Anton Bruckner
Symphony No 3 (1877)
BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra
Jascha Horenstein, conductor
broadcast
Cheltenham July 3, 1963
Who knew? Until now the Bruckner Symphony 3 to me was a little like the Sibelius, Brian and Shostakovich 3rds: worthy of a polite listen, but I was really waiting for the next numbered one to get played.
This recording brings the symphony into focus for me. The B3 is now in my top five Bruckners for what Horenstein does with it here. He clears up the sonic arguments by making some key voicings come to the fore in a logical, progressive way. It simplifies the large scale connect-the-dots puzzle that most Bruckner symphonies can be made of.
I have a similar debt to Barbirolli, whose Mahler 7th BBC Legends recording (with some of the same forces!!) made the structure of that symphony clear in such a way that it has been my fave by that composer ever since.
It is Horenstein, after all, so expect impetuous surges. His work here and elsewhere frequently deserves the label 'volcanic', but with a firm lower register unity when needed- none of that overdone sfumato in the bass regions. Sometimes Bruckner's tonal world is well served by softer attacks, and those disappear into the fabric without undue attention, but overall this is a performance of the awake, tautly involved sort.
EDIT: My enthusiasm got the better of me here again. I listened a few times, got crazy and did not check the availability. Though my admiration for the BBC Legends series is boundless, lately I've not kept up on the releases.
This is available from BBC Legends, although the recording downloadable here is an alternate broadcast source (as evidenced by the partial announcements) and is in any case too good to miss. Please, anyone interested, use this one as an appetizer before getting the official release!
In any case, thanks to Iodekka for procuring this one and making it available.
Keep sharing, free.
11 comments:
mp3s
http://www.mediafire.com/?zhbj2blfc46gabq
Thanks Guillermo
For this special recording. I just love Bruckner and his 3rd is fascinating. I just love the 1877 version.
Ron
Guillermo! Was I reading your mind or did you just take a request? :) I'm glad you love the Bruckner 3rd now --- it was the first of his symphonies I heard and in my case it was love at first hearing. (I still rate it above the 5th and the 9th.)
As for the performers: Horenstein in Bruckner is great --- the only thing I'm wondering is whether this performance is the same as the 1963 BBC Legends issue (same performance? different recording source?) I ask only out of curiosity as I see nothing wrong with sharing it even if it is the same. (And speaking of BBC Legends CDs, that Barbirolli Mahler 7th was the one that did it for me as well.)
Thanks for posting this one (I have never recovered from the Japanese Celibidache Bruckner 4th you shared.) And I hope this is a sign that you'll be blogging more regularly again (Statework was the first classical blog I discovered so it remains close to my heart ...)
You're right, maready!
*blush, toe kick at dirt*
My enthusiasm got the better of me here again. I listened a few times, got crazy and did not check the availability; my admiration for the BBC Legends series is boundless, but lately I've not kept up on the releases.
This is available from BBC Legends, although the recording downloadable above is an alternate broadcast source (as evidenced by the partial announcements) and is in any case too good to miss. Please, anyone interested, use this one as an appetizer before getting the official release!
You know, maready, the Bruckner 6th is the one I've always had a soft spot for.
G ---
BBC Legends is no longer in business, although some of the CDs are still around ... I have this CD but hadn't listened for awhile. I downloaded your post and --- WOW! what a taut, exciting performance. That timpani in that first fortissimo in the introduction had me pinned against the wall!
Anyway, I wasn't casting doubts upon your sharing standards, I was just momentarily confused, as you made reference in the text both to the BBC Legends label and a Barbirolli performance they issued. By all means, spread the word about Bruckner's Third (and Hornestein's Bruckner, which is not as well-known as his Mahler.)
The original source of the BBC broadcast undoubtedly was a home taper to begin with; the BBC didn't keep their archives in very good shape and most of the BBC Legends releases came about in just this way (there is even a contact address/email on the CDs asking for submissions ... )
Bruckner's Sixth is my favorite as well! I'm writing something about it at the moment for my own blog and will undoubtedly be posting an (out-of-print :) commercial CD performance to go along with it since I don't collect broadcasts. And again --- (just to be clear!) --- when I first saw this post, I thought at first it was a question of a newly-found 1963 Horenstein performance (which is not inconceivable) --- that's why I asked about the CD.
Looking forward to your upcoming installments ....
Here is Bruckner Sym. #6, the London Symphony conducted by Horenstein, Nov. 21, 1963.
There is some issue about the orchestra and date, but it has been confirmed that the orchestra is the LSO, not the LPO as some have said; and that the 1964 date often attributed is the BBC broadcast date, not the performance date. The remaining dispute is whether this is from a concert on Nov. 21, 1963 or Nov. 21, 1961. Horenstein's assistant Joel Lazar could not help, but he was only with the conductor from 1970 on.
Included in this download is a bonus spoken-word track, by composer Robert Simpson in 1973 in honor of Jascha Horenstein after his death that year.
Good-sounding mono; four movements plus the Simpson track: five FLACs:
http://www.mediafire.com/?lm9oelt9x6v90
Thanks GP49!
Don't seem to be able to download this - no visible link, but this is the UK, anyway, and it may be barred. The original source tape, when re-broadcast by the BBC, was announced as a semitone sharp. Since none of the comments notes this, your copy may well be corrected for pitch. I haven't heard the BBC Legends CD and it seems to be difficult to obtain even here, but I did tape the BBC (sharp) broadcast. And this was, so said the BBC, the first UK broadcast of the edition Horenstein uses - until then, all we ever heard broadcast was the 1889 version, which is, in comparison, a torso, but still the most often played.
I have just downloaded Horenstein's Bruckner 6th, which I previously had in a poor-sounding recording. I am interested in the source of this much-better-sounding dub: is it off the radio, a copy of a BBC tape, or what? It simply needs to be better known.
Belated thanks, GP! lcats, if I may, I have some information GP posted about this recording (which certainly deserves a more prominent position in the public eye) :
"...[GP49's] friend ...generously provided the original, dubbed from cassette
tape. It's been edited and "freshened"; most dropouts and extraneous noises,
some of which sounded like the microphone got bumped, have been repaired or at
least ameliorated. In addition, the original sounded like some kind of dynamic
range expander had been switched ON during the first minutes of the first
movement, then was shut off resulting in an abrupt change in volume. That had
to be addressed, so that the "join" would not be audibly evident..."
This is so much a better-sounding dub than what I had. The Japanese also put it out on a private CD under the World Musical Express label, but I have not heard that one. Would you know if this Japanese issue is somehow related to the cassette tape?
Thanks
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