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In Reply to: RE: The Bruckner Sixth --- In Concert posted by Mike Porper on June 27, 2012 at 15:01:29
A lot of it is just speculation on your part, and that kind of behavior could just as easily come from the non-gay world too.
But on to the main part of your post, those are really great observations. I've always thought that the Sixth would be an ideal introduction to Bruckner for the non-specialist listener. It's a very concise work for Bruckner (or so it seems to me), and I love the opening theme, with its suggestion of the A-Phrygian mode! (Bruckner almost never uses modal scales in his symphonies.) It gives the theme an air of exoticism that is almost unique to this movement among his output.
I first heard the work in a recording by Heinz Bongartz and the LGO on one of those cheapo Philips LP's in the late 60's / early 70's - it was originally recorded in 1964. I have the CD re-issue of this performance on the Berlin Classics label, and I feel that this recording still holds its own, in terms of both performance and engineering. However, if I were recommending a single recording of this work now, it would have to be the Blomstedt/LGO SACD on the Querstand label. Unfortunately, Querstand is not a well known label, so I don't think this recording is getting the recognition it deserves: the in-concert performance and engineering are both magnificent - and I really feel you need close to state of the art engineering for these big, densely-textured late-nineteenth-century symphonies. So for me, this is really the one to get:
Follow Ups:
Which this assemblage surely is, so let's all behave correctly .
P.A.
. . . whether it's applicable or not.
I'm kicking myself for not picking that up when I was in Leipzig last year. I was in a Mahler purchasing spree though...
Second the comment about great post...although I too can't agree with bullet 7....
I decided early this year to knuckle down and get to know Bruckner's 5th & 6th. The 5th I have known a long time - my first exposure to it was the Haitink recording distributed by the International Preview Society long ago - alas, I no longer have it. But I never really got to know it, not in the way I like to know works. The 6th was mostly unplowed territory for me. Earlier this year I bought the Blomstedt 6th that Chris mentions, and it is a terrific performance (although, yes, I don't really know the 6th, so how would I know....).
I also attended a performance by the SFSO with Blomstedt conducting the 5th....magnificent (especially given his age....and he conducted from memory!) - but I find the 6th to be the finer work. Lots of note spinning in the 5th, IMHO - music written by and for a music theory professor. :-). I think he might have performed the 6th a season ago - I am sorry I missed it. There are times when I believe Blomstedt to be a superior conductor to his successor in SF, MTT.
Anyway, I highly recommend Blomstedt's recording of the 6th, as Chris does - my only caveat is that is was recorded live, and there is a trace of audience noise, and worse, applause at the end, something that I am allergic to...but still a recommendable recording. I have heard that the 8th from these same sources is absolutely magnificent.
I have the whole Blomstedt/LGO Bruckner series so far, except for the most recent release (No. 4) released a couple of months ago. It started with the Ninth on Decca, and has worked backwards on the Querstand label all the way to No. 3. I'll vouch for every one of those performances - just tremendous. And it's even better for me than for you, since I'm not bothered by the audience noise or the applause at the end! ;-)
BTW, I'm pretty sure of this: I think the very first concert that Edo de Waart conducted after he'd been named music director of the SFSO included the Bruckner 6th.
Mike,
I know some of us gay men can be insufferably shallow and ready to snipe bitchily at what is disliked. With that, I'll say that I love Bruckner's works. I got reacquainted with some records I've had kicking around for the last thirty years or more when I recently digitized Herbert von Karajan's Bruckner cycle. There's some breathtakingly stunning playing going on, along with dynamic range that is huge (sometimes I think there's audible compression going on in the loudest passages). I have Jochum's DGG cycle as well (on CD); there are some marvelous performances there, too. I have Haitink's 1960s-1970s cycle as well, and try as I might, I keep thinking it sounds efficient and no-nonsense, and I just don't really connect with it.
I think the Sixth is a wonderful work that repays repeated listening. Jochum and Klemperer really "get" it; I think Karajan is successful too, but not quite as successful. (I read somewhere recently that the Sixth was one of the Bruckner symphonies Karajan never conducted in concert.)
For myself, the Fifth is one of my favorites; that last movement with its odd mix of sonata form and fugue builds tremendously, and the slow movement shows off the strings so well.
Glad to hear about a live performance of Bruckner! They just don't happen in Tucson....
"I know some of us gay men can be insufferably shallow and ready to snipe bitchily at what is disliked."
Based on the intelligence of the rest of your post, I would assume this is some gentle sarcasm. My experience (as a straight man, so casual observation only) is that the classical music arena is one place where the anti-gay hostility that is still pervasive in much of our society is not so strong, and gay men are a little more comfortable about being openly gay. (Though apparently that wasn't the case for Leonard Bernstein in the fifties. I've read he felt he couldn't be openly gay without hurting his chances to direct the Boston Symphony, a position he coveted but never obtained. In NY, he succeeded Dmitri Mitropoulos, another gay man.)
I know that in many venues in business, law, etc., many gay men feel they have to "live a lie" and pretend to be straight at work in order to be accepted. So if Mike saw two gay men holding hands or otherwise being "obviously gay" at a concert (sniping bitchily?), I think that's great. Let's hope the classical music world can teach a lesson in tolerance to everyone else.
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