Customer Reviews

Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E major (ed. Haas) - Georg Tintner

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Let's start weighing this performance by considering comparisons and bench marks.

My top favs include: Karl Bohm with Vienna, Simon Rattle with Birmingham, Blomstedt with Leipzig, Klemperer with Philharmonia, Carlo Maria Giulini with Vienna, Gunter Wand with Berlin. A whole host of additional discs in the available catalog add context and depth to these top listings. Welser-Most, Eichhorn, D. Russell Davies, von Karajan, Haitink, Tennstedt, Tintner, Solti, Sinopoli, Harnoncourt, Jochum, Celibidache, Nezet-Seguin, Barenboim, Rogner, Herreweghe, Ozawa, Kreuzberg, Inbal, Skrowaczewski, .... our available list of competitive, even renowned Bruckner conductors is impressive - especially if we pause to remember that the composer was doubtfully regarded, just a few short decades ago.

No doubt the invention of modern recording arts and sciences has helped Bruckner, quite a bit. Pioneering, world-class readings could go where no local band went, and even where many big name prestige bands did not yet go. We benefit.

This brings us to sound. Both standard red book PCM and super audio surround techniques have captured a number of these impressive Bruckner sevenths. Why Sony has never bothered to remaster the classic Bruno Walter disc in super audio stereo - well that is a puzzler. One imagines that Sony wants to own the catalog, but refuse to treat it with respect via updated SACD masterings that can be released to the general listening public. A strange way to go, if that is what Sony is doing.

Among any reasonable red book disc option, the sound is hardly ever a detriment. Karl Bohm, Otto Klemperer (EMI, remastered), Rattle, Giulini, Gunter Wand - these are all released in excellent regular PCM sound. Then, in super audio surround - we have a Japanese SACD remaster of Gunter Wand with Berlin, Kreuzberg with Vienna SO, Ozawa with Saito Kinen, Herreweghe, Blomstedt with Gewandhaus, Nezet-Seguin with OMGM, and Haitink in Chicago.

Lots of discs that sound excellent - wide frequency, brilliant sound stage, musical detail, you name it. You can probably get it on one or more of the available catalog discs.

This new SONY BMG Red Seal release is equal to any of the others. Perhaps exceeds them, just a tad? Big bands with rich sound are apt for super audio surround recording capture. The sense of presence is typically increased by the back channels, even if nobody moves the orchestra seating to invent cinematic surround effects. The hall gets an even greater chance to contribute, provided the engineers know the hall and know their microphone placements. In this case, the venue, Alte Oper Frankfurt, comes across both warm and brilliant. Kudos to the HR engineers, as this disc is a co-production with Hessian Radio? Thus, this reading gains a notable sonic mix of glow and clarity.

Thanks to Jarvi and the HRSO players - the strings have sheen, warm polish, and an unusually disciplined strength of phrasing, altogether. The last time I heard string sections phrasing so purposively I was listening to the newest Bruckner fourth symphony (original version) from Kent Nagano in Bavaria. (Also, SACD) If you got to know Bruckner via the old, traditional recordings - you will probably just eat up this one, too. Jarvi adopts entirely deliberate tempos - and makes much of very carefully pulsed and finessed playing, all along the way. He can maintain a very long arch of superbly graded musical tensions - just like the best of Karl Bohm, Otto Klemperer, and other famous Bruckner conductors of the recent past and far past.

If Jarvi just went all soggy and sporadic, then super audio would expose him mercilessly. As it is, the high resolution sound dramatically show cases the conductor and the players, revealing art plus art beyond art. The great Adagio that often seems the mystical heart of the symphony to this composer is managed with incredible touch, discipline, and shot through with musical purpose, right through.

The third movement scherzo takes fleet wing. No holding back here. The players now sound very light, inflected, moving right along. The omnipresent brilliance in the strings helps etch the musical line, even when the band is going soft, ppp. The rhythms are caught just right. Deft touches of lift and lilt rubato, in and out and through. The more relaxed trios have plenty of charm, no doubt; but still sound like omens of musical strength, color, motion - all elements waiting to gather and drive forward again when the scherzo moment returns.

The opening Finale starts off at quite a skippy pace. Its just fast enough to connect in retrospect to the scherzo just concluded, Bewegt; and just intent enough to predict all the finale business yet to come, doch nicht schnell. This approach sets a kind of implicit balance, innate to this symphony, with two first slower movements now being balanced out by two subsequent parts, moving forward. If that is indeed the musical balance being struck, it may fall on some listening ears as more modernist than traditional. Even the big, striding brass theme rings out, at a faster tempo. We are far from lingering.

Vigor and intensity - all playing towards an end point, still yet just out of reach - describe the rest of this last movement. The lyrical contrasts relax seamlessly into the brass chorale emerging, played off against the faster finale themes and tempos. The sense of drive seems to win out, until we get to the final closing pages. Then Jarvi lets his players loose, using that sense of tension to build a very satisfying close.

If Jarvi and HRSO can keep this kind of playing up, the cycle will be a great one, all told. As this is the first symphony to be published, a long mountain climb in the Bruckner topography yet remains to be trekked. A grand seventh is one thing; other peaks even higher and more difficult await.

Those utterly committed to nothing but traditional-istic Bruckner readings may quibble with this one. Jarvi and HRSO bring enough of a modernist clarity to the music that we are quite a musical distance from, say, Celibidache in Munich in the autumn of his career. If you do not mind drive and clarity in your Bruckner, reminiscent of what dear old George Szell could bring off in the Cleveland years, you may well find that this new reading portends a very grand approach to Bruckner that still yet, omits even a wispy ounce of undue sentimentality.

I'm adding this one to the top lists. I'm surprised. I've found Paavo Jarvi to be uneven in past spins of his new releases; and I've grown to feel tilted a little against him, just because I never quite know just what sort of music-making I will find. The chemistry on display here, between conductor and band, seems remarkably alert and capable. HRSO has already done a complete Bruckner cycle, under Eliahu Inbal. The arching of long musical tensions, and the drive, mostly seemed just missing by a few hairs from that set. So, just looking at the cast, I wondered if Bruckner from Jarvi with HRSO would more or less be Inbal redux. Rest assured, we have no such thing on this first release in the series.

Jarvi beats the super audio competition, too, except for maybe (to me) the Japanese SACD remasters of Gunter Wand in Berlin. Those discs will probably always be super audio surround treasures. Jarvi far outdoes Kreuzberg's seventh with VSO, so far as I'm concerned. I haven't heard the Ozawa with SK, but I doubt that it could better Jarvi in Frankfurt. Five stars - reading, sound, Bruckner set debut.

This is my own idea of how the Bruckner 7th should be done, but I ought to say at the outset that I am not a particular devotee of Bruckner. There is a kind of Wagner-meets-the-Pope feel about him, and that impression is particularly strong in the 7th. It is all very serious-minded and edifying, and I can honestly say that I enjoy Bruckner greatly by way of a change from the kinds of music I listen to more habitually. Tintner's `take' on him is serene rather than bombastic, and that is my own personal reason for preferring this performance to more intense renderings that may appeal more to some committed Brucknerians. The essence of Bruckner, to me, is innocence and not Angst.

Tintner gives us his own view of the symphony in a liner-note that I found very interesting and rather touching too. Once again the keynote is earnest innocence. I learn, for instance, regarding the first movement that `...unexpectedly a third melody, very different from either the first or the second, appears like an austere rhythmic dance. With these three building blocks the composer gives us one of the loveliest first movements in all music'. Surely this is the right mindset for interpreting this composer, I thought to myself. I listened with placid contentment throughout as we crossed the wide symphonic meadows of the three main movements, and I put aside impious recollections of the gods entering Valhalla at the conclusion of each, hard though that sequence was to dispel from my mind each time. The slow movement in particular was to my liking taken at Tintner's comparatively flowing tempo, which I hope and believe manages to qualify as the composer's `sehr langsam'.

The liner note is absolutely excellent, with short sections in English, German and French on the composer, the composition itself, the orchestra and the conductor. There is absolutely no reason why we should not be able to expect this on a budget label. In the course of his remarks on the symphony, Tintner naturally goes into the question of authenticity in the score, arguing in support of his adoption of the version by Robert Haas.

The recorded sound is admirable, and it is an especial personal pleasure to me to hear how the orchestra from which I first heard the classical repertory has developed to the standard it has. In my early days Karl Rankl probably tried to do too much, but he left a fine legacy to Sir Alec Gibson who basically completed the work. They are not quite the LSO or the Chicago Symphony or what I am learning to call the Berliner Philharmoniker just yet, but it may be that they will yet get there. On purely musical grounds, given my attitude to Bruckner, this might well be my first choice among versions of the 7th. At this price there are no two ways about it.

The Seventh is Bruckner's most popular work and the most recorded of his symphonies. The heart of the work is the Adagio, that great memorial to Richard Wagner which Bruckner composed in anticipation of Wagner's passing. Superficially, Tinter takes a more rapid tempo in this movement than others do, Jochum, Furtwaengler, and Karajan, to mention a few. However, the movement does not come off rushed or glossed over at all. Quite the contrary: There is an urgency and passion that is very becoming to this music. I have recommended the entire set of Tinter's Bruckner Symphonies, and this particular symphony is just as gloriously performed as the others in the set.

A first listen to Georg Tintner's 1997 Bruckner Seventh comes as something of a shock. In music where other conductors work to impose themselves on every phrase, Tintner hardly shapes the line at all. Where others try for cosmic climaxes and rich chocolate sonority, Tintner is content to give us less. His Royal Scottish orchestra doesn't pretend to be the Berlin Phil, and their modesty suits Tintner's own.

As you keep listening, this reading sounds more and more genuine. It really helps t love a composer without smothering him with reverence. Tintner's Seventh is affectionate, and it's allowed to breathe. Be prepared for sosme clunky rhythms and four-square phrases. Each cadence definitely starts and stops. But within those limits, it's gratifying to hear Bruckner in a gentler, more humanized mode. Tintner reaches for the heart rather than the stars.

PERFORMANCES: 9 out of 10.

RECORDINGS: 9 out of 10.

THE VERSIONS OF THE 7th SYMPHONY:

There is only one surviving manuscript of the symphony. Apparently, some changes were written in (not always by Bruckner but possibly with his sanction.) and some were pasted in. The two modern editions (by Haas and Nowak) are different interpretations of the one manuscript. Nowak sanctions the added tempo changes which unfortunately interrupt the flow of the music. (To be fair, Nowak puts them in parentheses and leaves the issue for conductors to decide.) This leaves the question of the extra percussion that was added to the climax of the slow movement. Many authorities consider this addition to be tacky.

Therefore, except for the extra percussion, and if the tempo fluctuations are ignored, Nowak came up with results quite similar to Haas. Personally, I think that the Haas edition (which is the one Tintner used) wins on points.

SUMMARY:

This CD lives up to the high standards that Dr. Tintner and Naxos have set. I heartily recommend the entire series to all those who are unfamiliar with the composer and to comparative "Brucknerheads".

This is my first Tintner recording of a Bruckner symphony. He had a reputation as a Bruckner specialist and it is well deserved. I will acquire recordings of my favorites as conducted by Tintner. I recently heard Simon Rattle conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra in this symphony. Rattle has a big reputation and the orchestra hit all the notes with its famous plush sound but it was disappointing compared with the Tintner version with a second tier orchestra, and I attribute this to Tintner's intense feel for and understanding of Bruckner's music.

