Luogo e data di registrazione		Musikhalle, Hamburg (Germania) - 5-7 dicembre 1993
	Registrazione: live / studio		live recording
	Recording supervision		Gerald Götze
	Balance engineer		Karl-Otto Bremer
	Editing		Suse Wöllmer, Sabine Kaufmann, Antje Maibom
	Prima Edizione LP		Nessuna
	Edizione CD		SONY (RCA VICTOR Red Seal) - 09026 68047 2 - (2 CD's - 33' 21" & 54' 31") - (p) 1995 - DDD
	Note		A Co-Produktion of Bertelsmann Music Group & Norddeutscher Rundfunk Hamburg

Anton Bruckner: Symphony no. 8 in C minor In the music ofthe latter part of the 19th century, Anton Bruckner occupies a position of almost overwhelming significance. Even today, nearly 100 years after his death, his works frequently seem strange and erratic - to music scholars no less than to the concert-goer. Bruckner is a solitary figure, perhaps the most solitary of all modern composers. And yet he is of key importance for the development of Austrian music between Beethoven and Schubert on the one hand and Gustav Mahler on the other. Nor is Bruckner’s importance confined to a 19th century, Austrian context: his music has far wider repercussions, both historically and geographically, although - and perhaps precisely because - his style is so singular. Only today are people gradually becoming aware of Bruckner’s true status. And a conductor like Günter Wand, who is one of the few interpreters equipped to respond to the challenge that Bruckner poses, has made an indispensable contribution to a better understanding of this great composer. Bruckner’s contemporaries were unable to grasp the extent of his originality and modernity. With only a handful of exceptions, even his friends and fellow musicians could not follow the artistic path chosen by this unique man. Thus it was out of sheer goodwill that they compelled the composer, who was constantly tormented by feelings of inadequacy, to make revisions and cuts in his works, and even to agree to "improvements" from his own pen. Endowed with a deep respect for authority, Bruckner once called those conductors who believed themselves capable of performing his symphonies with so many alterations as his "guardians appointed by Wagner". As long as he lived, Bruckner suffered from low selfesteem, and it was easy to make him unsure of himself: but when it came down to it, he knew exactly what he wanted, and adhered in principle to the versions of the scores that he had declared to be “valid”. Thus he did allow the conductor “to proceed only as your orchestra demands“, but added: “please do not alter the score, and when the work is printed, one of my most ardent wishes is that the orchestration should on no account be changed”. He went to considerable lengths to pass on his scores to posterity in their original form, free of alterations and of cuts and changes in the instrumentation carried out by well-meaning contemporaries. And in this endeavour Bruckner was successful: he wrote out precisely dated fair copies with meticulous attention to clarity and detail, and left these in his will to the Vienna National Library, where the autograph manuscripts are kept to this day. The later director of the music library, the Bruckner scholar Robert Haas, made a careful comparison of all the original scores, and prepared the first complete Bruckner edition free of ‘foreign ingredients’, which was then published between 1932 and 1944. The contemporary arrangements of Bruckner's symphonies made alterations to the form, the dynamics and the actual sound. Cuts small and large, supposedly made in the interests of comprehensibility, destroyed the original form, disguising the proportions, the symmetry and the parallels of the large-scale designs so important to Bruckner. The well-meaning arrangers replaced the layered, "terrace" dynamics that Bruckner derived from organ registration with arbitrary crescendi and decrescendi. In many places, they also cut the general rests so important for an understanding of the form, and added tempo modifications, accelerandi and ritardandi of their own, as well as other melodic, harmonic and rhythmic "improvements". These activities shouldn't be judged too harshly: we must bear in mind that such alterations were made with the best intent, and in many cases with the more or less ‘voluntary’ agreement of the composer. The most drastic alterations were those that changed the actual sound of the music. Bruckner created an architecture of sound groups, along the same lines as his terrace dynamics reminiscent of organ music: he combined blocks of different sounds to form groups, based on a clear separation of the basic timbres (strings/woodwind/brass), which were then reunited according to strict formal principles. Thus he created a highly original sound structure that is an integral part of the composition, and makes a central contribution to our formal understanding of the large-scale movements of his symphonies. Bruckner’s arrangers, however, most of them distinguished conductors of Wagner to a greater or lesser degree, all swore by a mixture of timbres in the spirit of the orchestral treatment practised by the Liszt/Wagner school. Needless to say, they were convinced that their re-orchestration of Bruckner`s music was an improvement on the original, and that they were thus making it easier for the public to approach these difficult works. As for Bruckner's say in the