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In the Forum: Musical Discussions
In the Thread: A “pocket version” of Bruckner.
Post Subject: The Wagner effect.Posted by Romy the Cat on: 12/4/2017
I need to add to what I said above that there is some exceptions if music is chosen to be played VERY slow.  I personally very much love any slower than usually interpretations. Unfortunately not a lot of them nowadays, not a lot of conductors have wisdom to do it and now a lot of orchestras are able to pull it off. 
 
For instance when we when during the spring to Berlin to listen their Philharmonic with Bruckner 8 then it was very much the “pocket version” of Bruckner. The Berliner Philharmoniker played spectacular and they cross all the t's and dot all the i's. It was of cause the celebrated Sir Simon Rattle with his typically boring and intellectually deprived interpretation that screwed everything up in my view. Also, it was the great sound of the New Philharmonia Hall. Do not get me wrong, the Berlin New Philharmonia Hall sounds very well but for… Mahler. It is over 250 sq. meters with reverberation time slightly over 2 seconds when the hall is full. Ii it just too fast for normal “tempo” to play Bruckner and to get the right feel of monumentalizm. 
 
The case to point. On 20 October 1990, Celibidache with München played B8 in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. The Suntory Hall is very much similar to Berlin New Philharmonic Hall but Celibidache went twice slower, in some moments painfully slow but painfully beautifully and the total result is like night and day. With Celibidache/Suntory version I have no feeling of “pocket version” at all.

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