Sacred Music of Anton Bruckner, Part 3:
A Blog of Personal Reflections
Three Festive Masses; Requiem; Missa Solemnis
by Donald Beagle
Bruckner’s rural background inspired several early Masses for small church ensembles. One of these, the C Major, is potentially a finer work than is generally assumed; I think it still awaits an adequate performance and recording. Bruckner ostensibly scored its vocal parts for solo Alto, but even in the flawed and fragmented performances available on YouTube, it sounds so much better sung by a choir that one suspects Bruckner scaled its first scored version down for a small church without an adequate choir.
The later three numbered Masses stand apart from those modest early settings, both in their quality of musical inspiration and in their aspirational orchestration and staging. But they also stand apart from each other, to such a degree that one might almost suspect them to have been the work of three different composers, were not the archival provenance of Bruckner’s hand-notated scores beyond dispute. A careful listener will hear unmistakable Brucknerian acoustic signatures within the depths of all three, but extending not so much to his other masses as to his symphonies and other works. The Mass #1 in D Minor features dynamic orchestral effects akin to the Symphony #1 in C Minor. The majestic Mass #3 in F Minor, and its Credo in particular, moves us to the boundaries of Bruckner’s powerful brass perorations from symphonies #4 and #8, while the flowing lyricism of its Benedictus, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei include brief passages found in his early symphonic adagios, while at other points anticipating the more visionary adagio movements in symphonies #6 and #7. The beautiful Mass #2 in E Minor comes across as a more visionary exploration of tonalities from his motet: Pange lingua in E Phrygian Mode. Because this post immediately follows my post about Bruckner’s motets, I’ll begin with comments about the Mass #2.
Bruckner’s Mass #2 in E Minor is profoundly different from its sister compositions, and from nearly any other late 19th century Mass. I’m reminded of a quote by musicologist Bartje Bartmans: “Bruckner's compositions helped to define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving harmonies.” Unlike the Requiem where dissonant strings are “out front” (as I’ll also discuss later), this Mass #2 plays with subtly dissonant wind accompaniment at key junctures, while singers execute the roving harmonies; as Rolf’s Music Blog describes: “…the score asks for narrow, dissonant intervals, as well as huge jumps.” The following brief introductory video by members of the Chicago Chorale may help the listener better appreciate this work’s unique qualities. The Music Director includes brief mention of other works on the Chorale’s program (motets by Brahms and Mendelssohn) but all the music played in the video (background and foreground) is from the E Minor Mass.
Mass in E Minor (Chicago Chorale Preview)
The Kyrie movement best showcases the sheer beauty of this work, though I’m a bit torn trying to choose one video to represent it. This is the performance I've come to prefer:
Mass #2 in E Minor--Kyrie
While the Credo of #2 does not seem to dominate the expressive weight of this Mass to the same degree as its counterpart Credo movements dominate the D Minor and F Minor mass settings, this Credo does offer an excerpt that nicely exemplifies the often-unorthodox originality of Bruckner's musical language. I’ve chosen a video of the complete Mass as performed in Inchon, South Korea, by the InchonCity Chorale conducted by Kim Jong-Hyun. Before discussing this performance as a whole, I've cued the following link to begin at the 16min 30sec point, where the chorus begins its elegiac reflections on the Crucifixion. Two minutes into this a capella chorale sequence, at the 18min 30sec point, Bruckner subtly moves into deeper level of solemnity with a modal shift that adds a wind instrument to accompany the choir. But of the multiple wind instruments at his disposal, Bruckner makes the seemingly unlikely choice of bassoon (!) to usher the choir into and through the spiritual depths that lead to the suffering conveyed by repeated references to "Passus" two minutes later at the 20min 30sec mark. Other wind instruments enter briefly to play cameo roles throughout, but the bassoon carries the emotive weight. Opinions and tastes may differ, but I personally find this sequence almost magical in its exhortation of understated sublimity. Yet I confess I would never have guessed that the tonal quality of the bassoon could have lent this passage such gravitas:
Mass #2 in E Minor-- Credo (excerpt)
https://youtu.be/h4c8n1pPuC0?t=996
This Inchon City performance points to the whole phenomenon of the celebrated reception Bruckner’s works have received in Japan (and South Korea) over the past 20 years; a topic too complex to adequately discuss here. An academic colleague in Japan who knows Bruckner and who knows something of the Japanese music scene commented: “I think it’s a Zen thing.” I’m no expert on Zen Buddhism, but found it interesting that when the Munich Philharmonic toured Japan under the baton of their renowned Music Director Sergiu Celibidache, the cd’s of Bruckner symphonies recorded in those Tokyo performances all featured cover photos of Zen rock gardens. Of course, Celibidache himself practiced Zen Buddhism, so the cd cover images may have held both personal and cultural significance.
