Search - Anton Bruckner, Jascha Horenstein, BBC Symphony Orchestra :: Bruckner: Symphony 5

A great reading by Horenstein, if short of Jochum's grandeur

David A. Hollingsworth | Washington, DC USA | 07/02/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The thing I like about Horenstein is his sense of flexibility (like Jochum, as a matter of fact). His reading of Bruckner's symphonies are rewardingly idiomatic & adds new dimensions of Bruckner's symphonic wrirings (Bruckner after all was passionate & dramatic, not just religious). Horenstein's performance of Bruckner's Fifth Symphony with the BBC Symphony Orchestra is both powerful & epic. His pace throughout is well-planned & thrust-forward, though sometimes he disallowed the music the breathe a little more, most especially in the Adagio (where the tempo is noticeably briskier than most conductors on record (especially Jochum). But Horenstein is consistent throughout, giving the first three movements a greater sense of epic & drama while maintaining Bruckner's sense of grandeur & architecture in the Finale. Moreover, Horenstein draws plenty of fire & passion from the BBC Symphony and the results are immensely rewarding.



And the BBC Symphony rise to the occassion (as they did with Bruckner's Ninth under Horenstein a year before-1970). Nothing but conviction is noticeable here & their feel & sensitivity to the music are all but dismissable. Unlike the Concertgebouw Orchestra or the Dresden Staatskapelle, both conducted by Jochum (under Tahra-2CD set & EMI respectively), the strings of the BBC Symphony lack some of the richness, blend, & weight while the brass sounds rather rustic & coarse in places. In short, Horenstein's performance with the BBC lacks the polish of Jochum (or even of Gunther Wand).



Minor fusses aside, nevertheless, Horenstein vision of the Fifth is not only powerful, but unique & it is refreshing for a conductor to say, rather implicitly, that "there are other dimensions of Bruckner worth cherishing." The recording sound was well-captured and the ovation at the end speaks for itself, and for the performance.



Warmly & enthusiastically Recommended!

"

Bruckner With an Attitude

Johannes Climacus | Beverly, Massachusetts | 09/25/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Horenstein's live Bruckner Fifth, taken from a BBC broadcast, must rank as one of the most searching accounts of this multifaceted score ever recorded. From the almost tactile tension of the very opening with its prominent pizzicato bass line over which the violins weave a songful, yearning counterpoint, one realizes that this is going to be an extraordinary performance. And so it is. With brisker than usual tempi and a dynamic, forthright manner, Horenstein manages to convey structural cohesion (not an easy thing to do in this sprawling work) without sacrificing the dramatic impact of the moment. Few conductors have the ability to maintain objective distance while conveying passionate involvement; but this tension, however paradoxical, is an essential component of interpreting Bruckner successfully, and indeed any composer for whom the symphonic argument unfolds gradually, in huge spans of organically diversifying structure.



Does Horenstein convey the rapt, mystical quality one expects in Bruckner? Listen to the astonishing pizzicato-chorale episodes in the first movment, or the very opening of the second with its keening oboe and polymetric textures and you will discover that Horenstein knows exactly how to convey a sense of the numinous in Bruckner without declining into pietistic bathos. Again, the very forthrightness of Horenstein's approach serves to throw Bruckner's intimations of eternity into higher relief.



Does Horenstein manage to make sense of the seemingly patchwork finale? Does he manage to convey a sense of exultation as the chorale theme intensifies at every appearance? Does the coda lift us to the skies or weigh us down with heavy bombast? On all counts, Horenstein proves to be the surest guide to the vast expanses of this great musical cathedral. Every episode fits snugly within Bruckner's grand scheme, the fugal textures blossom forth with utter naturalness, and the great perorations crown the huge symphonic arch with a "weight of glory" entirely devoid of rhetoric.



Does the BBC Symphony Orchestra provide consistently responsive and refined playing over the long haul of this demanding work? Surprisingly so, given he vicissitudes of live performance and an ensemble that cannot vie with the greatest of world-class orchestras (e.g., Karajan's Berlin Pilharmonic, Klemperer's Philharmonia, Solti's Chicago Symphony). To be sure, there are moments of shaky ensemble and unreliable intonation--but they are surprisingly few. Indeed, the BBC forces play throughout with a remarkable alertness, vitality and commitment. It is fair to say that on this occasion (presumably a Proms concert) Horenstein galvanized them.



Is the recording commensurate with the stature of the performance? Few listeners will be seriously disappointed with the sound, despite the fact that this is not a professionally engineered studio effort. The ambience is warm, the timbres true, and the amplitude is sufficient to accommodate even the most apocalyptic moments without serious distortion. The sound quality on this CD is substantially improved over previous releases of this material on other labels. I can now retire an earlier incarnation of this performance on a "bootleg" label from the 1980's.



So on every count this release is worthy to share the slopes of Parnassus with the handful of genuinely great Bruckner recordings. Along with Karajan's BPO studio effort from the 1970's, and Fürtwangler's 1944 broadcast with the same orchestra (both available on DG), Horenstein's BBC production must be regarded as a benchmark interpretation of this work. If pressed, I might well choose it in preference to the others: Horenstein's approach is better balanced than Furtwängler's and less hieratic, more humane than Karajan's.



If you are an avid Brucknerian, or even if you are seeking a basic library selection for Bruckner's fifth, you should strongly consider this version."