Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 "Romantic" (CD review)

Valery Gergiev, Munich Philharmonic. Munchner Philharmoniker MPHL0002.

The album's booklet notes begin with German composer Hans Pfitzner's now-famous remark that Bruckner wrote only one symphony but wrote it nine times in all. That may not be entirely true as one could say the same thing about any number of composers, like most of Wagner and Vivaldi and the early symphonies of Haydn and Mozart. Nonetheless, I suppose, there is a point to the remark, namely that Bruckner did have a uniquely personal, spiritually Romantic musical style that he repeated in most of his symphonies. If that is the case, then there was probably no better example of it than his Fourth Symphony, possibly his most-popular work.

Austrian composer and organist Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) wrote his Symphony No. 4 in E flat major "Romantic" in 1874, revising it several times before his death. (Here, conductor Valery Gergiev uses the 1878-80 revision edited by Leopold Nowak in 1953). The work's popularity no doubt stems largely from its abundance of Romantic, programmatic qualities, which Maestro Gergiev plays with a melodramatic fullness. Bruckner was a profoundly spiritual man, and his symphonies illustrate the point. Plus, you may recall that the composer tells us what each of the movements in the symphony 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 finally a brilliant culminating summation.

The question, though, is not if or why people like the Fourth Symphony nor what the symphony is "about." The question is whether Maestro Gergiev brings to his performance anything new, anything we haven't heard before, anything that might set it apart from the many fine recordings that have come before it. After all, we already have performances by Otto Klemperer and the Philharmonia Orchestra (EMI), Karl Bohm and Vienna Philharmonic (Decca), Eugen Jochum with both the Berlin Philharmonic (DG) and the Dresden State Orchestra (EMI), Gunther Wand and the Berlin Philharmonic (RCA), Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic (DG), and Georg Tintner and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (Naxos), to name a few.

My answer to the above question about Gergiev is, well, maybe not. Let's take a look.

In the first movement Bruckner offers us a vision of Nature, and the composer's several scenic landscapes should remind us of how much Bruckner admired Beethoven and Wagner. Here, composer wants us to see a morning breaking, the mists around a medieval castle giving way to dawn, whereupon an army of knights bursts forth from the castle gates in a blaze of glory. In this first section, Gergiev does what he does best: he gives us a highly theatrical reading. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of the spiritual majesty Bruckner seems to have intended, either, just the theatrics of the programmatic music.

Valery Gergiev

The second-movement Andante is a serenade--night music that represents in this instance a young lad's amorous but ultimately hopeless longings and expressions. I've always thought it sounded elegiac, halfway between a nocturne and a funeral march, the composer indicating he wanted a slow but comfortably moderate pace (quasi Allegretto). Here's the thing, though: I'm not sure Gergiev really gives us a "comfortably moderate pace." It's more like a slow dirge, and it appears to represent not so much a lad's hopeless amorous longings as it does his total defeat at the hands of his would-be lover.

Bruckner teasingly called the lively third-movement Scherzo "a rabbit hunt," and it should build a proper momentum as it goes forward. It's in this faster section that I found Gergiev most at home, perhaps the livelier spirits inspiring him. It moves along with high good cheer, and the Munich players seem to delight in it.

The Finale, which like the Scherzo opens with a heroic theme, works its way into a more-idyllic second subject and then reworks them both into a closing statement. This movement begins rather ominously, with dark clouds overhead, leading before long to a thunderstorm; however, the storm eventually breaks and gives way to variations on the symphony's heroic opening theme and a summation of all the parts. If you're wondering what it means, even Bruckner himself was at something of a loss when asked. He said, "...even I myself can't say what I was thinking about at the time." Whatever, Gergiev handles it about as he did the first movement, emphasizing the dramatic contrasts at the expense of any refined, high-flown ethereal qualities. It's a fairly direct reading, then, mostly serious, leaning to the sullen side, slightly slow and calculated, and highly theatrical. If that's the way you view Bruckner, Gergiev is your man.

Producer Johannes Muller and engineer Gerald Junge recorded the music at the Gasteig Culture Center, Munich in September 2015. The first thing one notices about the recording is that it displays an enormous dynamic range. It will start very softly and build to huge climaxes. This is good; it's what happens in live music, even though it annoys some home listeners. So, when it begins, avoid the temptation to turn it up, or the volume may knock you out of your seat. Also good are the sound of the hall itself, a mild ambient bloom, and the stereo spread and depth.

Not so good, however, is that the sound isn't exactly the most transparent. In fact, there's a slight veil over the proceedings, and detailing that we might want to hear is not always present. There are some odd pre-echoes, too, as well as a small degree of fuzziness in the upper frequencies. So, you get a big, wide, somewhat dark, soft, shrouded sound that makes the recording seem as though you were listening from a farther distance away from the orchestra than you might like.

JJP

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