Programming – April to June 2022

 

Highlights for the second quarter:

We will conclude the 222 day binge challenge with our bi-weekly OPera Alphabet share of Herodiade on April 9/10. Starting on April 1 we will reintroduce ITYWLTMT Montages as part of our daily programming, with more A La Carte and PTB/material left to re-broadcast. We will also contnue Friday do-overs of PTB and OTF themes until June.

Lenten programming continues until Easter Monday. The week of April 19 will be dedicated to the late Lorin Maazel with a pair of new podcasts.

May and June will have lots of arcs on Mendelssohn, Vivaldi and Brahms.

Here is our quarterly calendar (Link here to download):

Jochum conducts Bruckner: Symphony no. 8

 

No. 381 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT series of audio montages is this week's Tuesday Blog. It can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast381

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This week’s Tuesday Blog is a “Fifth Tuesday” podcast featuring Bruckner’s Eighth symphony, thus concluding our survey of the Jochum/DGG cycle from the 1960’s.

Bruckner's Symphony No. 8 in C minor is the last symphony the composer completed. This symphony is sometimes nicknamed The Apocalyptic, but this was not a name Bruckner gave to the work himself.

It exists in two major versions of 1887 and 1890. In September 1887, Bruckner had the score copied and sent to conductor Hermann Levi, one of Bruckner's closest collaborators, having given a performance of the Symphony No. 7 in Munich that was "the greatest triumph Bruckner had yet experienced".

However the conductor wrote back to Bruckner that he found the symphony “impossible to perform” in its current form. “As much as the themes are magnificent and direct, their working-out seems to me dubious”.

By January 1888, Bruckner had come to agree with Levi that the symphony would benefit from further work and completed the new version of the symphony in March 1890. Once the new version was completed, the composer wrote to Emperor Franz Josef I for permission to dedicate the symphony to him. The emperor accepted Bruckner's request and also offered to help pay for the work's publication.

By the time the 1890 revision was complete, Levi was no longer conducting concerts in Munich. As a result, he recommended that his protege Felix Weingartner. The premiere was twice scheduled to occur under the young conductor's direction during 1891, but each time Weingartner substituted another work at the last minute. Weingartner admitted, in a letter to Levi, that the real reason he was unable to perform the symphony was because the work was too difficult and he did not have enough rehearsal time: in particular, the Wagner tuba players in his orchestra did not have enough experience to cope with their parts. At last Hans Richter, subscription conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic, agreed to conduct the work. The first performance took place on 18 December 1892.

Today, Bruckner's Eighth remains somewhat controversial. This is a piece that is attempting something so extraordinary that if you're not prepared to encounter its expressive demons, or to be shocked and awed by the places Bruckner's imagination takes you, then you're missing out on the essential experience of the symphony.

If you think of Bruckner only as a creator of symphonic cathedrals of mindful - or mindless, according to taste - spiritual contemplation, who wields huge chunks of musical material around like an orchestral stone mason with implacable, monumental perfection, then you won't hear the profoundly disturbing drama of what he's really up to.

I think you will love this music too.

Jochum conducts Bruckner: Symphony no. 7

 

No. 380 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT series of audio montages is this week's Friday Blog and Podcast. It can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast380

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Today’s podcast continues our crossover portion of our survey of Bruckner symphonis under Eugen Jochum with his 1967 recording of the seventh symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic

The Symphony No. 7 in E major, one of the composer's best-known symphonies, was written between 1881 and 1883. It is dedicated to Ludwig II of Bavaria. Along with Symphony No. 4, the Seventh is the most popular Bruckner symphony both in the concert hall and on record. The symphony is sometimes referred to as the "Lyric", though the appellation is not the composer's own, and is seldom used.

The Seventh Symphony premiered in Leipzig on December 30, 1884, conducted by Arthur Nikisch who insisted (after hearing a piano version); “from this moment, I regard it as my duty to work for Bruckner’s recognition.”  The Leipzig performance had been great, and the following premiere in Munich, March 10 1885, was fantastic. This acclaim constituted a major turning point in his career. 

Symphony Seven was destined for a Viennese premiere shortly thereafter, but the composer asked that this plan be withdrawn or at least deferred, “because of the influential critics who would be likely to damage my dawning success.” As it is often the case with Bruckner symphonies he undertook a revision in 1885. Vienna finally heard the work on March 21, 1886, where Bruckner’s premonitions proved correct. Hanslick wrote, “the music is antipathetic to me and appears to be exaggerated, sick, and perverted.” Gustav Dompke (another critic) added, “We recoil with horror before this rotting odor which rushes into our nostrils from the disharmonies of this decomposing counterpoint.”  Audiences around the world, including those in Vienna, did not agree with the spiteful opinions, and the symphony became a decided, unassailable triumph. Jonathan Kramer summarized: “Bruckner’s special world of slow moving intensity, overpowering climaxes, and intimate lyricism nowhere found a more coherent or beautiful statement than in the Seventh Symphony.”

