Christian Thielemann, Vienna Philharmonic. Sony 19439914112.
By John J. Puccio
Austrian composer Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) wrote his Fourth and possibly most popular symphony in 1874 but continued to revise it over the next dozen or so years. Conductor Hans Richter premiered it in Vienna in 1881, but that wouldn’t be the end to the revisions by Bruckner himself and by various musical scholars over the next hundred years. In the present recording, Maestro Christian Thielemann conducts the Vienna Philharmonic, using the 1878/1880 Haas edition.
Bruckner was a deeply spiritual man, as illustrated by his music. As he was writing the symphony during the height of the Romantic era, he subtitled the work “Romantic.” Then he helped listeners understand his spiritual and Romantic notions by using each of the symphony’s movements to represent scenes from Nature, 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.
In the first movement Bruckner offers us a vision of Nature, and the composer’s several scenic landscapes remind us of how much Bruckner admired Beethoven and Wagner. Here, according to the composer, “...after a full night's sleep the day is announced by the horn.” Other authorities have argued that the composer wanted us to see a morning breaking, the mists giving way to dawn around a medieval castle, and an army of knights bursting out from the castle gates in a blaze of glory. Thielemann does a good job with that “blaze of glory” business and works up a good head of steam in the dramatic segments of the score, although he seems a little ponderous and ungainly in the more lyrical sections.
The second-movement is an Andante, in this case a serenade, musicologists sometimes describing it as representing a young lad's amorous but ultimately hopeless longings and expressions. Whatever, Thielemann does his best to provide the music with heart, perhaps more heart, more tender emotion, than we usually hear. It also appears slower than we may be accustomed to, perhaps accounting for Thielemann’s added sentiment.
Bruckner teasingly called the lively third-movement Scherzo “a rabbit hunt,” and clearly it should build up a suitable momentum as it goes forward. This, it seems to me, is Thielemann’s most-accomplished movement. It’s not so hectic and we sometimes hear and provides an agreeable contrast to the preceding serenade.
Bruckner opens the Finale with a heroic theme, then works his way into a more idyllic second subject, eventually reworking both themes into a closing statement. Everything begins rather ominously, with dark clouds overhead, leading to a thunderstorm. However, the storm soon breaks and gives way to variations on the symphony's heroic opening music and then a summation of all the parts. Now, if you’ve ever wondered what it means, not even Bruckner was quite sure. He said of it, “...even I myself can’t say what I was thinking about at the time.” Trying to draw a coherent structure from Bruckner’s disparate elements is a daunting task for any conductor, and Thielemann doesn’t come much closer than most anyone else. It still sounds like a series of climaxes, anticlimaxes, and still more climaxes. Under Thielemann the more gentle strands tend to stand out, which only serves to make the grandeur of the alternating passages the more problematic.
The real question with any popular piece of classical music, of course, is whether a new recording of it is worth investigating, given the number of great performances already available. For instance, we already have fine performances by Otto Klemperer (EMI), Karl Bohm (Decca), Eugen Jochum (DG and EMI), Gunther Wand (RCA), Herbert von Karajan (DG), and Georg Tintner (Naxos), among many others. So, does Thielemann compete? Well, of course, he competes. It’s just that if one does not own any or all of the aforementioned recordings, they should be given preferential consideration. Otherwise, fans of Thielemann will not be unhappy with his recording.
On an aside, the booklet notes I received were rather jumbled, with pages either missing or printed in the wrong order. No biggie, but a minor annoyance.
Producer Arend Prohmann and engineer Peter Hecker made the recording at the Salzburg Festival, Grosses Festpielhaus, in August 2020. The music opens very softly and at a normal output setting one hears an odd background buzz or hum. It disappears as soon as the music’s volume increases, but still.... From this point things proceed to sound like a typical modern recording, albeit with an extraordinarily wide dynamic range. Otherwise, it is pleasantly ambient, the orchestra magnificent as always, appearing rich and natural, if a tad distant, and with a little fizz to the edges of high notes.
JJP
By John J. Puccio
Bruckner was a deeply spiritual man, as illustrated by his music. As he was writing the symphony during the height of the Romantic era, he subtitled the work “Romantic.” Then he helped listeners understand his spiritual and Romantic notions by using each of the symphony’s movements to represent scenes from Nature, 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.
In the first movement Bruckner offers us a vision of Nature, and the composer’s several scenic landscapes remind us of how much Bruckner admired Beethoven and Wagner. Here, according to the composer, “...after a full night's sleep the day is announced by the horn.” Other authorities have argued that the composer wanted us to see a morning breaking, the mists giving way to dawn around a medieval castle, and an army of knights bursting out from the castle gates in a blaze of glory. Thielemann does a good job with that “blaze of glory” business and works up a good head of steam in the dramatic segments of the score, although he seems a little ponderous and ungainly in the more lyrical sections.
The second-movement is an Andante, in this case a serenade, musicologists sometimes describing it as representing a young lad's amorous but ultimately hopeless longings and expressions. Whatever, Thielemann does his best to provide the music with heart, perhaps more heart, more tender emotion, than we usually hear. It also appears slower than we may be accustomed to, perhaps accounting for Thielemann’s added sentiment.
Bruckner opens the Finale with a heroic theme, then works his way into a more idyllic second subject, eventually reworking both themes into a closing statement. Everything begins rather ominously, with dark clouds overhead, leading to a thunderstorm. However, the storm soon breaks and gives way to variations on the symphony's heroic opening music and then a summation of all the parts. Now, if you’ve ever wondered what it means, not even Bruckner was quite sure. He said of it, “...even I myself can’t say what I was thinking about at the time.” Trying to draw a coherent structure from Bruckner’s disparate elements is a daunting task for any conductor, and Thielemann doesn’t come much closer than most anyone else. It still sounds like a series of climaxes, anticlimaxes, and still more climaxes. Under Thielemann the more gentle strands tend to stand out, which only serves to make the grandeur of the alternating passages the more problematic.
The real question with any popular piece of classical music, of course, is whether a new recording of it is worth investigating, given the number of great performances already available. For instance, we already have fine performances by Otto Klemperer (EMI), Karl Bohm (Decca), Eugen Jochum (DG and EMI), Gunther Wand (RCA), Herbert von Karajan (DG), and Georg Tintner (Naxos), among many others. So, does Thielemann compete? Well, of course, he competes. It’s just that if one does not own any or all of the aforementioned recordings, they should be given preferential consideration. Otherwise, fans of Thielemann will not be unhappy with his recording.
On an aside, the booklet notes I received were rather jumbled, with pages either missing or printed in the wrong order. No biggie, but a minor annoyance.
Producer Arend Prohmann and engineer Peter Hecker made the recording at the Salzburg Festival, Grosses Festpielhaus, in August 2020. The music opens very softly and at a normal output setting one hears an odd background buzz or hum. It disappears as soon as the music’s volume increases, but still.... From this point things proceed to sound like a typical modern recording, albeit with an extraordinarily wide dynamic range. Otherwise, it is pleasantly ambient, the orchestra magnificent as always, appearing rich and natural, if a tad distant, and with a little fizz to the edges of high notes.
JJP
To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:
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