OT: Dausgaard and Bergen Phil release excellent Bruckner 6 (BIS)

[erikwilson7]

One of the greatest challenges of conducting Bruckner (I assume) is making sense of his block-like architecture of symphonic composition. Thomas Dausgaard—someone we know as conducting one of the finest (if not THE finest) Cooke M10 on record—has somewhat of a specialty in conducting Late Romantic and early modernist music with a contemporary approach. He has recorded a fantastic cycle of the symphonies of Rued Langgaard with the DR SymfoniOrkestret (Dacapo), and from what I know, the first ever complete survey of Langgaard’s symphonic output. That alone is worth checking out. Only a few months ago Dausgaard released a rather noteworthy recording of Eine Alpensinfonie with the Seattle Symphony. Bruckner’s Sixth has a history of being known as the “ugly duckling” or “black sheep” of the nine (or eleven), a label sometimes designated to Mahler’s Seventh, although the comparison isn’t really fair considering Bruckner’s First and Second are subjectively inferior—and certainly less known—than his Sixth.

The second movement is almost without question the highlight of B6, and it’s difficult not to do it justice. How well does Dausgaard fare with the rest of the symphony? Well, for once he makes sense of it at a whole. The first movement or the finale seem to be where most conductors fail, and Dausgaard’s tempo relationships between each individual thematic group (or “block,” as I like to designate with Bruckner) make perfect sense to me. The symphony is seldom conducted and performed with such convincing craftsmanship. BIS, as usual, does an impressive job with the sound, and I can only really hope this becomes a cycle, though that doesn’t seem likely. It’s intriguing to hear Dausgaard experiment with pre-1900 music. I think the album cover alone says a lot about the way Dausgaard views Bruckner’s compositional style: stiff, block-like pillars that connect and become a coherent whole only through a particular perspective.

[akiralx]

It sounds excellent - my only concern is whether the Finale is too fast? Noting Bruckner’s marking.

[erikwilson7]

Come to think of it, Dausgaard does take it a bit zu schnell compared to what we’re used to, but on the whole it manages to make sense. I think that’s what he’s getting at here, that the sum is more important than its parts. In other words, the way he “bricks” each thematic group together makes it feel like a satisfying finale altogether, and that seems to be more important than how each theme group sounds individually. It’s certainly a fresh approach, which I think we need with Bruckner these days.

These are just my thoughts. I’d certainly welcome an alternative viewpoint. I think Dausgaard was wise to put effort into releasing a solid B6 as opposed to any other Bruckner symphony, save maybe the Second. If this turns out to be his only statement on Bruckner he has made a convincing argument.