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Bruckner: Symphony No. 1. Altomonte Orchester St. Florian conducted by Rémy Ballot. Gramola. $24.99 (SACD).

Bruckner: Symphony No. 2. Altomonte Orchester St. Florian conducted by Rémy Ballot. Gramola. $28.99 (2 SACDs).

     The 2024 bicentennial of Bruckner’s birth has served, among other things, to cement the notion of an abyss between conductors who look for lighter, more Schubertian approaches to Bruckner’s symphonies and those who see them as grand-scale cathedrals of sound to be built sumptuously to towering heights. Mario Venzago and some others are on the “lighter” side of Bruckner interpretation; at the opposite end of the scale are conductors such as Rémy Ballot. The intriguing thing about Bruckner’s symphonies is that they work so well in either approach to interpretation – although questions about which version of which symphony to conduct also figure into the complicated equation.

     Ballot has been conducting one Bruckner symphony per year with the Altomonte Orchester St. Florian since 2013, with the exception of 2020 – a pandemic-related interruption of the project. The symphonies have been performed in no logical order and then offered as live recordings on the Gramola label. The series of nine is now complete – there seem to be no plans for Ballot to conduct No. “0” or the very early F minor “Study” symphony. Ballot’s versions of Nos. 1 and 2 certainly cement his position as the prime advocate of Bruckner writ large – indeed, as large as possible.

     For Symphony No. 1, Ballot chooses the late “Vienna” version of 1891 rather than the more-often-heard 1877 “Linz” version (which, to complicate matters as so often happens with Bruckner, was actually prepared in Vienna). While Venzago zips through the symphony in a very fleet 44 minutes, Ballot is nearly 50% slower at almost 64. As a result, the Venzago and Ballot performances neatly bookend the concept of lighter, speedier Bruckner on the one hand, and grander, slower Bruckner on the other. Bruckner aficionados without a strong absolutist commitment to one approach or the other will surely want to own both.

     Ballot starts out the symphony in a manner as expansive as always, the anticipatory marchlike beat leading into the first forte passage being very clear. The music is presented as if Bruckner and the audience have all the time in the world for it to unfold. The themes bloom with the inevitability of flowers, the sectional balance is superb, and the overall sound is warmly lyrical. There is an inevitability to the musical flow, a sound more like late Bruckner than earlier Bruckner – which tends to be more episodic. Ballot is expert at knitting the sections of the movement together so it does not sound disjointed. The movement is slow by clock time but does not feel that way, since Ballot maintains a clear rhythmic pulse throughout. The second movement is a very broad and expansive Adagio, with lower strings setting a firm foundation above which a brass-led edifice is constructed. The beauty of the themes shines forth at this pace, and the movement grows naturally, meandering somewhat as if on a pastoral walk. There is remarkable cohesion in the orchestra. The lighter touches from woodwinds neatly set off the underlying seriousness of the material, and the movement has none of the stop-and-start characteristics that appear in some later Bruckner slow movements. What it does have is a sense of questing, perhaps of climbing to heights – but there is no urgency to the effort and there is plenty of time to take in the scenery. The brass chorale near the movement’s end has the sensation of attaining a peak, or of the sun suddenly emerging from behind clouds.

     The third movement is broad but not especially slow, although perhaps not Schnell as it is marked. It is slightly ponderous, but in return is quite rhythmically emphatic. The evenness of tempo is a big plus, as are the excellent horns. The Trio provides strong contrast, with considerably greater delicacy, and then fades away for the return of the Scherzo – leading to a satisfactorily dramatic close. The finale, the longest movement by a considerable amount, is somewhat episodic. It strides forth strongly, then lapses into much more delicate territory, which Ballot explores at length, giving a feeling of breadth. The first, inevitable pause, after three-and-a-half minutes, ushers in a chamber-music-like attentiveness to detail that is almost Mahlerian in its use of the orchestra, with Ballot shaping each section's contribution with consummate care. Thereafter the ebb and flow of full-orchestra and sectional material progresses naturally, albeit with a certain lack of forward progress that is more apparent because of Ballot's tempo choices. The playing is very beautiful, but the pacing does accentuate a certain lack of cohesion in the movement, even though Bruckner modified it for this late version of the symphony. Ballot explores individual sections with great skill, but the movement never quite hangs together – a matter of its compositional structure that could indeed be somewhat ameliorated with a bit more speed. That said, the buildup toward the climax, starting five minutes before the end, is impressively and effectively managed, and the conclusion itself has a monumental quality befitting any of Bruckner's symphonies.

