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A long time ago, I'd listened to the Bruckner 2nd. I'd heard it in the Karajan recording, which was highly praised by Gramophone. I listened; it ended; and so did my interest in it. All those people praising the music & the performance must be really smart, I thought to myself. To me, the piece sounded amateurish, for which I had little patience. Over time, I stumbled on several performances along the way, including the Guilini/EMI at one point, and a concert performance of Muti's which I'd attended. Neither changed my mind.
The recent spate of Bruckner posts here, along with the super-positive experience I had hearing the Bruckner 6th in concert last month, have stoked my interest in hearing more Bruckner; and, I'd just happened to come across 2 cd's of the Bruckner 2nd: the Karajan, and the Solti/CSO. The end result is shocking for me, to say the least; especially since I didn't see it coming. At all.
The piece's actually bursting with melody [or symphonic, thematic material]. You might say it's a young man's symphony [in the most positive sense], overflowing with ideas. In this respect, it comes closest to a Dvorak symphony, with its fluid rush of melody. The music's rich enough in so many ways that I actually prefer it to the later 3rd.
And, right there - right there - is where I've just made a massive contradiction to every conclusion most listeners, writers, critics, and even academics have ever reached about Bruckner. No one, AFAIK, would ever put the words "fluid", "bursting with melody", or the name Dvorak together with Bruckner, unless it's to insult the latter. Certainly not for this piece, the Pausen Symphony. Symphony of pauses[!]. And believe me, it's pausen. Oh, boy. Stop/start, go/stop, pause, dawdle, dribble, drift...
That's how the thing's always sounded to me. A waste of my time. "Lost in fog", as so many Bruckner detractors often say. And, that's exactly how Karajan makes it sound. Imagine my surprise when the Solti/CSO recording created the opposite impression.
Karajan goes really slowly. Even though the edition he uses is much shorter than Solti's [cause so many parts are cut out], clock time is actually longer than the latter's, and seems as if it'll never end. Boy, is it boring. In Karajan's hands, the crucial 2nd mvmt starts somewhere...and goes nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. The whole symphony sounds pointless. But, not with Solti. I listened with every neuron of my pre-frontal cortex at full-salute attention as the music unfolded with vitality and animation. It had purpose. Purpose! The care with which Solti and the CSO played every single passage, the way they imbued all of it with meaning, the way Solti voiced and chorded all of the music truly revealed it to me for the first time. Rather than some early, amateur twaddle, here was a real symphony - a wonderful symphony. Astonishing.
I'm not advocating some Norrrington/HIP/Backwoods-Meth-Lab jackrabbit sprint. But, there's a big difference between some glacial, phony "profundity", slow poke tempo, and the right tempo. As I get older and re-listen to music I've known all of my life, I find that, in symphonic music especially, there's a tempo for each piece which allows it and all of it's component parts to snap into focus. No wonder Wagner spent so much time writing about tempo and stressing the 'right' tempo, over and over.
Frequently, we hear a musician do something astonishing in a passage, or a few passages at best. But, it's exceedingly rare to find a performance in which that kind of concentration persists through out the entire piece, and continues to turn up new insights from beginning to the end. Solti does that. There are many passages that are absolutely magical; where he does something no one else has [AFAIK], that really make the piece come alive, and without which I wouldn't even want to hear the symphony. For example, as the first mvmt 3rd subject group begins it's crescendo, Solti chords it with prominence to the horns playing in thirds to the rest of the brass, which gives the section a special, really amazing color, and one that we rarely hear in music. Karajan, and the other guys I've heard, completely miss that, with the result that the music's just ordinary, rather than extraordinary.
Bruckner and color. Color? Bruckner a colorist??? There's another idea you'd never, ever put together with Bruckner. Hah. Colorist? What a laugh. But, that's exactly the impression you get. The 2nd mvmt's full of delicate effects, such as when Bruckner shades his strings with oboe hues, pulls them back, then uses flutes. And so on and on. Solti gives you every brush stroke with just astonishing sensitivity and awareness of detail. But, he never once gets lost in the detail; he allows the music to flow - there it is again - flow forward, developing towards its conclusion.
The playing of the CSO is something unbelievable. Almost superhuman. It's worth hearing the cd just to hear the orchestra alone, even if you don't like the music. It's just incredible.
Follow Ups:
Bruckner was always great with colors. The fact that he did so from an organ background, painting with broad strokes, doesn't detract from this (although the technique is not going to be pointillist). Of course if you only listen to those egregious highlight reels from Sir Georg and the Chicago Brass Band, you'd never notice this (or anything else about the music, save the loud bits).
Oh and Search the Archives
......are some of most exciting pieces about.....if you go for some of the best interpreters ......Knappertsbusch, Klemperer, Jochum, Furtwangler, Schuricht, Walter, and the excellent HVK's late 70s cycle.
Tom B.
Another great 2nd is Georg-Ludwig Jochum, brother to the lesser Eugen.
. . . and then Liszt lost it? ;-)
I have to say, I don't know the Solti recording, and your post has made me curious to hear it. I've got Giulini and Skrowaczewski, and used to have Wand/Cologne. I checked to see if the Solti was on Spotify, but it doesn't seem to be. They've got a number of Jochum recordings, Masur, the recent Simone Young recording, and (Mr. Poles Apart, are you sitting down?) the Volkmar Andrae recording, among others. I'm watching the Olympics this week and probably next, so I don't anticipate listening to any of these too soon.
Mike - I just love the enthusiasm of your posts! It's infectious!
That said, I want to be buried with the score of the 3rd mov't of the 8th, the most perfect slow mov't ever penned, next to Brahms' 3rd, 2nd mov't.Not every last utterance of a genius is worth listening to. : )
Edits: 08/01/12
but I happen to groove on nearly every single Bruckner recording they did. Certainly for the brass, but also for, as you say, the energy and insight that Solti brought to the music.
So I'm with ya all the way on this one.
-
"You weren't afraid of being born--why would you be afraid of dying?" Alan Watts
Thanks for the post, I will dig up my recordings and re-listen. Been away from Bruckner for about a year. I think I have the Barenboim CSO somewhere. Have to say I don't remeber much about the second.
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