(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
The music of the Austrian Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) has not been as well known and frequently performed as that of his contemporaries. It is possibly too technically advanced and for the general public, and too intense and magnificent for the modernist taste. It is unpredictable – from the most beautiful melody, the music turns to extreme discharges. Bruckner was very religious, the symphonies are an expression of his devotion. His music has been described as mountainous; and often his symphonies are like tonal ascents.
Over the past year we have experienced a Bruckner wave in the record market. Almost simultaneously, three recordings of the symphonies have now arrived with three of the world's greatest conductors.
Worthy career end
The Fifth Symphony exemplifies Bruckner's alternation between the good and the violent. It is sublime in the Kantian sense – it strives for the absolute great. Incidentally, it was so radical for say time that it had to wait eighteen years to be performed.
Italian conductor and composer Giuseppe Sinopoli died earlier this year 54 years old. The recording of Bruckner's Fifth Symphony together with Staatskapelle Dresden at DG was thus one of the last he did. And there is no bad ending to a career. The interpretation is balanced, intellectual and listening. Sinopoli is keen to bring out all the voices in Bruckner's complex audio network. The only thing that draws down is that some of the heavy blowers seem to be chronically lagging, which removes some of the power from the music.
Striking underline
Bruckner's compatriot Nicolaus Harnoncourt is known for his work on historically correct early music performance practices. In the last decade, however, he has spent most of his time on seo-classical and romantic music. He has now interpreted Bruckner's Eighth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra at Teldec.
The eighth was the last symphony Bruckner completed. It is music that embraces broadly and that requires its practitioners. Like most of Bruckner's works, this symphony was also subject to revision, but in this case to such an extent that, according to Harnoncourt, one can almost speak of two works. Harnoncourt has chosen the revised version, the so-called Nowak edition, for this recording.
An important aspect of the music is, for Harnoncourt, obviously the conceptual content, and he shapes the music to bring this out. This can sometimes lead to a tendency to emphasize the points to such an extent that they become striking. Unfortunately, this is to some extent the case with this recording. It is also a bit heavy. There is a lot of good play here, and he is best in the quiet parties, but I think Harnoncourt lacks the will to settle properly, let the climaxes be as appalling as they are from the composer's hand.
Effortless discretion
The Ninth Symphony is the most mature and the most harmoniously challenging. Bruckner did not finish it until he died. As in the Fifth Symphony, the finale – which is incomplete – here is a synthesis of classicist sonata form and baroque fugue.
The Italian conductor Claudio Abbado has together with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra recorded the Ninth Symphony at DG. The interpretation flows wonderfully effortlessly, but it is still precise and dynamic. There is a very beautiful sound in the orchestra – perhaps for beautiful, some will probably think so. Because if there is anything to object to this recording, it must be that the orchestral sound is more uniform than in the other recordings and that the individual instruments could have been a little better advanced.
