Titbits about Bruckner Symphony No. 5

Recovered from last week's illness, I went back to work. Savio visited me a few days ago and we talked about Bruckner Symphony No. 5 as he is going to give a pre-concert talk for the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra's performance of this symphony on 16 April. He was kind and generous to invite me to co-host the talk, but I had to decline his offer because of my heavy engagement in my work in the College. He was thinking of how to make the talk more interesting.

I told him that last year when the HKPO performed Bruckner 8th, the young conductor Perry So delivered the pre-concert talk. He ran through the symphony movement by movement illustrated by musical excerpts of certain themes or section. Savio said it was the last method that he'd like to present his talk. He is a person who doesn't always like routines. He'd rather concentrate on certain interesting or controversial parts of the symphony. He asked if I had any suggestions. Not an easy question to answer.

One way to explore this symphony can be seen from Benjamin Zander's bonus CD accompanying his B5 CD, musing on the resemblance of the structure of this symphony to that of a cathedral, and the significance of it to his father during WWI. Interesting but is it going a little too far?

Another interesting point is to explain the role B5 is playing as sort of an intermediate between Bruckner's early symphonies and his late ones. How about B5 as one Bruckner symphony with not much difference between the Haas and Nowak editions, or one with only one performing "original" version known by now (the 1876 may never be able to be reconstructed in full)?

Still one further suggestion is to try to examine what the symphony will be like if the slow introduction to the first movement is cut. Or talk about Eugen Jochum's euphemistic "apostles" in the finale.

All these trifles have brought me to write something about Furtwangler's wartime recording of B5 and its many CD issues from various sound sources -- quite complicated yet interesting, particularly when the coming Testament issue is from a source never utilised for commercial release before.