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Not an expert but I really enjoyed this performance of the Bruckner 9th. Very well recorded. Highly recommended
Alan
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However, I wish more conductors would start to use one of the four-movement completions - the one on the Rattle/BPO recording (the latest Samale/Phillips/Cohrs/Mazzuca) is probably the best I've heard at this point. And I say this even though, for the most part, I'm not too much of a fan of Sir Simon's conducting.
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I found the problem with music loading/slow to play was internet related.
When my internet is working fine, ClassicsOnlineHD loads quickly and plays right away. When internet is slow due to too many of my neighbors watching porn? ClassicsOnlineHD takes a long time to play. :-(
But the composer did not finish the 4th all the way so curious to hear how Rattle finishes the score.
IIRC, Harnoncourt version sounded like falling off the cliff altho his lecture is fascinating.
. . . rather than an actual completion. And indeed, the fragments are big, big chunks - fully orchestrated and marked. The trouble is that we don't have the very end of the movement. One Bruckner biography I read asserted that it would be the height of arrogance to try to finish Bruckner's greatest finale for him! -But I don't care. I've also read that a completion of Bruckner's Ninth (last movement) involves far less guessing and editorializing than similar completions of Mahler's Tenth. There's SO much more left to go on with the Bruckner. The Stereophile article from a couple of years ago also mentioned that, even in the last few years, a couple more pages of Bruckner's manuscript have been rediscovered and have been incorporated into the latest attempts at completing that last movement.
As I've poked around and read, there are 2 big problems. The first is that the material wasn't subjected to any polishing. As anyone who's even written a paper for grade school know, your first draft is unlikely to be your best. I'm not talking about Bruckner's post-completion revisions. That's a completely seperate discussion. But, just the regular polishing and perfecting that any creative work goes through. Bruckner was really sick in his last years, and then dying, so there just wasn't anytime. He was just trying to get notes down on paper before the end.
The second problem is more subtle. I've just seen some hints that the finale wasn't coming to him, as if his powers of invention and inspiration had left him. It would be really useful to get more solid information on this point.
I personally have a hard time listening to the finale, in any state [complete or just fragments], because the music just sounds do ghostly. What I mean is that it's as if you're hearing the ghost of the composer creating the music, rather than the living artist himself in his full powers of artistic inspiration. The first time I heard that finale, my first impression was that it was incompentence. As I listened, it sounded like some frozen, featureless landscape that had previously been a verdant, tropical jungle of Brucknerland.
I really think there's a better and best solution. Bruckner himself considered using the Te Deum as the finale. I've read somewhere that it's a problem using the C major Te Deum as a finale for D minor symphony, but really, who cares? Only people with perfect pitch might even possibly notice, and even then probably never. But, we can try it out for ourselves at home. Just play the Te Deum as the last movement. It works! It makes a wonderful finale.
You know this season, Muti/CSO will perform the Bruckner's 9th AND Te Deum together.
I am looking forward to see how those two scores hang together.
Have to check the CSO schedule. Definitely have to attend that one, if it's coming.
when Harnoncourt recording was made back in 2000, he mentions there are 50+ bars missing and he makes a plea to step forward for those who might have them in their attic so that the score can be completed. Also IIRC, even tho the structure of the tunes were completed by Bruckner none of the orchestration was not yet done. I dunno but putting the flesh on the scores up to someone else seems to be not authentic. What makes this Harnoncourt's recording interesting is that they play exactly the way Bruckner wrote so orchestration is sparse and they start and stop when they encounter missing pages.
I can't remember why Coda was not included on this recording tho. So yes it sounded incomplete in that I recall it was a huge let down because there was already much of momentum to the great finale and it just drops off.
I am curious what Rattle + Co. did for sure.
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