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12-05-2023 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,226
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 1
Post ID: 27309
Reply to: 27309
... and some Bruckner buzz
A friend sent me a link to an interesting video about Bruckner on analog. I do not know who the guy is; he is a Bruckner devotee, which is good. I'm afraid I must disagree with his choices, although I certainly enthusiastically support his appreciation of Carl Schuricht.
 
A few things, in my view there are no good-sounding Bruckner LPs, period. I feel his views about good sonics of many Bruckner LPs from 50 and 60 I do not share.  Another thing that bothers me about this presentation. Please stop that nonsense about Bruckner and Mahler as some kind of German pseudo-intellectual package. That is rubbish.  Their whole marriage started in the late 30s. I believe it was Bruno Walter who published an article about this position. I think at that time, it was fine as Bruno Walter had done a great job of promoting Bruckner and Mahler's music. But it, again, in my view, has nothing to do with reality, and to me, one of the most incredible things about Bruckner is that his musk is not Mahler's music. I am not a Mahler hater; I like Mahler, but to put Mahler in the same bracket with Bruckner in any way or form is a monumental fallacy.



"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
12-09-2023 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,685
Joined on 10-12-2006
Post #: 2
Post ID: 27310
Reply to: 27309
Reasons for Poor LPs?
Romy, thanks for another nudge toward Bruckner. I was not at all aware of Schuricht before your post, and I do like what I heard of his 8th and 9th via headphones, off the computer, although I realize this is a just thumbnail version. You have said several times that there is no good Bruckner from LPs, and I remember you complained a while back that your Jubilee cartridge was acting up, and I wondered if this made Bruckner harder for you to get from LPs. If you feel, as I do, that Sound is very important for Bruckner appreciation, then you also think "the best" recorded performances must be replicable. I have to pay close attention to set up to get the performance from my old London 7th LPs, using my old, refurbished MC 3000 II cartridge.

Best regards,
Paul S
02-02-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,685
Joined on 10-12-2006
Post #: 3
Post ID: 27326
Reply to: 27310
Bruckner 8 Performances, CDs
I think I have 3 versions of Bruckner 8, 2 performances on CD. 1 CD is Carl Schuricht/Stuttgart, 1954, and the other is Herbert von Karajan/Vienna, 1988. The Karajan CD sounds better through my system, and I also prefer it in terms of the performance, itself, at this point. As someone who has wanted to really hear Bruckner for some time I am now awash in B's 8th Symphony. What a magnificent piece of Music! I sort of snuck up on this symphony by listening to a poor mono LP set I've had for a long time. When I finally heard the Karajan/VPO/'88 CD I was totally hypnotized! If this Adagio doesn't lift you, it may be you have no soul! I am amazed that Bruckner adds to his sonorities here in a new way, building on orchestral "chords" by introducing lower frequencies and then bringing in higher pitched sections playing the harmonics of the LF, and then riffing on the resultant chromatics. And the progressions are marvelous! It basically puts the thinking part of my brain out of commission and puts me into a sort of State of Transfixion. It might take a while before I can start piecing this symphony together. I remember in early listening that I could not "get" the fourth movement. Now I get "closure" from the 4th movement, such as it is, since it leaves me floating amongst The Heavenly Host. Lubeck is on the way!

