Anton Bruckner: Eleven Symphonies
by William Carragan
Published 2020
236 pp
Bruckner Society of America
Stephen Barber reviewed this book in January 2021, and with regard to those symphonies which exist in multiple forms, took mild issue with the author’s suggestion “that the music lover should choose three or four recordings of each symphony, preferably in different versions, and listen to them one after the other” and his perceived “disapproval of conflation”, leading to the conclusion “that mixing versions of the symphonies is not admissible”. I refer you his review for his interesting and knowledgeable thoughts on this issue.
Certainly Prof. Carragan’s book makes undertaking that approach easier than ever, in that “readers who do not read music can still listen to all of the musical examples and recognize the passages which define and distinguish the individual versions” by accessing the 330 examples via QR code read by smart phone; a brief introductory note explains how to use them. Those who prefer it, can instead do as I did and go the Bruckner Red Book website and access the samples there, listening through earphones or perhaps relaying them to a sound system via Bluetooth. Oddly, the sources of these extracts are not credited. The reader should be aware, too, that often the aural illustrations proceed beyond what is given in score form on the page, which sometimes provides just the beginning of the passage.
William Carragan’s credentials for this magnum opus are impressive; he has edited the Second Symphony in two versions for the Collected Edition, prepared a performing variant of 1874 of the Third Symphony and variant editions of various other symphonies, and produced his own completion of the Ninth, of which Gerd Schaller has recorded the latest revision of 2010, in addition to recording his own completions of 2015 and the revised version of 2018 – and therein lies another debate regarding the desirability of a finale concocted by other hands. This is an argument into which Carragan simply does not enter; he merely supplies the musical quotations of the extant sketches with a commentary.
Of course the publication of this impressive tome gave hostages to fortune in that it opened up the way for would-be wits in certain quarters to hail the advent of a “Bible for Bruckner nerds”, the Holy Writ for folk who need to get out more. I have myself dared to speculate whether the proliferation of complete Bruckner recording cycles has not reached market saturation, but as SB observes, for those genuinely interested in the evolution of Bruckner’s musical thought and who find real pleasure in comparing and evaluating for themselves those changes made, this book is invaluable and renders previously scholarly achievements by such as Deryck Cooke and Robert Simpson all but redundant except for their historical significance. This is especially the case now that it is widely accepted that the alterations were not by any means necessarily imposed upon the unwilling composer by well-meaning friends and associates – or indeed sneaked by him without his consent – but that instead Bruckner was much more involved and instrumental in applying them than was previously thought.
In common with most Bruckner aficionados of my acquaintance, I take the approach that I do not so much mind which version of a symphony I am listening to as long as it is played with skill, artistry and conviction but obviously we all develop preferences; in recent years a movement towards rehabilitating “original” versions has gained ground, yet even the once-despised later editions of some symphonies – supposedly more the work of Schalk or Loewe – have been reconsidered as representing Bruckner’s own wishes. Carragan himself does not attempt to guide the reader towards what he considers the “best” versions; he espouses the view of the various versions expressed to him by Leopold Nowak – “Dies sind alle Originalfassungen!” (They are all original!) – and simply presents them all impartially, maintaining that “every version of each symphony has something wonderful and unique to offer”.
I refer above to the book rather archly as a “magnum opus” and indeed at first glance it might seem daunting but in fact, despite narrow margins, the typeface is large, the leading generous and the chapters short; it is eminently readable if you take one work at a time, using the musical illustrations and succinct text as your guides. Not only are all eleven symphonies presented, but also the string quartet, string quintet, Overture in G minor and the Symphonic Sketch of 1869 – so his instrumental music is comprehensively covered.
