Anton Bruckner Symphony No.9 II mov. part one (Bernstein)

[Farhadgm]

I think it is too slow....this is a scherzo and needed to be fast( but not like furtwangler)

[taviona]

I think I just grew chest hair by listening to this. Fucking awesome.

[HSammyE]

The face around 4:15 is priceless.

[BambosNeophytou]

Yes, this is far too slow. Embrassaingly so. It sounds like a parody - like an overweight elephant that can't keep up.

From Hausseger to Abbado, there are plenty of conductois who use an appropriate scherzo tempo.

[Zeodary]

wow... turns out this dude is my great great grandfather.. awesome huh?? :D

[EWilsonLife]

Hitler loved this music.

[parquar]

@EWilsonLife so it was good so I don't see why he would have not liked it since Bruckner fits his nationalistic and racial ideals well enough

[mroboe921]

@parquar That's completely wrong. You all confuse Bruckner with Wagner. Bruckner loved Wagner but he was no anti-Semite at all.

[parquar]

@mroboe921 I'm just saying that Bruckner was not anything that would have made Hitler automatically dislike him. Bruckner was catholic and germanic enough to pass by, and wrote great music anybody should like. The point was not that he shared similar political opinions to hitler at all, but that there is no reason for Hitler to not have liked his music

[mingweicello]

only few conductors bring out the timpini solo at. 0.58, and every time it appears again. bravo!

[felixlucena]

Close Combat 3 Soundtrack :)

[cesagi63]

la mejor sinfonia de bruckner!!!

[MrConductor1984]

Bruckners original bowing shows that it can't be too fast! It's not possible to play it in a faster tempo regarding the difference between the "tenuto"-notes and the short staccato ones in the main theme.

[Osmanowitsch]

Bellissimo! Dinamico! Could be a little faster, aber welch ein Unterschied zum Klangbrei von Karajan!

[CALVINBYKELVIN]

Yep, Leonard Bernstein is taking a page out of Sergiu Celibidache's book by playing the Scherzo so slowly! About evryone else will conduct it faster than those two. Unfortunately, these slower readings causes the Scherzo to lose alot of it urgent, mocking, sinister and macabe appeal.

[mfealy]

the slow tempo is painful..karajans 75 DG recording is the benchmark!

[pega17pl]

@mfealy watching first videos with detailed sound recording of single instruments at him (Karajan) conducting his Berliner Philharmoniker he estimated a lot of sound is unclear played sometimes caused by being too fast. Because he wanted to be perfect Karajan had no problems to slow down tempi until sound was perfect to him. Unfortunately he wasn't able to repeat recording all masterpieces...

[platero55]

I am surprised by the slow tempo! I would have thought that the usually mercurial Bernstein would give us a blazingly fast scherzo. I like the dynamic contrasts and the attention to balances, but I fear that Bernstein, genius that he was, was not tempermentally suited for Bruckner.

[MahlerTitan]

on the contrary, I always believe that only the Trio should be quite fast. Afterall, Bruckner never said anything about the opening of the Scherzo. Only the Trio is "Schnell", the rest is up to the conductors to decide. I do feel, however, if you play the opening of Scherzo moderately fast, the contrast with the Trio will be much greater. As opposed of playing everything crazily fast (Abendroth).

[platero55]

I respectfully disagree. The tempo chosen by most conductors isn't crazy fast, and the contrast is in the respective rhythms of the Scherzo and Trio, not in the tempos. The Scherzo is a stamping peasant dance (with sinister overtones, as another poster noted). The Trio is leggerio (sp?), like something out of Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream". It's not the sort of thing usually heard in a Bruckner symphony. That in itself creates the contrast. :-)

[Camanesco]

I think Bernstein conducted this in a gypsy-like style. I have this DVD; saw it only 2 or 3 times to form an opinion... and then forget about it.

[darkprose]

I observed that Bernstein seemed to slow down the tempo of several scherzos as he got older -- I am thinking of the allegro molto vivace of Tchaikovsky, especially, in one later recording seems to lumber compared to more agile versions (although its lumbering is no less powerful). Same for his later Mahler, as well. Am I wrong?