Paul S
02-04-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
steverino
Posts 372
Joined on 05-23-2009
Post #: 4
Post ID: 27327
Reply to: 27309
Definitions
Romy,
 When you say no good sounding Bruckner LPs do you mean no "great" sounding, or that all Bruckner LPs sonics are average or worse? It would help if you gave an example of late 19th C Romantic music on LP that you did consider good or better. Also do you think there any good sounding Bruckner CDs?
For myself, if I'm using "good" as above average but not a demonstration recording, I would say the Mehta Symphony 9, the Karajan Symphony 4 on the EMI german gold postage stamp label and the Bohm Symphony 3 are good recordings. I am only talking about the recording not the performance.
I think it is very difficult to make a demonstration recording of any large orchestra playing late Romantic works whether on LP or CD.
I do strongly agree with you that the pairing of Bruckner and Mahler is quite lazy. I think Mahler took one class from Bruckner. He never did much for him as conductor and his music has little relationship to Bruckner's except for some Schubertian tendencies in the interior movements. But music criticism (as opposed to scholarship) is almost always extremely lazy in everything.
02-18-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,685
Joined on 10-12-2006
Post #: 5
Post ID: 27339
Reply to: 27326
Bruckner 8; Wand, NDR, Lubeck (1987)!
As for the Musical Part of this CD, it could hardly be more amazing. I understand that the performance was taped live by German Public TV, and this might well mean that there is a great DVD of this event. Harmonia Mundi was also involved, and I will try digging into this in the near future, to see if there are any leads to other good recordings of this performance. Here Wand commands a very large orchestra that is composed of crack musicians who are also athletes. They must have been exhausted after that performance, as Wand really drives them. Wand deftly tailors the sound and the Musical structure both to include the reverberation in the cathedral. He also uses the many sections of this orchestra to get special chromatics, texture, dynamics, consonance, harmony and dissonance. His timing is impeccable, very “organic”, and very much in sync with the space. Many music loving musicologists have raved at length about this performance, and I add my up-vote to theirs. I have said that this CD does not tax my system, but I should add that all components must be fully warmed up and at their best for me to get the best from this CD, because there is a lot of There there. Then the Music is huge, powerful, downright enveloping, and truly awe inspiring, with the touted “presence ambiance” from beginning to end, including the quietest to the loudest passages. This performance takes nearly 90 minutes, including the parts and the Whole of this great, mighty Symphony. This performance sets the bar pretty high for B8 aspirants.

Paul S
11-20-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,685
Joined on 10-12-2006
Post #: 6
Post ID: 27708
Reply to: 27339
Bruckner 9, Giulini/VPO 1988
I struggle to find words adequate to describe Bruckner 9 performed by the VPO, guided by Carlo Maria Giulini in 1988. I think I have to use the term “Celestial” to conjure the sheer scale and the magnificence of this symphony. Giulini has a good idea of how he wants the symphony to sound, and the VPO delivers for him, Big Time. It is very much a matter of power and scale here, but it also involves the voicing of ever-shifting ensembles that continuously range up and down the frequency/sound spectrum, loud to soft and back with no hesitation, and I am sure it is a real exercise for the musicians. Something wonderful about the performance to me is that the musicians are so adept that they never sound strained or show-y, but the symphony just sort of appears continuously out of the sky (Celestial). People complain about DG sound, but the sound and atmosphere of the live performance are well captured here, and it does not diminish the important spiritual nature of this symphony. Run, don’t walk to get a copy of this. 
  Paul S 
11-20-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,226
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 7
Post ID: 27709
Reply to: 27708
It is what it is.
Yes, the Bruckner 9 by VPO and  Giulini in 1988 is one of those few recordings why I do practice High-End audio. The opening of the 3rd movements is probably the best play I ever heard committed to recording media and one of the best compositions by mankind, in my view. The sound of DG of course is typically horrible, dry, grainy burned-out, the typical DG crap.

However, there is a trick. Milq/Macongo can rectify it. One of the reasons because I for years tuned my playback to play exactly this recording. However, my playback needs to have exceptionally good electricity day to play it. When it does happen a few times a year I always pull my Giulini  B9 and I always play it and it sounds spectacular. I have seen some very strange effects with sound when I play this recording on a good electricity day. I remember it was good 15 years back and it was in the middle of a snow blizzard. The electricity was amazing and I pulled my Giulini’s B9 and it sounded beyond belief.  On that night, adding +10-12DB to my ULF channel did not make any difference in the auditable result. Very interesting….

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
11-21-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,685
Joined on 10-12-2006
Post #: 8
Post ID: 27713
Reply to: 27709
System Requirements
Funny you should especially mention the opening of the 3rd (and final) movement (Adagio) as being demanding of your system. Bruckner uses a lot of high-pitched violin tremolo, huge banks of violins, often flanked by FFFF piccolos at the highest frequencies, and at the opening of the 3rd in B9 Guilini/VPO '88 this sound should be well sorted and "in space". Like you, I need everything in the system to be at its best in order to have space around those HF notes/chords. I cannot "get" this Music unless my gear has been played at least an hour ahead of it, and bad electricity sinks it. You mention you have kept this Music as a pole star over time. I recently changed S/PDIF IC hoping to better sort Bruckner HF. Too bad that examples of "well recorded" massed violin HF are thin on the ground.

Paul S
11-22-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,226
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 9
Post ID: 27714
Reply to: 27713
It is not what I meant.
 Paul S wrote:
Funny you should especially mention the opening of the 3rd (and final) movement (Adagio) as being demanding of your system. Bruckner uses a lot of high-pitched violin tremolo, huge banks of violins, often flanked by FFFF piccolos at the highest frequencies, and at the opening of the 3rd in B9 Guilini/VPO '88 this sound should be ….