I found that the effect of traversing the many musical examples was primarily an enhancement of my appreciation for the complexity and invention of Bruckner’s imagination; right from the early works we are led to understand how devices such as the B2 inversion of the earlier A theme in the Overture in G minor set a pattern for later works, or how and why Bruckner’s codas are invariably so magnificent. Interesting, too, is the manner in which he recycled key musical tropes, such as the Marienkadenz first encountered in the Symphony in F minor – Carragan declines to employ the somewhat derogatory terms “Study Symphony” or “Die Nullte” for the D minor on the grounds of their merits – and which he used so effectively in the Adagios of the Third and Seventh symphonies; Rossini was not the only composer to upcycle good ideas. Whereas that F minor and the D minor symphony remained unrevised, the First, which came in between them, was subject to changes in 1877 and 1891, albeit mostly in subtle and detailed manner, and no fewer than fourteen examples document them. Some of the changes are indeed so minor that the average punter will find it hard to resist the impression that the composer was straining at a gnat. The Second Symphony was more extensively recast but before Carragan’s own edition removing anomalies it was usually played in either the Haas or Nowak “mixed version”; it essentially exists in two version from 1872 and 1877, both edited by the author. Crowning the plethora of changes made here is the sequence of five enhancements made over thirty years to the ‘finale peroration’, a development made very clear by the illustrations.
The longest chapters concern the Third and Fourth symphonies, for obvious reasons, they being by far the two most heavily revised. There are too many differences to comment upon, but certain things stand out for me, such as the illustration of the “canonic wind writing” in the first movement of the elaborated and unpublished 1874 version of the ‘Wagner Symphony’, edited by Carragan and which Gerd Schaller recorded in 2011. This was further modified in the 1877 version and, again, the musical clips make the development crystal clear, allowing the listener to decide a preference – or simply enjoy all the versions. The devoted Brucknerian might like to follow the alternatives in conjunction with listening to one of the recent issues of sets containing three versions of the Fourth, such as Jakub Hrůša on Accentus (review) or Gerd Schaller’s and Markus Poschner’s recordings of various versions of the two symphonies. It is also good to have all the Wagner quotations in the first, 1873 version of the Third picked out and clarified.
There is much less to be said about the String Quintet and the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Ninth symphonies regarding variants, so the book acts as a guide to their main elements. Regarding the Seventh, I quote the author in one of his few near-definitive statements: “The only ‘version’ issue in this [second] movement concerns the validity of the percussion, cymbals and triangle at measure 177 and of the rhythmic kettledrum at 177 for four measures ending in 181…most scholars today agree that all percussion should be kept.” So that’s that.
Matters become more complicated with the Eighth Symphony as the choice of which version to perform continues to divide conductors fairly equally between the Haas so-called “mixed” 1887/90 and the Nowak 1890 versions, which evince fairly substantive differences, and now the original 1887 version seems increasingly to be in favour. There is also the unpublished “1888 Variant “ prepared by Carragan and incorporating the Adagio edited by Dermot Gault and Takanobu Kawasaki, recorded by Schaller on the Profil label, which is presented not as a finalised score but more as a kind of record or snapshot of Bruckner’s thoughts as he progressed from the earlier to the later version, discounting the 1892 “revised version” as being more the work of Schalk than the composer.
One of the most obvious and striking differences between the 1887 and 1890 versions in the conclusion to the first movement which, in the latter, is a quiet Totenuhr without the brilliant, triumphant and defiant coda of the earlier score. This is illustrated with a “Listen here” audio sample which contrasts two uncredited orchestral performances rather than the computer-generated syntheses which form most of the examples, one older with the faintest pre-echo and another live. Both are thrilling, very different and a kind of paradigm for the choices among editions and recordings open to the Bruckner devotee – and indeed, I like and want to hear both. Again, the samples illustrating the differences between the original, the mixed and the later versions convince me that as much as I enjoy the earliest version, I am led to the conclusion that each of Bruckner’s subsequent changes further improved his music, but Prof. Carragan does not try to influence me as reader and listener; he remains neutral and simply gives me the opportunity to come to my own conclusions.
What changes Bruckner might have made to the Ninth remain pure speculation, as do, to a large extent, his intentions for the finale and as I have already said, despite the author’s intense involvement in the reconstruction of a fourth movement, that discussion does not form part of his brief in writing this book.
I freely admit to having found the reading of it to be a much easier and more rewarding experience than I feared, having been apprehensive regarding the degree to which it might prove more academic than diverting. The provision of the audio samples in tandem with the excerpts from scores render this highly approachable for any Brucknerian regardless of any musical acumen; it will also prove to be a handy reference and an invaluable guide for both the critic and the casual listener.
Ralph Moore
Previous review: Stephen Barber (January 2021)
Availability: Bruckner Society of America
