Anton Bruckner
(1824-1896)
Symphony No. 1 (1866)
A mediaeval artisan might easily have kept a daily record of how many
different prayers he prayed and how often he repeated them. For a composer of
the nineteenth century, with its belief in unstoppable progress and human
supremacy, to behave in this fashion is certainly unique. But Anton Bruckner,
though accepting the harmonic and orchestral achievements of the Romantic
period, did just that; he did not really belong to his time. Even less did he
fit in with the Viennese environment into which he was transplanted for the
last 27 years of his life. The elegant and rather superficial society he
encountered there must have thought the naive, badly dressed fellow with the
'wrong' accent a rather pathetic oddity.
Bruckner had indeed come from a very different background. The little
village in Upper Austria, Ansfelden, where his father was a schoolmaster, was
not far away from the great and beautiful monastery of St Florian. The young
Bruckner followed in the footsteps of his father for a short time; but St
Florian possessed one of Europe's finest organs, and young Anton, whose talent
for music was discovered early, became an organist. The experience of hearing
and playing this magnificent instrument became central to his whole life. He
spent many hours there, practising and improvising, and eventually his playing
was so exceptional that he made successful tours of France and England as an
organ virtuoso. He had lessons in theory and composition, and started composing
fairly early in life, but he felt the need for more instruction in counterpoint
and became for several years a most diligent pupil of the famous Simon Sechter,
visiting him every fortnight in Vienna. Many years earlier and shortly before
his death, Schubert had also wanted to study counterpoint with Sechter, but of
course he was wrong; most of his life work was already done, and works such as
his early Mass in A flat showed him in no need of such lessons.
Sechter forbade Bruckner to compose a single note in order to
concentrate entirely on his innumerable exercises, and here Bruckner, who had
in the meantime advanced to the post of organist at Linz Cathedral, showed one
unfortunate trait of his character, perhaps acquired as an altar-boy: utter
submission to those he considered his superiors. He obeyed. But when he had
finished his instruction with Sechter and took lessons with the conductor of
the local opera, Otto Kitzler, who introduced him to the magic world of Wagner,
music poured out of him. Now forty, Bruckner composed his first masterpiece,
the wonderful Mass in D minor, followed by two other great Masses, and
Symphony No. 1. His reputation reached Vienna and he was appointed to
succeed Sechter as Professor of Music Theory.
Bruckner had ample reason to regret his move from Linz to Vienna. He,
the fanatical admirer of Wagner, was innocently dragged into the rather silly
conflict between the followers of Brahms and those of his beloved Wagner. So he
made many enemies, most cruel of whom was the critic Eduard Hanslick, whom
Wagner caricatured as Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger. But though
adversaries did him harm, his friends and admirers hurt his works much more.
All his young students were gifted Wagnerians and they thought Bruckner's music
needed to sound more like Wagner, and that it needed other 'ministrations' such
as large cuts as well. They considered their beloved Master to be a 'genius
without talent'.
Many of those misguided admirers, such as Artur Nikisch and Franz
Schalk, became famous conductors and they set about making these enormous
scores acceptable to the public – and it must be said that the master, who was
desperately anxious to be performed, often agreed and sometimes even became an
accomplice to their mutilations. But he also left his original scores to the
National Library with the comment 'for later times'. His own insecurity made
him constantly revise his works, especially Symphonies No. 1-4. As a result, we
are confronted in many cases by several versions of the same work. Sometimes
the later versions are a definite improvement, as with the Fourth Symphony; and
sometimes, in my opinion, the first version is superior, as with the Second and
Third Symphonies.
One who deals with eternal things is in no hurry, and therefore performers
and listeners must also allow plenty of time. Whereas Mahler, who died three
years before World War I began, was the prophet of insecurity, ‘Angst’ and the
horrors we live in, the deeply religious Bruckner sings of consolation and
spiritual ecstasy (Verzückuug) – but not exclusively. In some of
the Eighth and most of the Ninth Symphonies, he expresses agony,
perhaps doubt.
Bruckner's music touches the innermost recesses of the human soul. In
this way he reminds me of Dostoyevsky. This quality is probably the only thing
the compulsive gambler and epileptic sinner has in common with the celibate
'country bumpkin'.
Symphony No. 1 in C
minor
On 9th May, 1868, Bruckner conducted the premiere of his First
Symphony (actually his second, not his third as is often claimed) in Linz.