Paul, it has nothing to do with the number of violins, with frequencies or with sound. The opening is VERY complex from  musical, ethnical and philosophical perspective. The way how sonically one can make it to sound is completely up to the owner of the any given system.

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
11-22-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,685
Joined on 10-12-2006
Post #: 10
Post ID: 27717
Reply to: 27714
Tha Part of Sound in Music (for myself)
Granting that I misunderstood your post, without getting too windy, it is in fact sound that I process that conveys the Message, and for me the Sound and even parts of Sound are relevant to the interpretation of the Music. Agreed it might be any instruments playing anything, but my experience with interpreting B9 from the CD in question is as stated. As I have speculated many times, there are probably people who could get a lot from B9 hearing it streamed through earbuds. Not I. Re-reading, it still reads to me as though you especially tuned your playback to deliver the Message to you from the B9 CD in question?

Best regards
Paul S
12-19-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,685
Joined on 10-12-2006
Post #: 11
Post ID: 27770
Reply to: 27717
B9, Jochum, Staatskapelle Dresden, 1982, LP
From the start this recording sounds to me as though Jochum is "accommodating" his orchestra. While the rendering is deft in terms of promoting the main themes, much of the special-to-Bruckner alternate themes, complex groupings and chromatics are subdued here, seemingly in the interests of getting the recording done in as few takes as possible, or perhaps I am reading into it and this is just the way Jochum hears the symphony, himself. Not to denegrate the playing, which is good enough, rather it is not Giulini/VPO. I had listened to 1/2 of this Adagio with headphones before I ordered the LP, and I liked the way the strings took the lead so decisively, in a spare, "modern" way. Too bad it did not come across as well via my big rig. For all we might suppose, the LP here has much less "dynamic range" than the Giulini DG CD. Again, I think this has more to do with the interpretation than the recording, per se, but I thought I'd mention it. If this is David Hurwitz' favorite B9, I wonder why. I should listen to him (and this recording) again. I am still a long way from understanding this symphony, but I have 4 other versions of B9 that I like at least as well as this one. The LP is an original from Angel (EMI), with good surfaces.