After reading a couple of not so flattering reviews, I was prepared to be slightly disappointed by Paavo Jarvi's new Bruckner 7th. But this turned out to be even better than I had hoped for. Frankly, I don't know what's going on in Frankfurt, as the sound on this recording is every bit as good as it is on Jarvi's recent Mahler "Resurrection" (#2) on Virgin Classics. The reason I took a chance on this one was because I really liked the timings, which are rather similar to those of Georg Tintner (Naxos) and - if I'm remembering correctly - von Karajan (who recorded the 7th at least three times). The tempi just flow in all four movements, with the exception of the scherzo perhaps being one tiny notch faster than I care for (I love this scherzo, which sort of sounds like "The Ride Of The Valkaries" on acid). The major climaxes to the first two movements sound marvellous, with rich, full harmonies and very little sign of strain in the trumpets. Timpani are big and full, but without sounding too ponderous and overbearing. And while the Frankfurt strings may not possess quite the same degree of luminosity as their more famous cousins in Vienna and Berlin, they still do themselves proud.

A big litmus test for me is the finale, which - for me, I'm talking about here - shouldn't sound too intense or overly serious. In the program notes, Jarvi talks about how this finale differs from most of Bruckner's other ones. He believes that Bruckner more or less smiles in the finale of the 7th, and that Bruckner's true personality breaks on through. I think he has a point. For me, it needs to be almost humorous in spots. Regardless, what is perhaps Bruckner's greatest completed symphony is done very well here (sorry, but I do like the 7th more than the 8th). Highly recommended.

Bruckner is not one of my favorite composers but his 4th, 7th and 9th symphonies are among my all time favorites. And the 7th is the very best of all. It has been my impression that many Bruckner 7 performances lose momentum after the slow movement. At over 40 minutes, the first two movements are longer than most symphonies in their entirety. Therefore it is not surprising that performances fizzle in the scherzo and finale. But in this recording, the performance actually gains momentum and comes to a thrilling conclusion. The brass playing here is simply the finest I have ever heard in any Bruckner performance. I had no idea the Scottish orchestra had such great brass players. And although this is a studio recording, it has all the passion and vitality of a live concert performance. If you are thinking about taking a chance on Bruckner, this is the recording to buy.

I really like the quality of this recording. The tone comes through clearly and the pacing is perfection. If you are a Bruckner fan then this is one that you should definitely have in your collection. Symphony No 7 has a unique spiritual quality. Although it has been compared to Wagner, to me it is a bit more impressionistic as the themes don't seem to repeat themselves and flow from one to the next. Lately I have been listening to this on my daily morning commute and I am ready to face the day. The only element that was surprising to me was that it only included the one performance on it, so it was shorter than I expected - just the four movements of the symphony but well worth the cost.

For nearly 40 years now, Ihave listened to classcail music with the belief thateconomy recordings are as important now as ever. When learning a new opiece of music, why not get a cheap recording first? If you can't "get it," or simply don't like it, you haven't spent much . I still have an amundance of Odyssey, STS and Victrola LPs in my library, all of them in fine condition and wonderfully playable. I keep them because I await the time when more of them will be re-issued on cd. But, they were my early years of discovery, and like your first child or first spouse, they remain uniqle dear to me.

The Tintner Bruckner cycle on Naxos is a wonderful example of what I call great music for the masses. Not all the individual discs are 5 stars, but there are no dogs, either. With a far from great orchstra at his command, Tintner elicits powerful amd moving performances of one of Romanticism's towering figures. AND!! You get the Original Versions to boot. How can any listener, novice or seasoned, pass this up? One reviewer here says this 7Th can't replace his Jochum or Karajan. I would agree. But Tintner is nor Karajan or Jochum, nor does he try to be. I think he nknew this would not revolutionize Bruckner'secorded legasy, but simply provide good to very good readings for a nearly rock bottom price.

I personally own numbers 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,and 9. I play them often along with their final versions", to appreciate the composer's infatuation with revision. Sometimes, I wish he had published both of them