Bruckner - Symphony no.9: Finale (Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca, reconstruction 2008) (part 3 of 3)

I thought people might be interested in this. If you are, go and purchase the CD. This YouTube version has been deliberately encoded at low resolution.

Bruckner left substantial sketches for the Finale of his 9th symphony, with the entire movement mapped out. Some fully orchestrated, some in sketch. Sadly a number of the pages of this sketch were distributed as souvenirs on his death, and still not all have been recovered. The extant sketches have been the subject of work for the last 20 years by a few different sholars in an attempt to provide some kind of satisfying performing edition. This track is the latest of such attempts, which has been developing by these scholars since 1983. The 2008 revision includes the latest finds of missing pages of the sketches by Bruckner.

I find this attempt at a performing version of the sketches to be very exciting, and in no way takes away from the quality of the sublime slow movement immediately before it. However, in parts 2 and 3 I personally find some of the writing still a little confused, particularly in the articulation of the fugal section.

This third part of the movement contains the fewest of Bruckners extant pages of sketch, the coda still not being known in sketch. The final few pages have been discovered though, but the last few bars are missing and have been supplied by the shcolars. There is a good deal of hearsay testimony that Bruckner intended that (and had worked out the way in which) the coda was to combine several themes from earlier in this symphony as well as from other previous works of his.

This is the Musikalisches Akademie des Nationaltheater-Orchesters Mannheim conducted by Friedheim Layer in 2008.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• bruckner
• symphony
• finale
• Samale
• Phillips
• Cohrs
• Mazzuca
• layer

[CannonfireVideo]

Contrary to d60944, I love this finale. I count what we have (and we have most of it) among Bruckner's finest creations. If we had all grown up with a three-movement 8th, how would we react to a newly-discovered fourth movement?

As for Bruckner's endless revising: Sometimes he got it right the first time. Think of symphony #3, mov. 1, 1873 version. Later versions cut out the best stuff! One of the excised themes from the 3rd is used in this finale -- what I call the "Gabriel's Trumpet" theme.

[d60944]

@CannonfireVideo Oh it's not me who doesn't love this! I think it's great :-)

[CannonfireVideo]

@d60944 Sorry! I responded to the wrong party.

I just heard this performance. It's good, but the Eichhorn is FAR better. Performance counts for much here. The original Talmi recording of Carragan's completion is much more persuasive than is Carragan's revised version, rendered by Soudant.

A German calling himself 9Bruckner has provided a good YouTube upload of the ultra-rare Eichhorn disc

[d60944]

@CannonfireVideo Yes, this performance could be better (if you hear the other movements in the same recording, likewise none are as captivating as the best performances). However, I think this remains for the moment the best actual *music* in all the completions of the Finale, performance quality aside. Eichorn used the Samale et al version from 1992 unfortunately, thrilling though his brass sound is (don't you think he's a bit slow-paced too though???)

[d60944]

@CannonfireVideo PS I kind of wish that Letocart would get together with Samale et al and add his ideas into the mix before it gets too set in stone.

[HuninMunin]

@iduefoscari

(con.) Also want to point out that this here is not Carragan's attempt at (re)composing a finale but the most up to date recording of the much more faithfull Samale/Mazzuca/Phillips/Cohrs completion, working from the entirety of the avaiable sketches ( work in progress, it was amended just this year ).

This 2011 - supposedly final - version with an entirely new coda had it's world premier on October 15th and will be given at Carnegie Hall on February 24th by the BPO under Rattle.

[HuninMunin]

@iduefoscari

Stephen Johnson can get right in line with the people who think that the Prestissimo closing bars of the 9th Beethoven are the result of his deafness.

Joking aside, I'm guessing into the dark here but maybe give the Te Deum another reading.

This right here might then make a great deal of sense ( as will Bruckner's wish to play the Te Deum in substitution).

I also strongly agree with the kind uploader, the performence here is good but not quite first rate.

[lewars1912]

@ImperXVIII You think the last movement of Bruckner's 4th Symphony doesn't have a grand enough coda?

[ImperXVIII]

The reconstructed Finale doesn't match the highest quality as it's manifested in the previous movements, although it's great music and the scholarly work put in it is of course admirable.

It's just the 'Bruckner finales problem': he starts on such high an altitude that anything in the finales seems less convincing. Maybe if the 4th had a grander and more extended coda... Even in the 5th he 'obviously tries too much', but there's an extraordinarily ecstatic coda.

Anyway, who are we to judge him?

[lewars1912]

04:03 Lovely.

[jonathanaconway]

@HuninMunin Yes, I'm attending that very concert. Can't wait to hear the brand new code! And conducted by Rattle!

[iduefoscari]

@CannonfireVideo I am going to Berlin in February to hear the latest completion of the 9th with the Berln Philharmonic conducted by Simon Rattle.The new final coda I believe will make this into the classical music event of this century if not the last 50 years. The final " Hallelujah" that Bruckner's doctor reported to be the clinching movement of the work is when trumpets in unison play in D Major the theme that begins the adagio.I suspect this to be the musical event of my life

[CannonfireVideo]

@d60944 I'm a Celi fan. Ain't no such thing as too slow in Bruckner. As I understand it, Eichhorn made some additions of his own, rendering his version unique (which may explain why the disc has not been reissued). I still prefer it. The difference between SPCM '92 and SPCM '11 is not THAT great.

In both versions, I think they chose the wrong Hallelujah theme. In my "Bruckner in Hollywood" video, I offer another suggestion.

OK, I have to admit it: The Eichhorn 5th really IS too slow.