     Symphony No. 2 is a more-substantial work, and one that Ballot stretches to very considerable length: it is usually around a 70-minute piece – 71 minutes under Georg Tintner in the 1872 version (Venzago uses the shorter 1877 version and conducts it in 56). Ballot’s pacing of this symphony is so grand, almost grandiose, that it does not fit on a single disc: it runs 85 minutes. But of course the speed does not tell the whole story – what matters is how well the overall conception works. In the first movement, the opening gives no hint of just how expansive the performance will become – but as soon as the second theme emerges, the pace becomes very relaxed, leisurely, and quite Schubertian. This work’s nickname, "symphony of pauses," fits very well here, since Ballot does not hesitate to take the indicated full stops and even extend them a bit into pauses-with-fermatas. This certainly creates a somewhat episodic feeling, but it also allows the highlighting of individual sections of the music, almost as if multiple miniature tone poems have been strung together into a tonal tapestry larger than the sum of its parts. The sheer scale, the monumental nature of the symphony, comes through – but the delicacy and lyrical beauty of the playing keep the movement from ever seeming ponderous. Again and again, a section rises to a climax, and again and again, Bruckner stops to consider matters from a different perspective; and Ballot provides unerring guidance on the journey, abetted by exceptionally fine sound. One advantage of this approach is the way it moves toward climactic passages at a deliberate pace so they become all the more compelling when they arrive, as is especially apparent at the movement’s conclusion. The Scherzo is placed second – Bruckner later switched it to third, provoking some of the same issues associated with the movement sequence in Mahler’s Symphony No. 6. In any case, Ballot’s handling of the Scherzo is not really Schnell as marked, but once the audience adjusts to the pace, the movement becomes another carefully structured part of the edifice being assembled. The detail of the string playing is excellent, and the warmth of the brass is notable. The trio is marked to be played at the same speed, and the pacing actually works better here than for the main body of the movement, without the lumbering quality of the Scherzo and with plenty of time to enjoy the lyrical expansiveness of the strings. As a result, the tempo at the return of the Scherzo actually sounds more reasonable after the conclusion of the Trio. And the timpani accents are particularly effective near the movement's end.

     The solemnity (Feierlich) indicated for the third movement is very much in evidence in Ballot’s performance. The movement is very relaxed from the start, with clear echoes of Schubert and a great feeling of spaciousness. There is clarity of melodic line plus fine sectional balance: it feels as if it will slow to stasis but never quite does. Ballot spins the music out in longer and longer lines, allowing the woodwind and brass touches to bring the strings into high relief. The pizzicato strings' contrast with the rounded brass sound is particularly well done. The movement builds very gradually in volume and intensity, as if Bruckner has all the time that anyone could possibly need to erect this sonic structure. Even the fades to silence are carefully paced to add to the overall effect. And then comes the finale, which immediately starts building with considerable drama. Again and again, Ballot produces anticipation of still greater intensity to come. But what actually emerges is a beautifully flowing sylvan line of pastoral simplicity, in which strings glide along as if carried on the gentle waves of a stream – after which Ballot reintroduces the more strongly emphasized material so as to maximize the differences between thematic groups. And so the movement progresses as a series of carefully staged contrasts, periodically interrupted by a full stop, as if to provide respite from the back-and-forth elements. Despite the strength of some portions of the movement, the primary impression here is one of gentleness, a kind of spreading warmth that Ballot spins out at length. The movement does tend to sprawl, especially at this pace, but the care with which it is structured is everywhere in evidence. And the climactic final three minutes encapsulate the whole symphony. Strong rhythms, great intensity, full stops, delicate winds, massed brass – all these are present and marshalled for a truly grand conclusion.

     There is no one “right” way to conduct Bruckner or, for that matter, to listen to his symphonies. Ballot’s handling of these works has proved consistently excellent for a decade – and internally consistent in its approach to every one of the symphonies. By virtue of its very deliberate speed, the Ballot approach does exist at something of an extreme in Bruckner interpretation. But again and again, clock time becomes irrelevant as Ballot marshals his forces to explore and elucidate the emotional and performance intricacies with which Bruckner packed all his symphonies. The Ballot cycle is a highly impressive achievement by any standards – a monumental accomplishment fully worthy of the celebration of the bicentennial of a composer whose music, like so much other great art, can be interpreted and reinterpreted again and again without anyone ever coming up with an unattainable perfection of presentation.