He soon afterwards left Linz for Vienna where he stayed to the end of his life
(1896). In Vienna he 'improved' on the work during the 1870s and in this
'improved' version the work is (wrongly) known as the Linz edition. In this recording
we present for the first time this remarkable work exactly as it was heard by
the rather bewildered audience in Linz; and their bewilderment is no wonder, as
it is still remarkable for its boldness and originality. The differences as
established by Professor Carragan in 1998 are not very profound in the first
three movements, where there are sometimes (for instance) single bars either
added or taken out, but more far-reaching in the Finale with greatly
different orchestration and changed musical passages.
The work starts with a unique soft, rather cheeky, dotted march tune in
the first violins, which is replied to by the horn. The gentle lyrical second
melody in two parts is first played by the first and second violins then by
horn and bassoon. A more heroic passage leads to a quotation of a famous string
passage of the Tannhäuser Overture. Bruckner had heard the opera in 1863
conducted by his young teacher Kitzler, and in 1865 he travelled to Munich to
hear Tristan. His veneration for Wagner lasted his whole life, though
Wagner's influence on Bruckner's works is often overrated. One can never know
if the tremendous impact of Tristan or overwork (or both) was the cause
of Bruckner's subsequent nervous breakdown. He was treated in a sanatorium and
could resume his work after a few months.
This persistent Tannhäuser borrowing seems the only Wagnerian
influence in the whole movement. The development section ignores the main march
tune altogether until the gradual transition to the recapitulation, where we are
spared the Tannhäuser quotation. The movement ends wildly with the first
tune.
The second movement starts with a groping improvisatory passage, where
we can neither be sure of its tune nor its key until a Schubert-like cadenza
establishes the key as A flat major (the influence of Schubert in
Bruckner's work is often underrated, and is perhaps more profound that that of
Wagner). A singing often modulating melody in the first violins is constantly
accompanied by quintuplets in the violas and leads to an extended section in
3/4 in the dominant key. The recapitulation (again in 4/4) is richly
embroidered. This time the Schubertian cadenza is played by the horns
and the following quintuplets by the second violins. Perhaps it is worth
mentioning that an earlier unfinished version of this most original movement exists with largely the same material, except
for the quite different middle section.
The powerful Scherzo
is perhaps not quite as original but typical Bruckner all the same. May I
mention in passing that the earlier very short Scherzo which Bruckner
discarded before 1866 (because of its brevity?) with its chromatic syncopation
is perhaps more interesting. The beautiful Trio with its haunting Horn
call is the same in both Scherzi.
The imposing Finale
makes particularly great demands on the string players (how did the Linz
amateur orchestra cope with it?). It begins with a rather conventional
outburst, followed by a highly original gently syncopated second tune. The
development deals for a long time with the material of the main tune (just the
opposite to the development in the first movement). As so much is loud in the Finale,
perhaps its end does not sound quite as triumphant as Bruckner intended.
1998 Georg Tintner
Adagio (1876) to
Symphony No. 3 in D minor
Not so long ago Professor Nowak discovered an unknown version of the
slow movement of Bruckner's Third Symphony which he composed probably in
1876 between the 1873 original and the one of 1877. In this version the tempo
indications are almost throughout more flowing: for instance instead of just Feierlich
(solemn) in 1873 it becomes Bewegt, quasi andante, feierlich (with
movement, quasi andante, solemn) and Andante (1873) becomes Andante
quasi Allegretto. (In our recordings of this movement and of the 1873
symphony we have tried to observe these slight tempo differences).
Oddly enough this 'new' Adagio is eleven bars longer than
1873, while the one of 1877 is much shorter. There are also differences
in orchestration and in some phrases. But the most noticeable difference is
near the end in the accompaniment to the tune of the solemn March in Wagner's Lohengrin,
Act Two, 'Gesegnet soll sie schreiten!' (Blessed shall you stride)
(unfortunately neither these awkward words nor the music belong to Wagner's
greatest inspirations). In 1873 Bruckner made the first violins play an
extremely difficult endless chain of syncopated triplet semiquavers. Perhaps he
wanted to avoid this great rhythmic complexity by replacing it in 1876 with a
far easier near-quotation from Wagner's Tannhäuser Overture in both
first and second violins (he had already used the same pattern in a different
way in his First Symphony). This was no improvement; nevertheless this
version of the second movement of Bruckner's Third has enough independence
and beauty to be worth hearing, and seems to me superior to the truncated
second movement of 1877.
1998 Georg Tintner