Search - Anton Bruckner, Eugene Ormandy :: Bruckner: Symphony No. 5

Favourite symphony?

Geers | Netherlands | 12/23/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Allthough the sound and ambiance is tremendous, i am still doubting this is my favoroutie. Thatis because of the 7th. The tension is around in this music, and there are some climaxes. Bruckner surely meant this, but the symphonie is long. Never a dull moment though. The orchestra from Philadelphia is flawless, the director will probalby have his saying in that. I own by the way some more performances under the batron of Ormandy, and they are not always simple. Each time they are great though. I do not see this director as avoiding a temptation or difficulty in music."

Ormandy, Philadelphia: Bruckner Sym 5: An Alternative View -

Dan Fee | Berkeley, CA USA | 06/15/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As a fan of this composer, I've stayed away from Eugene Ormandy doing Bruckner, even with the top-notch band of his tenure. When I did keep an Ormandy reading, it tended to be Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Richard Strauss, and hardly ever Beethoven, Brahms, .... you get the drift.



Then I got my first super audio player, and was madly looking through the catalog for super audio discs to test drive the new format. As it happened, the Ormandy reading of the Verdi Requiem was one of the smallish SACD catalog then available; so I took a chance. Wow. There sure was a lot more on that master tape than home listeners had ever, ever, ever been privileged to hear before. Yes, the SACD remastering had to limit itself to stereo, since the original master simply was tinned so long before anybody even dreamed of multiple channels. But that SACD remaster in two channels puts most of the multiple channels readings in proper perspective. Given the absolutely stunning sound of that disc, I began to think that maybe, just maybe, there might be a lot more to Ormandy readings than we have so far heard on red book discs.



Now, this disc is red book, not super audio. But after hearing it through on headphones, I think I am being converted to Ormandy yet again.



I'm quite picky about my Bruckner. I do love the grand, solemn approach. My keeper shelf fifth symphonies tilt towards a Japanese super audio multiple channel remaster of the Gunter Wand reading with Berlin; or the aspiring zen-master-ed timelessness of Celibidache in Munich. I think I also scrounged around to find SACD remasterings of a fifth by Osaka Philharmonic under their revered Japanese leader, Takashi Asahina. There's a Franz Welser-Most reading with London Philharmonic on EMI in there, somewhere. Also, more recent discs have stayed put on the shelf, most notably an import of Dutch rising star Jaap van Zweden with the Netherlands Radio, the Telarc disc with Benjamin Zander and London Philharmonia, and the most unexpected sleep surprise of all, the Herreweghe just released on period instruments (Harmonia Mundi). All of these to some degree or other occupy the going solemn-grand-mystical schools of Bruckner interpretation.



Now comes Eugene Ormandy. In his first movement we get a very strong, plain, warm reading which puts Bruckner much closer to the linage of Beethoven to Schubert. Each famous department of the immensely gifted and ready old Philadelphia Orchestra is vividly involved. There is no fussing about with phrasing, tempos, or underling for epic musical emphasis. The music clearly is still big sized, but maybe different; in the same way that Schubert's ninth symphony sounds big, big, big. Now taking a more Schubertian way with the composer is something of a newish strategy, or so I thought. But this Ormandy disc from 1967 (CD mastered, 1992) shows that Ormandy was already going there, for whatever reasons. If we are seeking nothing but the more customary Brucknerian ethos, this first movement will disappoint, maybe like Bernstein's Sibelius disappoints by failing to capture the last chilled Northern Lights ounce of Nordic-Finland North Sea mystique. (Go to Vanska, Berglund, Blomdstedt, Segerstam, or Oramo for that, in Sibelius spades.) If you don't dismiss the first movement out of hand for being so indebted to Schubert, keep listening.



In the second movement, Ormandy and the band just keep delivering. They stick near enough to the score that the example of Beethoven's model, (variations in an extended slow movement) in the slow movement of the ninth symphony, patently shows through. Bruckner has his own sense of the model, as he structures typical Bruckner textures, and contrasts massed orchestral groups, and contrasts the vigor of those huge orchestral gatherings with lyrical-pastoral passages. Ormandy is making Bruckner sound out strongly, as an heir to Beethoven.



The third Scherzo movement sounds really odd, really strange. Not because Ormandy is doing anything particularly eccentric with phrasing, tempo, or music; but because, well, this scherzo is truly a very strange bird of a movement. No fuss, no muss, Ormandy and the band again let it all shine right out, clear as Szell or any other conductor of a no-nonsense, strict-musical-constructionist persuasion. Perhaps one reason this scherzo rings with so many odd touches is that it follows a first movement that has strong Schubert associations, followed by a second slow movement that walks in giant musical steps along the variations pathways we hear so masterfully in Beethoven. Come to the scherzo, then, and these associations drop farther into the background. It's easier to imagine how his contemporaries found Bruckner to be so incomprehensible, so mad, yet so supposedly derivative. The outer limits aspects of this movement even suggest to me, passing hints of modernisms yet to be made explicit - hints of Scriabin, Szymanowski, even Martinu. I'm amazed that Ormandy should be the one to draw back the curtain through his plain leadership manners, and by getting out of the way, end up calling such effective attention to Bruckner's inimitable meld of rococo-baroque with Late Romantic dissolving into modernity.



The last movement is also no-nonsense. It's opening reminds us of Beethoven's ninth, as the major themes are introduced and reviewed before the music takes off to find its innovative closing paths. Those great fugue sections would quickly bring Bach and Beethoven to high mind again, except that the vigorous fugue paragraphs are characteristically delayed and back-lighted through those recurring Bruckner melody paragraphs. We know we are not just repeating Bach or Beethoven, because as the movement grows, we get hints of Bruckner's intentions to wrap up with one of the largest triple fugues ever written - if not the only triple fugue ever written into a symphony on such a grand, massive musical scale. This brings home the Schubert sense of big symphony, again.



Well this symphony must have left everybody puzzling. And indeed, we are still puzzling. I haven't heard an alternative reading of this symphony that made such a strong case for its understandings, since hearing a live concert with Herbert Blomstedt leading San Francisco. (Blomstedt is emeritus) He went even further than Ormandy in revealing the Schubert roots, and in that concert, the last movement triple fugue transformed amazingly into an extended intertwining of Schubert dances. I really couldn't believe my ears. Bruckner's fifth, light on its feet, Schubertian warm, and dancing.



Okay then. I do hope Sony or somebody gets around to some diligent super audio remasterings of all those old Sony CBS heroes - Walter, Szell, and even Ormandy. We ain't heard nothing yet, if those old master tapes are as good as I suspect. If you are looking for a more Schubertian grasp of Bruckner that, nevertheless, remains true enough to Bruckner to sound recognizable; Ormandy should be on your short list. If you dislike even the barest mention of such Schubert possibilities in Bruckner, probably better steer clear of this disc. I'm giving it - five, alternative, Bruckner stars. To the keeper shelf."