matter, the composers idolization of Wagner meant that the arrangers could count on his approval of their modifications. It’s certainly true that after attending performances of Tannhäuser and Tristan und Isolde in 1864/65 (it was at the premiüre of the latter work in Munich that Bruckner first met Wagner), Bruckner adopted many of the new and bold harmonic details he found in Wagner’s music, particularly the prominent chromatics and enharmonics. But as regards orchestration, Bruckner followed his own laws and ideas of the sound he wanted in his symphonies - ideas taken from organ music, and directed at a clear separation of the different registers rather than at the seductive, magical sound-mix that Wagner strove for. Here, he trod quite different paths from those of the Bayreuth master he so admired. This, however, is something Bruckner`s contemporaries chose to ignore: after the dedication of his Third Symphony, he was regarded as a Wagnerian composer. Even as experienced a listener as the Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick only heard the similarities, and not the huge differences: he branded Bruckner a “New German revolutionary” whose aim it was to transfer the endless melody of opera to the symphony, thus destroying the Classical tradition that found its culmination in the music of Brahms. This led Hanslick to attack Bruckner as vehemently as he had championed him prior to his fall from grace: “We encounter Wagnerian orchestral effects wherever we look. Bruckner’s new Symphony in C minor is characterized by the direct juxtaposition of dry counterpoint and boundless gushing . . . Everything is forced into one unstructured, chaotic flow of appalling length . . . It is not altogether impossible that this style - the confused product of a thoroughly depressed mind - may represent the musical future. If it does, then future generations are not to be envied ...” (Review of the première in the Wiener Zeitung, 1892.) Pure prejudice obviously prevented the aesthete Hanslick, who proclaimed music to be “moving form in sound”, from seeing that the strict formalist and perfectionist Bruckner did in fact embody this principle - albeit in his own, highly individual way - with at least as much purity as Hanslick’s idol Johannes Brahms. Anton Bruckner, who suffered dreadfully from the polemic that the ‘Brahmsians’ flung in his direction, actually had little to do with the warring musical factions of the time. He wrote all his compositions - not only those expressly dedicated to "Our dear Lord" - for the honour and glory of God alone, soli deo gloria, as did the medieval composers and Johann Sebastian Bach before him. He composed as best he could, and if the result did not meet his exacting standards, then he took no pity on himself, declaring it to be ‘invalid’ and beginning work undaunted on a second or even a third version. It`s fair to say that no other 19th century composer spent as much time revising his work as Bruckner, putting as much energy into this as into he would into a completely new composition. The background to the Eighth Symphony shows that this is certainly one reason why Bruckner never managed to finish the Ninth. Notwithstanding a nature in some respects quite complex, Anton Bruckner was basically a simple man from a rural background, and was deeply religious. Without his Christian faith, he probably wouldn’t have survived the many humiliations, misunderstandings and attacks he was subjected to. Nevertheless, throughout his life he suffered from recurring depression and lack of self-esteem, against which he tried to defend himself by gathering signs of official recognition. This may well explain the incessant striving of the former village schoolmaster for more and more exams, official positions and honours, likewise the great pride he took in his title of professor, his university post and his doctorate. But all the public recognition and the marks of the Emperor’s favour came too late to make any real difference to Bruckner's simple way of life, which would seem almost wretched by today’s standards, and was nothing if not ascetic, almost monastic in character. Although the insecurity in his psychological make-up meant that he was easy to irritate, at the core of his artistic being Anton Bruckner could not be influenced by others. All his life, he continued single-mindedly along the path he had set out on, even though the price he had to pay for the privelege was high. For he never lived to hear even one of his symphonies performed as he had composed it, and as for the Fifth, the Sixth and the three completed movements of the Ninth, he never heard these performed at all. With the “restlessness of a powerful mind” (Friedrich Blume), Bruckner endeavoured time after time, from symphony to symphony, to solve the one central problem he faced. Within the monumental edifice of large-scale symphonic architecture, he sought to bring together all the creative and expressive possibilities that the orchestral composition of his time offered, heightening and intensifying them to achieve the utmost possible grandeur and sublimity for the sole honour and greater glory of Our Lord. The sociologically-minded may tend to view Anton Bruckner's monumental symphonies as a musical expression of the years after 1871, when Germany experienced a period of strong economic and