Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 “Romantic” (CD review)

Philippe Herreweghe, Orchestre des Champs-Elysees. Harmonia Mundi HMG 501921.

The Symphony No. 4 “Romantic” in E flat major by Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) is probably the Austrian composer most-popular piece of music. This is in no small part because of its abundance of Romantic, dramatic, programmatic, and spiritual touches. The thing is, there are already about 800 different recordings of it available, some of them by very prominent conductors and orchestras like Eugen Jochum and the Berlin Philharmonic (DG), Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic (DG), Gunther Wand and the Berlin Philharmonic (RCA), Otto Klemperer and the Philharmonia Orchestra (EMI), Karl Bohm and the Vienna Philharmonic (Decca), and Georg Tintner and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (Naxos). So, what might compel a listener to try this rerelease from Philippe Herreweghe and his Orchestre des Champs-Elysees?

Well, for one thing the listener might be an avid collector of all things Bruckner and want every recording of every piece of music the man ever wrote. Fair enough.

More important for the rest of us, however, is that Herreweghe’s recording has a claim to being at least one of the most historically accurate performances ever recorded. In the words of the ensemble itself, “The Orchestre des Champs-Elysees is devoted to the performance of music written from the mid XVIII to the early XX centuries (Haydn-Mahler) played on the instruments that existed during the composer's lifetime.” Meaning they play on period instruments and, insofar as they can, play in a historically informed manner.

The thing is, Bruckner initially wrote his symphony in 1874, which comes very close, within a quarter century or so, of the modern age. Could there really be an advantage to hearing the work played on period instruments and in a period style? Let’s look at a history of the symphony’s multiple revisions for a start. Bruckner composed the original version in 1874, as I say. Then he revised parts of it in 1877-78, among other things writing an entirely new Scherzo. In 1879-80 he again revised the Finale. In 1881 he premiered the revised version, but he quickly added a few more corrections before the second performance. In 1887-88 conductor Ferdinand Lowe prepared the proofs for publication, but these differed considerably from Bruckner’s autograph score; Bruckner accepted them anyway. By the time of the symphony’s actual publication, it differed substantially from Bruckner’s initial vision. Various revised scores have appeared over the years, but it is the 1878 version, which Bruckner regarded as the only valid one, that Herreweghe performs here.

Now, on to the recording. As we have come to expect from Herreweghe and his period forces, the reading is quite good. It just take a while for one to get used to it. By that, I mean Herreweghe’s rendering sounds a bit thinner, harsher, and less grandiloquent than most other recordings. That’s understandable, considering the ensemble he uses, with the period instruments. Still, there is much to enjoy in his rendition.

As you recall, the composer tells us what each of the movements represents, from knights riding out of a medieval castle through the mists of dawn to the sounds of the forest and birds, to a funeral, then a hunt, complete with horn calls, and then a brilliant culminating summation. Bruckner was a profoundly spiritual man, and his symphonies all illustrate the point, with the Fourth Symphony being the most programmatic of all.

In the first movement, Herreweghe’s manner can be a bit strict when it comes to nuances, and he could better characterize those opening mists. Nevertheless, the conductor does a good job communicating Bruckner's vision of Nature and his several scenic landscapes, reminding us of how much the composer admired both Beethoven and Wagner. He captures the heroic features of the first subject in lively, if not so grand, style; and he goes on to a pleasant statement of the ensuing, more peaceful, secondary theme.

The second-movement Andante should sound at least vaguely elegiac. Herreweghe takes this section, halfway between a nocturne and a march, at a slow but comfortable pace, without making it drag on as we sometimes hear. Even if he tends to lose a little momentum toward the middle, he makes up for it with the beauty and vitality of the opening and closing passages.

Following that we find a vigorous Scherzo, which Bruckner teasingly called “a rabbit hunt,” building a proper momentum as it progresses. The hunt and the hunters' meal come off colorfully under Herreweghe, with the conductor providing plenty of vigor to the affair.

Lastly, in the Finale, as with the Scherzo, Bruckner would again take the heroic opening theme and the more-idyllic second subject and rework them into his closing statement. Herreweghe handles them well, conveniently ensuring they don't appear too redundant by this time. Perhaps, too, Bruckner knew what he was up to reducing the more-obvious repetition of material from earlier in the symphony and keeping it more cheerful. Herreweghe steers a middle ground between optimism and tragedy, the light and dark side of the composer. The movement still seems to me too long, but at least Herreweghe makes it more provocative and exciting than some other conductors.

As you become more accustomed to Herreweghe's historical approach and historical instruments, the more you may come to appreciate his Bruckner Fourth. While I could not recommend the recording as the only one a person should own, there is no reason a person shouldn't have Herreweghe's account available as a feasible alternative to the bigger, grander recordings from Jochum, Klemperer, Bohm, Wand, and the rest of the more-modern interpreters. 

Harmonia Mundi recorded the music at the Auditorium de Dijon, France, in October 2005, and the company rereleased it in its present form in 2013. The sound is a bit too warm, soft, fuzzy, and reverberant for my taste, but it also appears pretty natural to a big acoustic space. In addition, the sound displays a wide dynamic range, so it starts off very softly and builds to a huge crescendo in the opening minute or two. It's fairly satisfying, if not entirely as transparent as it could be. Also, be aware that the period instruments are not going to sound as smooth as today's modern ones, so you have that to adjust to them as well, the upper midrange being a tad edgy. However, some solid, well-defined transient impact helps to make us forget many of the recording’s minor shortcomings.

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

JJP

Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

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"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa