Eliahu Inbal


1 LP - 6.42922 AZ - (p) 1983
1 CD - 8.42922 ZK - (c) 1984

ANTON BRUCKNER (1824-1896)




Symphonie Nr. 3 d-moll - Erstfassung 1873 65' 12"
- Gemäßigt, misterioso 24' 00"
- Adagio: Feierlich 18' 51"
- Scherzo: Ziemlich schnell 6' 07"
- Finale: Allegro 16' 14"



 
Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt
Elihau Inbal, Leitung
 






Luogo e data di registrazione
Frankfurt (Germania) - settembre 1982


Registrazione: live / studio
studio

Producer / Engineer
-

Prima Edizione LP
Teldec - 6.42922 AZ - (1 LP) - durata 65' 12" - (p) 1983 - Digitale

Prima Edizione CD
Teldec - 8.42922 ZK - (1 CD) - durata 65' 12" - (c) 1984 - DDD

Note
Coproduktion mit dem HR.












Bruckner devoted the first half of 1873 exclusively to the Third Symphony: the adagio was sketched on 2nd March and fully scored on 24th March, while the scherzo was completed on 25th July. At the same time he was already working, as an entry (“strings”) in the score shows, from 25th May to 10th June on the final formulation of the first movement. At the beginning of August he travelled to Marienbad in order to escape a cholera epidemic rampant in Vienna, and also stayed a few days in Karlsbad. From there he wrote to Richard Wagner requesting permission to submit to him his latest works (the Second and Third Symphonies). Wagner did not answer quickly enough, and at the beginning of September 1873 Bruckner travelled to Bayreuth in person, and without an invitation.
Bruckner’s written record of the conversation with Wagner comes from a report that Hans von Wolzogen did not write until 1884. Wagner’s interest in his fellow composer was presumably limited, chiefly on account of the surprise nature of the visit and because of his involvement in the building of the Festspielhaus. Nevertheless, the episode ended with Wagner’s accepting the “Symphony in D minor, Where the trumpet begins the subject“. On 15th October of the same year Bruckner joined the Academic Wagner Society in Vienna - he was no doubt prompted to do so by a letter congratulating him on the acceptance of his dedication by Richard Wagner.
The year finally came to a close for Bruckner with the conclusion of work on the Third Symphony and the note on the last page of the score “completely finished, the night of 31st December l873.” The autograph manuscript of the first version of the Third Symphony has not survived in its original form, because Bruckner wrote the alterations ofthe second version of 1877 into his first manuscript, and in the case of a fundamental revision of longer passages just substituted individual pages.
The first version of the Third Symphony has no individual autograph of its own: the composer left other versions together with the alterations. Thus the autograph of the second version consists of sheets of two kinds: those with alterations that came from the first version, and those that were rewritten for the second version. Fortunately, the sheets bearing the first version have survived, enabling it to be reconstructed.
The Vienna Philharmonic, however, tumed down the symphony on the grounds that it was unperformable, causing the composer to begin making “extensive improvements” in 1874. After he had finished his Fifth Symphony, Bruckner commenced a fundamental revision of the Third, which was then performed at the end of 1877: it was a flop. In 1888 Bruckner turned yet again to the symphony and revised it once more, so that three versions of the work now exist.
It is quite clear what generally separates the first version from the later ones: not so much the thematic material, which in the case of the Third Symphony only affects the omission of the Wagner quotations from the Ring and Tristan in the first and fourth movements. For Bruckner, thematic substance was that sacred tradition of Viennese Classicism, which he adopted without question. It is only the representation that is differently formulated. The keyword here is processing material, which certainly rules out the ’improved’ character of later versions. Bruckner’s first versions are marked by an unconditional belief in periodic sections, which are identified as such and are divided by pauses (sometimes several bars in length) or breaks. They are harder to execute because the composer shows scarcely any consideration for playing styles and orchestral habits, and does not bother himself about which fingerings rapid arpeggios seem most suitable for. In structuring the first versions he adopts organ registration, which on four manuals places four different instrumental blocks against each other, to each of which different tasks are allotted.