industrial expansion. This, however, does nothing to explain their unique individuality. But if one understands the Bruckner symphonies first and foremost as a monument of monistic faith in an increasingly secular and pluralistic world, one comes as close to their "content" as is possible with absolute music. It is the conclusion of a whole era of Western musical history which derived the purpose and legitmacy of its music from its transcendence, from its ability to reflect ethics in aesthetics, i.e. in works of art. (The ethical values being taken, in the final instance, from commandments of God himself.) Each of the symphonies, and the mighty Eighth Symphony in particular, is a reflection of the same ideal, combining elements of Gregorian chorale and the linearity of Bach with the strictly formal dramatics of Beethoven, Schubert’s reoriented Romanticism and Wagnerian harmonics, full of chromatic expression, to form an utterly distinctive Brucknerian synthesis. ·········· Bruckner began work on the Eighth Symphony, his third in the key of C minor, in 1884/85. He completed a first revision in 1887 and sent it to Hermann Levi, chief conductor of the Munich Opera. But Levi would not accept this version of the score for performance, unlike the Seventh. Bruckner was initially thrown into depression by the distinguished conductor's somewhat helpless rejection of a score that was evidently too much for him. But then he began to feel more and more inspired by the task facing him, and in the next three years, instead of "simplifying" the symphony as Levi wished, Bruckner created a much more complex new version of the work, richer than its predecessor both in terms of structure and instrumentation. However, in order that the symphony could finally be performed, Bruckner allowed wellmeaning friends and pupils, particularly the conductor Franz Schalk, to persuade him to make changes and cuts (mainly in the Adagio and the Finale) “to facilitate comprehension of the music”, even though they clearly go against the logic of the composition. With these alterations incorporated, the symphony dedicated “in the deepest respect” to the Emperor in 1890 was published the following year by Haslinger in Vienna and by Schlesinger in Berlin: the printing costs were paid by the court in both cases. After its première in this form in 1892, with Hans Richter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, the work turned into a painfully late triumph for Bruckner, not least through many repeat performances in other music centres. As the aforegoing should make clear, we have not one but two ‘original’ versions of the Eighth Symphony, both of them preserved in the autograph manuscript, and both of them - as biographical and especially structural evidence within the work shows - not actually reflecting the composer’s own intentions. The second version is indisputably superior to the first as a composition, but Bruckner”s intentions here were distorted by the ‘disimprovements’ sketched above. In 1939, Robert Haas solved the dilemma with the publication of the Urtext in his complete critical edition of the Bruckner symphonies: in principle, he based his score on the second, extended and revised version completed by the composer in 1890, but he went back to the autograph of the first version that Bruckner finished in 1887 in order to replace the material that was irresponsibly cut out again, destroying the form of the work, and in order to remove all other evidence of outside interference. The result could not be farther from a ‘patch-up job’: it is a musically convincing organic whole. This Haas edition of the Urtext, volume 8 of the Critical Bruckner Edition published by the Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag, Leipzig, was used as the basis for this live recording made in the Hamburg Musikhalle with Günter Wand conducting the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra. The Eighth is the last symphony for which Bruckner wrote a complete last movement, and at the same time it is also the non plus ultra of his oeuvre, as far as both dimensions and inner complexity are concerned. With a total length of 85 minutes, the Eighth surpasses even the hitherto unparalleled monumental proportions of Beethoven’s Ninth. Bruckner adopts his great predecessors two middle movements, albeit in ‘reversed’ order: the Scherzo precedes the Adagio. Nonetheless, there are differences and contrasts aplenty between the culmination of Bruckner’s symphonic oeuvre and that of Beethoven's, whom he so revered. In terms of instrumentation alone, one cannot help but be impressed by the huge body of wind and percussion that the work is scored for: triple woodwind including double bassoon, 8 horns (4 of them alternating with tubas), triple brass plus double bass tuba, 3 harps, 6 timpani, cymbals and triangle - all this naturally calls for reinforcement of the strings, too. The block-like musical structures and forms, the instrumentation along the lines of organ registers, the `chorales` for the wind section, the thematic cross-links between the movements and in particular the resumé in a finale that towers above the rest of the piece: these are all distinctive elements of Bruckner’s personal style. We are familiar with them from the earlier symphonies, but in the Eighth they appear developed to a unique and consummate