(++++) STIRRING TRIBUTES

Bruckner from the Archives, Volume 1: Symphony No. “00” in F minor; Symphony No. 1; March in D minor; Three Pieces for Orchestra; Psalm 112; Overture in G minor; String Quartet. Bruckner Orchestra, Linz, conducted by Kurt Wöss (Symphony in F minor); Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eugen Jochum (Symphony No. 1); Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hans Weisbach (March in D minor; Three Pieces for Orchestra); Vienna Akademie Kammerchor and Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Henry Swoboda (Psalm 112); WDR Symphony Orchestra, Köln, conducted by Dean Dixon (Overture in G minor); Koeckert Quartet (Rudolf Koeckert and Willi Buchner, violins; Oskar Riedl, viola; Josef Merz, cello) (String Quartet). Ariadne. $24.99 (2 CDs).

Eugène Ysaÿe: Six Sonatas for Solo Violin. Sergey Khachatryan, violin. Naïve. $16.99.

     The Bruckner bicentennial continues to produce a host of mostly excellent examinations and reexaminations of Bruckner’s music, with performances not only of the many versions of his symphonies but also of his other, generally much-less-known music. In parallel with all the new performances is an ongoing dive into archival recordings, giving today’s audiences a chance to hear readings that date to a time when Bruckner was much less often programmed in concert halls and recording studios than is the case today. While the audio of many of the historic recordings leaves something to be desired, today’s audio restoration techniques have produced some remarkably fine-sounding CDs and have allowed genuinely important older performances to become available again – or, in the case of the Bruckner from the Archives series, for the first time. Planned to be a six-volume release by SOMM Recordings on the Ariadne label, with two discs per volume, Bruckner from the Archives shows in its first issue just how valuable it will be, not only for historical purposes but also because, if the first volume is any indication, the performances themselves stand up very well to ones recorded in later years. Furthermore, Bruckner from the Archives is packed with premières: with the exception of Psalm 112, every performance in the first volume is either a first release in any form or a first release on CD.

     All of these readings are very fine, and one is exemplary: Eugen Jochum’s 1959 recording of Symphony No. 1 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. This is an electrifying reading, highly conversant with Bruckner’s style and expertly paced and balanced to bring out the highlights and intensity of the music – the finale, in particular, is genuinely exciting. Jochum was a fine Bruckner conductor, and as the founder of the orchestra that he leads here, he had a superb sense of the musicians’ capabilities, which he brings out to the full. Given that the remastered sound is quite good, this performance stands up exceptionally well to more-recent ones. The other full-length symphony here, the “study symphony” in F minor sometimes referred to as No. “00,” is a lesser work (derivative of Mendelssohn and Schumann) in a less-compelling performance (from 1974, with Kurt Wöss leading the Bruckner Orchestra, Linz. Everything is in place for this reading and everything sounds fine, but nothing is particularly inspirational – that is, nothing helps the symphony rise above itself. The symphonies are the major works in this release, with shorter pieces scattered between the two CDs in rather odd fashion – the music is not presented in chronological order of composition, nor in the order in which the recordings were made, and it is disappointing in such a thoughtfully conceived archival series for there to be no clear sequencing of the material. The first CD opens with the F minor symphony and then moves to the March in D minor and Three Pieces for Orchestra in Nazi-era recordings from 1944 – a time when Bruckner’s music was enlisted in the wartime cause – featuring the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Hans Weisbach. These are insubstantial works, but well-played here and insightful in terms of Bruckner’s development as an orchestrator. This CD concludes with the 1950 performance – the first recording ever made – of Psalm 112, with Henry Swoboda leading a forthright, enthusiastic reading of a piece containing some impressive fugal writing but a rather uninspired structure (the opening material appears unchanged in the middle and again at the conclusion). The second CD opens with Overture in G minor in a 1959 reading by Dean Dixon and the WDR Symphony Orchestra, Köln – a well-paced and well-balanced performance of a nicely orchestrated work, in which trombones and trumpets are prominent for the first time in what would later be thought of as a “Brucknerian” way. Symphony No. 1 follows this piece, and then the CD concludes with Bruckner’s C minor String Quartet in a highly sensitive, well-paced and thoughtful Koeckert Quartet performance from 1951. The totality of this first Bruckner from the Archives presentation is quite impressive, mixing more-familiar and less-familiar material in uniformly well-thought-out performances whose insights are as welcome today as they surely were when the readings were first heard by live audiences or on the radio.

     The “tribute” element of Bruckner from the Archives is explicit, while that of a new Naïve CD featuring the six solo-violin sonatas by Eugène Ysaÿe is more subtle but scarcely less worthy. Indeed, the exceptionally well-played performances by Sergey Khachatryan will for some listeners be less of a focus here than the violin on which he performs, because this is Ysaÿe’s own 1740 Guarneri del Gesù instrument, the one famously carried on a pillow in front of Ysaÿe’s coffin after the violinist’s death in 1931. Ysaÿe had a label bearing his own name placed inside the instrument in 1928, next to del Gesù’s own – a sacrilege today, but understandable at the time in light of Ysaÿe’s own superstardom. It was this instrument for which Ysaÿe composed his Six Sonatas for Solo Violin in 1923, and the knowledge that one is listening to this specific instrument in Khachatryan’s recording adds a fillip of delight to the disc. Not that any such boost is necessary: these readings simply sound wonderful, the violin’s pure and sweet tone through its entire range allowing Khachatryan to focus both on the elements that the pieces have in common (notably their Bach-derived elements) and on those in which they are very different (in their reflections of the six performance styles of the six violinists to whom they are dedicated). Khachatryan does not seem overawed by the provenance of the instrument he plays, putting it through its paces with care and sensitivity while varying the emphases of the six sonatas in ways appropriate to the special elements contained in each of them. He handles Sonata No. 1 (for Joseph Szigeti) with textural sensitivity, including skill with the difficult double-stopped sixths. Sonata No. 2 (for Jacques Thibaud) mixes elegance with an amusing use of the Dies irae in acknowledgment of Thibaud’s hypochondria. Sonata No. 3 (for Georges Enescu) opens interestingly, with a nod to Enescu’s interest in atonality. Sonata No. 4 (for Fritz Kreisler) reflects Kreisler’s predilection for Baroque pastiches as well as his very considerable élan. Sonata No. 5 (for Mathieu Crickboom, an Ysaÿe pupil) nicely contrasts its opening, Impressionistic L’Aurore with the following Danse rustique. And Sonata No. 6 (for Manuel Quiroga) includes tango and habanera elements reflective of Quiroga’s Spanish nationality, plus some difficult passagework that Khachatryan tosses off with apparent abandon. These are first-rate performances by any measure, which sound wonderful on an instrument of superb quality. Knowing that it is the instrument so intertwined with the composer/virtuoso who created the music brings even more pleasure to a recording that, on its own, is filled with enjoyment on every level.