Paul S
12-22-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
dady
Posts 7
Joined on 07-28-2005
Post #: 12
Post ID: 27779
Reply to: 27309
Mahler Vs Bruckner and Bruckner in LP
Dear Romy, this morning, after a long time away from listening, due to an explosion of lead acid batteries in my rustic house, which left me with a detuned ear, the high D of my flute sounded like an out-of-tune E flat, imagining that a fortissimo from a Bruckner symphony was a cracker of noise inside my brain. This led me to listen to music with few harmonies and jazz and some chamber music where low sounds predominated. Having said this as an excuse, I have accidentally entered this post in which Bruckner and Mahler are compared or put in the same box. Music is a psychoacoustic process that gradually educates sectors of our cerebral cortex, I only feel this, I have not read it, I am an intensive care doctor, still active, soon to retire. Tired. However, the phenomenon of music is, I believe, the most important thing in terms of experiences that I believe go beyond the simple cortical interpretation by our brain. I have been listening to music since I was a child and I have gone through all the musical currents, reaching dodecaphony, which I still cannot experience as art. When we say that Bruckner is better or worse than Mahler, we are making a comparison of two different currents, Mahler is the inexorable continuation of Wagner, it is possible that in another period of my life I would not have understood it, the same happened to me with Anton. They are different styles, I am not a musicologist and I cannot speak of the complexity that they developed but I can assure you that Gustav is something sublime, overflowing and very, very exciting. The climates that are achieved with his music are of a higher dimension. But on the other hand, I can assure you with my hand on my heart, that this is a passage of my existence, perhaps on another, a different day with previous experiences, which I cannot establish a correspondence to make them coincide, something changes inside, and Bruckner appears again. Or the genius of Hamburg, the romantic Brahms, the musician above all others. And at some unexpected moment the genius of Leipzig emerges again, performed on piano for example. So to be able to affirm that one is better than another you have to be very prepared, I think you would have to be an orchestra conductor or a musician. Although the definitions would come from the theory and analysis of harmony and/or counterpoint. Regarding Bruckner on LP it is a bottleneck, the dynamic range of a symphony cannot be extrapolated to an LP. Anyway, I take this opportunity to greet you and other readers of this post to which I will surely return soon. Esteban
12-23-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,226
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 13
Post ID: 27786
Reply to: 27779
Bruckner vs Marler as a medical diagnose.
 dady wrote:
Dear Romy, this morning, after a long time away from listening, due to an explosion of lead acid batteries in my rustic house, which left me with a detuned ear, the high D of my flute sounded like an out-of-tune E flat, imagining that a fortissimo from a Bruckner symphony was a cracker of noise inside my brain. This led me to listen to music with few harmonies and jazz and some chamber music where low sounds predominated. Having said this as an excuse, I have accidentally entered this post in which Bruckner and Mahler are compared or put in the same box. Music is a psychoacoustic process that gradually educates sectors of our cerebral cortex, I only feel this, I have not read it, I am an intensive care doctor, still active, soon to retire. Tired. However, the phenomenon of music is, I believe, the most important thing in terms of experiences that I believe go beyond the simple cortical interpretation by our brain. I have been listening to music since I was a child and I have gone through all the musical currents, reaching dodecaphony, which I still cannot experience as art. When we say that Bruckner is better or worse than Mahler, we are making a comparison of two different currents, Mahler is the inexorable continuation of Wagner, it is possible that in another period of my life I would not have understood it, the same happened to me with Anton. They are different styles, I am not a musicologist and I cannot speak of the complexity that they developed but I can assure you that Gustav is something sublime, overflowing and very, very exciting. The climates that are achieved with his music are of a higher dimension. But on the other hand, I can assure you with my hand on my heart, that this is a passage of my existence, perhaps on another, a different day with previous experiences, which I cannot establish a correspondence to make them coincide, something changes inside, and Bruckner appears again. Or the genius of Hamburg, the romantic Brahms, the musician above all others. And at some unexpected moment the genius of Leipzig emerges again, performed on piano for example. So to be able to affirm that one is better than another you have to be very prepared, I think you would have to be an orchestra conductor or a musician. Although the definitions would come from the theory and analysis of harmony and/or counterpoint. Regarding Bruckner on LP it is a bottleneck, the dynamic range of a symphony cannot be extrapolated to an LP. Anyway, I take this opportunity to greet you and other readers of this post to which I will surely return soon. Esteban
Listening to Bruckner and Marler helped me identify what I value in music. I do not like Marler, I respect him immensely. I appreciate and like how he converts his personal attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder into wonderful music, and I am amazed at how creative and talented he is. Still, for me, it is just like admiring the athletes from the paralympic. I have a huge respect for somebody who with no legs doing a marathon or with no hands playing table tennis, but still, it is not what I care about. In my view, Bruckner in 3 notes and one pose has expressed more than the entire Mahler with his neurasthenic music

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
12-23-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
dady
Posts 7
Joined on 07-28-2005
Post #: 14
Post ID: 27787
Reply to: 27786
Continuing the post
Dear Romy, I love the way you express yourself without anesthesia. The world had become and is becoming too correct in its forms and it is appreciated to find people who express themselves without mincing words. For a long time I have tried to enjoy Mahler but I always came across boredom. Bruckner has been more of the same, except for the fourth symphony which had the form "of" a symphony. I also could not tolerate Wagner, I listened to some parts, but once after a colleague asked me to transfer the tetralogy from CD to vinyl, the stylus got dirty and I had to start over, it was with Karajan's Valkyrie, that repetitive effect in my brain, unexpectedly opened doors of listening and enjoyment. Unexpectedly, Mahler then Bruckner but the first, slowly transformed, also unexpectedly, into an incredible source of sensations. I recommend that you listen to the Second several times, but several times, the Fourth, it's a piece of cake and the Sixth seemed like a piece of crap to me, it seemed horrible, now I'm discovering it, and the Eighth, my God, there's a version of Lausanne on Bluray, which has an impossible dynamic range, but be careful, it's not something so simple, it's not Beethoven or Mozart who occupied 10 exclusive years of my life. After my absence from music for two years, the music was already in my brain, I already enjoyed it just thinking about it, remembering how it happened, and now I can assure you that Mahler is something that had nothing to do with neurasthenia. Mahler only composed when he was on vacation, he left his family to go exclusively to compose, his wife cheated on him with all his friends, and on top of that he knew it. He was so, so committed to his work that he would hit musicians with a stick and that's why he only lived exclusively for his work. He was an incredible professional, he transformed the Vienna Symphony from a band of out-of-tune outlaws into a professional orchestra which became one of the most important in the world. There is a lieder called Krugerlieder, it will blow your mind, with Thielemann and Elina Garanca. Don't give up, you deserve the mastery of the genius Gustav, patience Romy. Merry Christmas.
12-27-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
steverino
Posts 372
Joined on 05-23-2009
Post #: 15
Post ID: 27805
Reply to: 27779
Wagnerism
 dady wrote:
  When we say that Bruckner is better or worse than Mahler, we are making a comparison of two different currents, Mahler is the inexorable continuation of Wagner, it is possible that in another period of my life I would not have understood it, the same happened to me with Anton. They are different styles,  

