonic first movement and finale he would like to write, but while there are sections where occasional really creative, or maybe just lucky, performers have managed to hold my attention, on the whole these movements seem to me not even near-misses.

We hear the first movement from Daniel Barenboim's Berlin Philharmonic Bruckner cycle, which as with just about each of the symphonies, seems to me competitive with the absolute best recordings. The Finale is from the Jochum-DG from which we already heard the slow movement; Jochum's finale seems to me to have the same qualities of confidence and sincerity.

BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 2 in C minor

i. Moderato

[ed. Nowak/Bornhöft-Carragan] Berlin Philharmonic, Daniel Barenboim, cond. Teldec, recorded December 1997

iv. Finale: Mehr schnell (Faster [i.e., than the Scherzo])

[ed. Nowak] Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Eugen Jochum, cond. DG, recorded December 1966


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