The golden sunset -- Haitink's Bruckner 9 with the LSO.

Bernard Haitink first recorded Bruckner 9 with the Concertgebouw Orchestra back in 1965 and then again in 1981. A video recording of a performance of this pairing was made in March 2009. Now comes Haitink's only official recording of this symphony with an orchestra other than the Concertgebouw, recorded live on 17 and 21 March 2013. 

It brings much expectation from me as I very much like his recordings made in the last few years which exhibit such wisdom that appears to elude him in his earlier attempts, especially the Ninth.

All Bruckner recordings so far from the LSO Live label

Haitink's Bruckner has a satisfying sense of cohesion. So in a sense there is little that happens in this Bruckner’s Ninth that isn't thoroughly predictable from the start, particularly from such a venerable Brucknerian, but the recording is illuminated with such inner glow, warmth and sagacity that, I suppose, every lover of Bruckner’s music will treasure the experience through and through. Such is the magic that the understanding of life and death becomes internalized in the Brucknerian idiom, thanks to Haitink the octogenarian via the London Symphony Orchestra whose playing is indescribably beautiful. 

It is a performance that makes other more "savory" interpretations appear either too caramelised or too hysterical. The respect to death that Haitink shows is palpable throughout, more so in the Adagio which is very moving in its own right. On the other hand, he is against any extraneous attempt to complete Bruckner's unfinished Finale: "You have to respect life, but you also have to respect death". 

He is right, because this performance makes any attempts to complete the Finale unfortunately subliminally superfluous.

This disc becomes one of my favourite Bruckner 9 recordings.

A very happy ending to a courtship in sound and wisdom in Janowski's Bruckner cycle

Marek Janowski's Bruckner symphony cycle took a little more than 5 years to complete. These days when the vast majority of Bruckner recordings are live, this cycle in a sense comes as a surprise as all the recordings are not indicated as live.

The cycle began with B9 recorded and issued in 2007 and finished with B4 recorded in October 2012 and issued just recently. The following list shows the chronological order in which the recordings are released. All are recorded in Victoria Hall, Geneva, Switzerland. All are issued in hybrid SACD/CDs.

Symphony         Recorded in          Released in        Version/Edition
B9                      5/2007                   2007                    Nowak
B6                      1/2009                   2009                    Nowak
B5                      7/2009                   2010                    Nowak
B8                      4,6,7/2010             2010                    1890 Nowak
B7                      10/2010                 6/2011                 Nowak
B1                      6/2011                   4/2012                 Linz 1866 Nowak
B3                      10/2011                 9/2012                 1889 Nowak
B2                      10/2012                 6/2013                 1877 Carragan
B4                      10/2012                 11/2013               1878/1880 Nowak

If I have to use just a few words to describe this cycle, they are 'air', 'space' and 'contrast between mellowness and urgency'. The first two words refer to the recorded sound and the last phrase to Janowski's treatment of the symphonies. The sound is very pleasing in all the recordings, with air and space around each section of the orchestra, and with lovely warmth both of the orchestral sonority and in the hall ambience. Janowski imparts excellent limpidity and mellowness to the nine symphonies and the result is mesmerizing. However, as with all recorded cycles except perhaps Blomstedt's, there are bound to be some weak links. Less successful are B9 and B7, and I'd say it demands an acquired taste in B5 as well. Exceptional ones are B8 (recorded in 3 different months), B1, B2 and B3. The last one published, B4, provides a very happy ending to this cyclic endeavour.

On the SACD/CD the copyright date is 2013 (correct)

On the back cover, the copyright date is wrongly stated as 2010 which is earlier than the recording was made!

All in all, it is a lovely cycle that merits repeated listening, which I've been doing for quite some time.

Mono vinyl party

For those who follow my blog, I have to offer an apology for not updating it for more than 4 months. I asked myself why and I can only come up with one answer: a fiendish period of one new and arduous project, one yearly time-engulfing academic exercise, two trips and a new turntable. I haven't forgotten Bruckner during this time. In fact, apart from the first two things mentioned above, the last two endeavours are intricately interwoven with my deep interest in Bruckner. I'll leave these to future posts.

Let me start with reporting a very interesting party today: a listening session dedicated to mono LPs. It was a very pleasant morning as I could meet some good old friends. All of them are veteran classical music fans. They came over because they were interested in auditioning how these mono LPs would sound when played via a mono cartridge in general, and comparing their sound when a stereo cartridge was used in particular. In fact the 'stereo setup' in my friend's office is about 20 times more expensive than my humble 'mono setup'. The cartridge in question is the Audio Technica AT33Mono (45th Anniversary edition).

The result is stunning. The mono cartridge won our hearts overwhelmingly in all the mono records.

The listening area in my friend's office

AT33Mono (45th Anniversary edition)

You won't believe it is mono in Fricsay's Verdi Requiem recording

Vintage Bruckner recordings issued in both mono and stereo in the good old days

Here is the playing list (unless otherwise stated, all are in mono):

1) Mendelssohn violin concerto; Beethoven Romances 1&2

        Menuhin / Furtwaengler BPO/Philharmonia

        HMV ALP 1135 (Made in Gt. Britain) (Red-Gold label)

 Recorded 25-26 May 1952

2) Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6

        Mravinsky / Leningrad Philharmonic

        DGG LPM 18334 (GY3)

        Recorded June 1956

3) Verdi Requiem

        Fricsay / RIAS SO

        DGG 18155/56 LPM (GY3)

        Recorded 22-26 Sep 1953

4) Dvorak New World Symphony

        Reiner / Chicago SO

        RCA Victor Red Seal LM-2214 (Red Shaded Dog label)

        Recorded 1958

5) Mendelssohn & Tchaikovsky violin concerti

        Francescatti / Mitropoulos / NYPO

        Philips Minigroove ABL 3159 (Made in England) (First label)

        Recorded 1955

6) Bruckner Symphony No. 4

        Kertesz / LSO

        Decca LXT 6227 (Orange-Silver) (Mono) and SXL 6227 (WBg ED2) (Stereo)

        Recorded 20,21,22,25 Oct 1965

7) Bruckner Symphony No. 6

        Klemperer / The New Philharmonia

        Columbia 33CX 1943 (Semi-Circle) (Mono) and SAX 2582 (Semi-Circle) (Stereo)

        Recorded Nov 1964

8) Bruckner Symphony No. 9

        Mehta / VPO

        Decca LXT 6202 (Orange-Silver) (Mono) and SXL 6202 (WBg ED1) (Stereo)

        Recorded 3-7 May 1965 

In the comparison of mono vs stereo versions of the same recording (the Bruckner records), either version has its own merits in the Decca records. The mono versions have a more life-like timbre of the instruments while the stereo versions show their exuberance in more colourful orchestral passages. However, for the Klemperer Bruckner 6 on Columbia (EMI), the stereo version sounds much better: mellower and less rugged.

Thank you pals for a very enjoyable morning.