To begin with, enjoy any music that you like. However I don't think Mahler's music can be accurately described as the "inexorable continuation" of Wagner's music. The neo Wagnerian style was almost all derived from Tristan and Parsifal and can be heard with many German and some French composers between 1885 - 1910. Richard Strauss' first opera Guntram is very neo Wagnerian as an example. Other examples are Franz Schreker, Alexander Zemlinsky, early Alban Berg and Schoenberg (pre 1910). Bruckner dedicated his Symphony 3 to Wagner and was devoted lifelong to his music despite being clueless about the opera stagings. There is far more of Beethoven Sym 9, late Schubert and Schumann in Mahler. Obviously German composers from 1860 on were using the chromatic harmonic techniques developed by Liszt and Wagner, but that is more of a harmonic progression type effect that was extremely widespread in central European music of that era except for the dedicated followers of Brahms. Stylistically also much of Mahler's music has a sarcastic ironic flavor to it completely lacking in Wagner and most Romantic composers, since satire is rather the negation of the romantic. Even Mahler's vocal music is not particularly Wagnerian in style and he composed no operas.

It is interesting that his contemporaries, many of whom were Wagnerians, were bothered by Mahler's music far more than by Bruckner. What concerned them was what they viewed as a complete lack of taste rather than any harmonic tendencies. To give an example, in the first movement of Mahler's Sym 2, which is supposedly a funeral march, there are half a dozen cymbal crashes in the opening minutes and quite a few more throughout the movement. Nowadays listeners don't stop to think how odd it is to have a funeral march with constant cymbal crashes! Also his use of trumpets was seen as inappropriate since they were often given rather sentimental themes, as can be heard in the middle movements of the Sym 2. We might say that Mahler was the first "Selfie" composer but that is in sync with current times.
12-27-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,226
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 16
Post ID: 27807
Reply to: 27805
And Jesus Christ agreed with my argument. :-)
What bothers me the most in Mahler that he was the first "audiophile" composer and he frequently go for exclusivity instead of a metaphor. It is a way how Leonard Cohen use to say: "I cannot feel but I can touch"....

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
12-27-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
steverino
Posts 372
Joined on 05-23-2009
Post #: 17
Post ID: 27808
Reply to: 27807
I like that
Mahler is the first audiophile composer. How true!
12-28-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
dady
Posts 7
Joined on 07-28-2005
Post #: 18
Post ID: 27811
Reply to: 27805
Not an inexorable continuation.
Hi, I never said inexorable, obviously he learned and said it, he has written it in different places, Mahler, when I speak I do not speak of what others say or think, it is only the passage of time in my cerebral cortex with listening to music. 
Before I didn't realize what it was, nor did I realize what Wagner was like, but since my auditory praxis, so to speak, even after my accident, I didn't realize it. Now it has become a joy, something that Gustav inspired me to compose now produces an extreme and inexplicable joy in me. I can't establish with certainty that what can be considered elaborate from the harmonic point of view is pleasing to my capacity for impression. That's why I continue to be impressed by Bach, who in another era seemed primitive to me with all the baroque behind him, experiences are the most important thing, I don't know if you've ever heard Astor Piazzolla, it's possible that in musical analysis I'm rudimentary. However, it impacts me on the waterline.
Something I learned is, and for sure, that time spent listening educates the ear.
Music is the art capable of transmitting all emotions, from the most sublime to the most unpleasant.
I send you a cordial greeting and thank you for responding. Esteban
12-28-2024 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,226
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 19
Post ID: 27814
Reply to: 27811
Not only
 dady wrote:
 
Something I learned is, and for sure, that time spent listening educates the ear. 
. It educates ear, mind, subconscious, expenses boundary of aesthetics and ethics, reflects on philosophy and in the end the actions ..

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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