Here's my crazy ramblings about Bruckner...
Someone was kinda enough to burn me a copy many moons ago, but I still recently picked Klemperer's Bruckner 8th on LP at a book fair last month. I love this paragraph from the program notes:
...Additionally, upon thoughtful re-examination and study of Bruckner's score of the Eighth Symphony, Dr. Klemperer made certain cuts in the last movement. Wrote the maestro" "In the last movement of Bruckner's Eighth Symphony I have made cuts. In this instance it seems to me that the composer was so full of musical invention that he went too far. Brucknerians will object, and it is certainly not my intention that these cuts should be considered as a model for others. I can only take the responsibility for my own interpretation."
For me, his cuts don't quite work. But it is interesting. I admire a conductor for taking a stand now-and-then. Bernstein threw those weird glissandi type things in the first movement to the Mahler 9th (they work for me), Szell did that positively weird cut in the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra (bad idea!),but...why not? Take chances!
I've always loved Bruckner. He may not even be a so-called "great" composer, but I still love him. He's probably more innovative than we even realize. I credit him with being an early minimalist, even if minimalists don't!
Like Barry, I probably prefer the B9 over the M9. It's an hour of music that is sooooo seamless. I'll go in thinking, "I'll chill to this for a few minutes. Then, an hour later, I want to start it going again." I thought I once read a quote from Daniel Barenboim saying that when he first heard the B9 scherzo, he thought it was Shostakovich. I don't quite hear THAT connection, but it's a visionary work. I love that passage in the last movement that sounds like Bruckner stole it from Ralph Vaughan Williams Tallis Fantasia, even though Bruckner obviously wrote it first. Like Barry said, thank goodness he never finished it.
I have a small point to quibble with Barry's (already described as half-serious) observation that Mahler couldn't have been that into Bruckner. I really wonder if anyone from that time period really understood his music because the editions had so many culprits screwing things up. What was that guy's name, (Schalk?,) who changed the massive chord at the climax of the B9? No one really caught if for years. Similarly, the B5 was also screwed with. Ideally, I'd love to see a conductor from Bruckner's time write in a journal or something, "I thought I understood this Bruckner, but these passages just don't seem true to him." That's why I admire Klemperer's decision to go with a cut. I doesn't sound right to me, but he's taking a stand. His B4, 5, 6, and 7 are among the best, so it's not like he's ill-informed on Bruckner. I'd like to hear Klemperer's B9 someday.
Bruckner may not have even understood his own works. Sometimes his first impressions are best, other times, a later view seems better. It's really too bad he got in the middle of the infamous Brahms vs. Wagner debate. For me, he's pretty far removed from either. But I always thought it was an interesting point someone made that the B5 has practically that same instrumentation as the Brahms Second, just larger numbers. Yet, he always gets the Wagnerian tag glued to him because of his late works.
Last unorthodox thought...
Perhaps we have only in the past 50 or 60 years seen the true advocates of his music come out. It's probably hyperbole, but if given a choice of a ride in a time machine to hear Furtwangler do Bruckner or Skrowaczewski today, I'd pick Skrowaczewski.