Interesting fact: an arrangement of this symphony for chamber ensemble was prepared in 1921 by students and associates of Arnold Schoenberg, for the Viennese "Society for Private Musical Performances. The Society folded before the arrangement could be performed, and it was not premiered until more than 60 years later.

I think you will love this music too

Jochum conducts Bruckner: Symphony no. 5

No. 379 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT series of audio montages is this week's Friday Blog and Podcast. It can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast379

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Throughout the month of March on our podcasting channel, we are featuring the Bruckner symphony cycle recorded by Eugen Jochum for Deutsche Grammophon in the mid-1960’s. Today’s Friday podcast is the first of three “crossover” chapters of that series.

The earliest recording from the DGG set, dating from 1958, is Jochum’s recording of the Fifth, with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. It was written in 1875–76, with minor changes over the next two years. It came at a time of trouble and disillusion for the composer: a lawsuit, from which he was exonerated, and a reduction in salary. Dedicated to Karl von Stremayr, education minister in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the symphony has at times been nicknamed the "Tragic", the "Church of Faith" or the "Pizzicato"; Bruckner himself referred to it as the "Fantastic" without applying this or any other name formally.

Jochum wrote in detail about the symphony's interpretive challenges, noting that, in contrast to the Seventh Symphony, "the climax... is not merely in the last movement but at the very end, in the chorale. ... The first, second and third movements seem almost a... vast preparation. ... The preparatory character applies especially to the first movement [whose] introduction ... is a large-scale foundation... destined to bear the weight of all four movements." As evidence, he detailed the way... the introduction's thematic materials function in later movements, and said the interpreter "must direct everything towards the Finale and its ending... and continually keep something in reserve for the conclusion."

Jochum also detailed tempo and its relationships and modifications as an element in achieving overall direction and unity, and regarded the quarter notes in the first-movement introduction as "the fundamental tempo". Also, he wrote that in the Finale's double fugue, "it is not enough to bring out themes as such [because] subsidiary parts would be too loud." To get the desired contrapuntal clarity, he detailed dynamic subtleties required.

I think you will love this music too.

Anton Bruckner, Eugen Jochum, 9 Symphonies (1958,1964-68)

This is my post from this week's Tuesday Blog.

This month, my only Tuesday post is this Cover2Cover share of the great late fifties/early sixties Bruckner symphony cycle by Eugen Jochum. Thanks to this cycle, along with a later cycle with the Staatskapelle Dresden, Jochum has established himself as an authority when it comes to Bruckner’s orchestral output.

A few years back, a thread on TalkClassical explored the relative merits of both these cycles and I won’t be feeding the debate here. In my personal collection, I have individual albums by Jochum from both cycles, and I also have a weak spot for Tintner’s cycle for NAXOS.

As I’ve discussed in other circumstances, when I consider a cycle release, I look for consistency and cohesion between the individual performances. What is unique about this DGG ensemble is that this cohesion is achieved with two different orchestras (as opposed to the single orchestra with the EMI set). We can haggle over individual symphonies (I like the fourth with EMI better, as I do the Eighth with DGG). There are no wrong answers, though.

Enjoy the complete set here from YouTube. For listeners of my podcast, I will be sharing all nine symphonies over 8 different episodes, three of which will cross over on our Friday series.

Happy Listening!

Anton BRUCKNER (1824-1896)
Symphony No.1 in C-, WAB101 (1, 1966)
Symphony No.2 in C-, WAB102 (2, 1967)
Symphony No.3 in D-, WAB103 ('Wagner') (2, 1968)
Symphony No.4 in Eb, WAB104 ('Romantic') (1, 1967)
Symphony No.5 in Bb, WAB105 (2, 1958)
Symphony No.6 in A, WAB106 (2, 1967)
Symphony No.7 in E, WAB107 ('Lyric') (1, 1967)
Symphony No.8 in C-, WAB108 ('Apocalyptic') (1, 1964)
Symphony No.9 in D-, WAB109 ('Unfinished') (1, 1966)

Berliner Philharmoniker (1)
Symphonie-Orchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks (2)
Eugen Jochum, conducting

Deutsche Grammophon – 469 810-2
(Reiisued, original recording dates as indicated)

DISCOGS - https://www.discogs.com/release/1091...n-Rundfunks-9-

Archive Page - https://archive.org/details/5-01-symphony-no.-5-in-b-flat-major