intensity: the result is a monumental design quite without parallel. The first movement has three thematic groups that are developed, continued and expanded one after another in the exposition, and are then joined together in the development section. The rhythmically accentuated main subject, melodically characterised by chromatic steps of a second, begins in the low strings to the tremolo of the violins, which are supported by two horns. The music picks up and intensifies rapidly, forming duplets and triplets - first side by side, but soon overlapping as well, in typical Bruckner manner. The second subject is built up with ‘terraced` instrumentation: the strings enter first, then the woodwind, then the brass. In the closing group, the music is dominated by three thematically important jumps of a seventh. The development brings inversions, magnifications and contrapuntal combinations that lead up to the climax. Bruckner takes us cautiously into the reprise with completely new instrumentation, and without any obvious signposting of the road ahead. In the coda, the main subject is divided into its rhythmic and songful elements. The inexorably pounding, double-dotted rhythms lead up to the last climax in triple fortissimo, (fff). Bruckner called this powerful passage before the dynamics abruptly fall off again “proclamation of death”, while he tried to characterise the last thirteen bars in extreme pianissimo with the title “clock of death”: an ostinato violin figure with a monotonous rhythm is combined with a brief drum-roll, repeated in each bar. In terms of tone-painting, this can be interpreted as a perpendicular movement and a clockwork gradually running down; in terms of the compositional structure, though, it is strictly derived from the movement’s opening theme. It is interesting to note that this is the only first movement of a Bruckner symphony that has a ‘falling’ ending like this, bringing the movement to a tranquil and silent end. Clearly, this could not be followed by a quiet Adagio. The Scherzo that Bruckner thus placed second begins with a powerful and energetic first subject, whose impetuous urgency the composer tried to describe with the rather inappropriate title of “Der deutsche Michel”, which translates as "the plain, honest German". In the A flat trio in 2/4 time, the music has a certain traditional Austrian character, with soft horn sounds and dreamy harp arpeggios evoking occasional reminiscences of Schubert. But thematically and structurally speaking, this movement likewise evolves out of the basic material of the first movement. The entire vast edifice of a symphonic cosmos emerges from the tension between a handful of notes and metric elements, producing in turn one new constellation and one new insight after another. With the exception of the Fifth Symphony, Bruckner never achieved such logical coherence of the elements as he does here, where the inner force of the substances clears its own way through all the movements to the imposing finale. The form and the transcendental mood of the Adagio recall the example of Beethoven’s prodigious Ninth Symphony, a model that was never far from Bruckner's eyes, but which he never tries to actually imitate, neither here nor in the other movements. Bruckner is an adagio composer sui generis, and here he paints a profound picture of his innermost feelings; for all the individuality of this music, the composer never loses sight of the material of the first movement, which again provides the basic ingredients from which the entirety of the Adagio is developed. The foundation is given by the characteristic alternation between duplets and triplets, disguised here by ligatures. Chorale chords on the strings are embellished by rippling harp sounds. As far as the orchestration is concerned, the usual body of instruments is supplemented in this movement by a solo violin, the soft Wagner tubas and at the final climax, before the movement dies away quietly in a manner reminiscent of the end of the first movement, by the cymbals and triangle. The last movement of the Eighth Symphony is the last finale that Bruckner completed, and represents a fitting culmination to both this monumental symphony and perhaps to his entire oeuvre. Bruckner’s ability to compose yet another exceptionally complex metamorphosis from the basic substance of the three preceding movements, bringing it to a final climax where all the main themes come together at last, is nothing short of alarming. It's hard to say whether Bruckner’s own slightly naive description as “Meeting of the three emperors” refers to this, or solely to the vital and resplendent element of the opening. Either way, this becomes irrelevant in the face of the almost infinite wealth of structural links, cross-references and derivations of this magnificent last movement, which sums up all that has gone before and finally leads into the simultaneous presentation of all the main subjects, superimposed one upon the other in masterly contrapuntal stretto. The music scholar U. Schreiber describes this majestic song of triumph in radiant C major thus: "Struggle and despair, victory and resignation are united in a unique apotheosis, and reconcile God with the world and art with life for the very last time in the history of the symphony". Wolfgang Seifert (English translation: Clive Williams, Hamburg)