Eliahu Inbal


1 LP - 6.44144 AZ - (p) 1988
1 CD - 8.44144 ZK - (p) 1988

ANTON BRUCKNER (1824-1896)




Symphonie Nr. 2 c-moll - Revidierte Fassung von 1877 61' 34"
- Ziemlich schnell 20' 01"
- Feierlich, etwas bewegt 16' 11"
- Scherzo: Schnell - Trio: Gleiches Tempo 7' 13"
- Finale: Mehr schnell
17' 51"



 
Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt
Elihau Inbal, Leitung
 






Luogo e data di registrazione
Alte Oper, Frankfurt (Germania) - giugno 1988


Registrazione: live / studio
studio

Producer / Engineer
Wolfgang Mohr - Hans Bernhard Bätzing / Martin Fouqué


Prima Edizione LP
Teldec - 6.44144 AZ - (1 LP) - durata 61' 34" - (p) 1988 - Digitale

Prima Edizione CD
Teldec - 8.44144 ZK - (1 CD) - durata 61' 34" - (p) 1988 - DDD

Note
Co-Produktion mit dem HR, Franfurt.












I only write music, and not reviews, so that the Lord has no cause to say to me: ‘Why haven’t you produced anything my fellow? I gave you talent to edify and refine mankind, to fill men with lofty thoughts, and you have produced nothing!" Anton Bruckner 8th May 1893, during the interval at a university lecture.

Bruckner was actually anything but unproductive: he worked tirelessly, despite moments of deep resignation, despite all the disappointment that resulted from the poor reception of his music. But his application was of little use to him in this life: Anton Bruckner was a tragically unrecognised genius, and the fate initially suffered by the fruits of his life’s work reflects an age unfortunately rich in musical philistines.
How much would have been lost to the world, had it not been for Bruckner’s unshakeable will to compose! As it was, he lived in the consciousness of a mission on which the final judgment would not be passed by the critic Hanslick or by his fellow composer Brahms. “Bruckner? An utter fraud! He’ll be forgotten within a few years of my death.” - thus Brahms to the Austrian critic Richard Specht in the spring of 1897. Bruckner himself, who died a year before the Hamburg composer's ungenerous fit of anger, had already remarked polemically some years earlier (8th January 1892): “They called Beethoven the musical pig in his time, and said he should be locked up in an asylum. I think to myself: You just carry on writing, just look straight ahead. Ill long since be in my grave by the time Hanslick understands..."
Anton Bruckner stood alone, as his favourite pupil Franz Schalk commented, “without support from anyone, truly helpless, yet unshakeable in the humble belief in Eternal God, in the proud, almost heathen belief in himself and the glory of his music.” Bruckner was in no way an urbane man, he was the simple product of a money-oriented, secular, bourgeois era - yet in some mysterious fashion, he created musical - urbane! - culture of lasting, global status from a unique symbiosis of naive rural piety and gigantic inner musical visions. It was Bruckner, and not Brahms, who carried on the Austro-German symphonic tradition after the death of Robert Schumann in 1856: both Brahms and Bruckner came to symphonic composition late in life, and Bruckner wrote his First Symphony when he was almost 42 (1865/66) - some ten years before Brahms completed his ’First’ (the 'Tenth' according to Hans von Bülow!) in 1876 at the age of 43.
The Second Symphonie in C minor was composed at a time when Bruckner had found international recognition - albeit as an organ improviser rather than a composer - which gave him enormous inner momentum: in 1869 he played in Paris (Notre Dame), and in 1871 he had taken part in a competition in London on the new organ in the Royal Albert Hall that had been built for the World Exhibition. After his return to Vienna, Bruckner began work on his Second Symphony. He composed the first version of the work between 11th October 1871 and 11th September 1872, and gave the symphony its first performance in this form on 26th October 1873 in Vienna. He dedicated this first version to the Philharmonic Society. On the advice of Johann Herbeck, Bruckner reworked the symphony, and this revised version was first performed on 20th February 1876. Finally, in the following year, a third and last version appeared: the composer dedicated it to Franz Liszt, whom he had met at the singers’ festival in Pest in 1865.
It is interesting to observe how Bruckner relies on the principle of the 'talking pause’ in his Second Symphony, the considerable structural power of the General Pause. (Thence the nickname ’Pause Symphony’.) The contrapuntal and the dispositive precision work are intensified in relation to the First Symphony; the principle of the composer quoting himself is found in the Adagio, that refers to the Benedictus, and in the finale, which refers to the Kyrie of the F minor Mass. Furthermore, two other features of Bruckner’s music make their first appearance here: firstly, the embellishment of one step of the scale by the upper and lower leading notes, and secondly - taken over from Wagner - , mixed rhythm within one bar.
Bruckner’s Symphony no. 2 has four movements. The first in the principal key of C minor is in sonata form, with three thematic groups in the exposition, epilogue and epilogue-coda, a development section, reprise and coda. The second movement in A flat major is a sonata form without the development section. The third, one of Bruckner’s most extraordinary scherzi, is in the key of C minor with a C major trio, while the finale, which is governed by C major and minor, is once again a richly varied sonata structure with an exposition containing three thematic groups, epilogue and epilogue-coda, plus development, reprise and coda to the movement as a whole.
The 'original version’ was not published until 1938, when it was brought out by Robert Haas. It is based in fact on the third version dating from 1877 - this, however, also uses elements from the first version of 1871/72, thus eliminating the 139-bar cut which would have altered the proportions of the entire work. In addition, the instrumentation, dynamics and phrasing were adopted from the first version. This seems sensible, for, as Bruckner rightly commented in answer to suggestions for shortening his F minor Mass (1893): “I’ve already kept it short. If I’d written down everything I thought of to the greater glory of God, it would have been even longer.”
Knut Franke
Translation: Clive R. Williams