Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)
Symphony No. 3 in D minor (1873 version* & 1876 Adagio)
Philharmonie/Festiva/Gerd Schaller
rec. live, 14-16 March 2025, Regent Hall, Bad Kissingen, Germany
Profil PH25003 [2 CDs: 81]
The recordings of Gerd Schaller conducting the 1874, 1877 and the 1890 versions of Bruckner’s Third Symphony have already appeared on the Hänssler Profil label and two of those feature in my Bruckner shortlist of favourites. With the issue of this recording using the original score – the so-called “Wagner version” – Schaller moves nearer towards the completion of his Bruckner 2024 project to record all the symphonies in every version.
For this performance, Schaller scrutinised the copy of the duplicate manuscript score which Bruckner gave Wagner on the occasion of his visit to Bayreuth and made a few corrections to it, remedying misprints and removing superfluous dynamic markings. In essence, it remains close to the Nowak edition. The original score, according to Schaller’s note, differs from the 1874 version which he recorded in the late William Carragan’s edition in that the latter “is warmer and more nuanced. Bruckner further developed canonical structures, refined rhythmic details and made the instrumentation more colourful and, in places, even more opulent.” In short, as might be expected the earliest version is rawer and more epic, less sophisticated – which is not in any way to suggest that it is somehow “crude”. Likewise, the 1876 variant of the Adagio, discovered by Nowak, differs from the 1873 original in that it exhibits changes to instrumentation, the lengths of some passages are changed and the references to Wagner are “supplemented by another motif that unmistakably recalls Tannhäuser”.
Despite the continued prevalence of the 1877 version in concert, the original has gained ground in recent years and has received a number of notable recordings; my own preference remains for that first, longer version although I will happily listen to the symphony in any of his half a dozen forms.
The opening is brisk, urgent and presses forward in the manner which has characterised Schaller’s more recent Bruckner performances and was immediately noticeable in the live performance of the 1877 version in the same venue as here. This is a work Bruckner composed while in his late forties and is as such relatively “youthful”, so a more driven delivery is hardly inappropriate and I really like the way Schaller builds the long crescendo from around ten minutes towards a thrilling climax cut short by the flute’s little noodling before the slower middle section, which is graced by sensitive phrasing, judicious application of rubato and some splendidly sonorous brass playing. Also instantly apparent is the beauty of the orchestral sound, given an ambience by the engineers as close to a natural as any recording can hope to imitate.
If the opening of the first movement is notably propulsive, the Adagio here is in fact taken slightly slowly than most. The expectant pauses are given their due and the string playing is especially delicate and nuanced; it is evident that great care must have been taken in rehearsal to get those gradations of dynamics and balances between the five string groups right and lines of divisi writing for the violins are always audible. Once again, the horns are especially impressive, playing steadily and richly, without blips; alongside the splendid trombones they are in their pomp in the chorale from thirteen minutes up until the end. Executed so well, this Adagio stands comparison with any from the last symphonies.
The scherzo is warmer, more congenial, a little less demonic than some versions; the central Trio is particularly bucolic and good-natured, and the movement as a whole lilts engagingly. The finale is suffused with energy, the trumpets articulating fiercely and cutting through the violins’ rapid tremolo figure before we relax into the duple rhythm peasant dance. The various agitated passages for brass are striking but despite Schaller’s grip and concentration, it is still occasionally apparent that the movement has its longueurs and Bruckner was right to cut around 150 bars – some six or seven minutes if music – for his 1877 revision. Nonetheless, the coda and climax are grandly eloquent.
The bonus scherzo variant necessitates a second CD – although some labels are fitting more than the 81’28” here on to a single disc – and while its inclusion will be of interest to Bruckner nerds, I am not sure that either the differences from the 1873 and 1877 versions or its intrinsic quality merit its inclusion – but of course the mission here is to include everything in the project. It is also hard to judge its quality if one is already habituated to the others, but to my amateur ears, rather than corroborating the idea that Bruckner’s perpetual fiddling with scores was the product of pressure from without and his own and insecurity, it is rather testimony to Bruckner’s good judgement in revising it further. I certainly find some of the novel differences in instrumentation a little disconcerting and much prefer it without them, as it appears in either the preceding or subsequent editions.
Ralph Moore
*essentially Nowak with corrections by Gerd Schaller
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