 | 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.
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