Mass #2 in E Minor-- Credo (excerpt)
https://youtu.be/h4c8n1pPuC0?t=996
This Inchon City performance points to the whole phenomenon of the celebrated reception Bruckner’s works have received in Japan (and South Korea) over the past 20 years; a topic too complex to adequately discuss here. An academic colleague in Japan who knows Bruckner and who knows something of the Japanese music scene commented: “I think it’s a Zen thing.” I’m no expert on Zen Buddhism, but found it interesting that when the Munich Philharmonic toured Japan under the baton of their renowned Music Director Sergiu Celibidache, the cd’s of Bruckner symphonies recorded in those Tokyo performances all featured cover photos of Zen rock gardens. Of course, Celibidache himself practiced Zen Buddhism, so the cd cover images may have held both personal and cultural significance.
Mass in E Minor—Complete
Bruckner once apparently commented that he felt his Te Deum was his greatest choral work. Certainly, the later Te Deum brought him great long-awaited recognition. It’s hugely successful Vienna premier, soon after the equally successful Eighth Symphony premier, brought him the patronage of Emperor Franz Joseph himself, to be described in more detail in a future post. But while the Te Deum is impressive, I think most modern conductors, singers, and listeners agree that the Mass #3 in F Minor ranks as Bruckner’s finest choral work. Writing in the journal of the American Choral Directors’ Association, William Weinert comments: “Rooted in the traditions of Haydn's church music, Bruckner's last three masses are expansive and highly organized works that give rise to his mature symphonies. His Mass in F Minor, one of the last significant masses written in the symphonic tradition, stands at the final juncture between mass and symphony.”
Nearly all critics and reviewers agree that the Credo is the heart of this work. In selecting a YouTube version, the challenge is finding one excerpt that combines strong but not overly fast pacing in the opening series of choruses, but that also exploits the beauty of solo baritone writing Bruckner achieved in the “Et Incarnatus Est” section that follows. This performance by the Stuttgart Bach Collegium and Stuttgart Gachinger Kantorei accomplishes the former as well as the latter
Given the stature of this Credo (one of the greatest settings of this text ever composed), some have overlooked other musical highlights of this Mass, with a standout example being the remarkable fugue that ends the Gloria, on the text “In Gloria Dei Patris;”-- certainly one of the finest fugues to be found in any sacred choral music of the romantic era:
Mass #3 in F Minor – Fugue: “In Gloria Dei Patris”
And no commentary on this work should fail to address the beauty and significance of the Benedictus. While not very long, it seems to anticipate his later more expansive treatment of the adagio form in Symphonies #6, #7, and #8.
Most discussions of Bruckner sooner or later mention Sergiu Celibidache, controversial conductor of the Munich Philharmonic. Undoubtedly brilliant and highly gifted on multiple levels (a true polyglot, his finely-honed articulation in French, German, and English interviews left many listeners unaware of his Romanian birth and upbringing).
His unyielding determination to push his orchestra into longer and more frequent rehearsals than normal did allow him to explore large-scale works with a probing attention to detail. In some performances, this elicits dimensions overlooked by other conductors. I think one interesting example emerges in the Benedictus of the F Minor Mass. The following video is an 11 minute excerpt from a longer French / German documentary film that followed Celibidache through his exhaustive phases of rehearsals and performance: first, a choir rehearsal with simple piano accompaniment; second, a concert hall rehearsal with solo singers, chorus, and full orchestra; third, an extended excerpt from the actual performance. The video is carefully edited so that the two brief rehearsal scenes flow into the final performance without pause or interruption.
If you were to listen first to a typical performance of this Benedictus, you would hear Bruckner suddenly interrupt his smoothly flowing harmonics for an unexpectedly austere string passage, typically at or around the 4min mark. While this passage lasts only 30 seconds or so, it immediately casts a pall over the mood. This passage was viewed by some early critics as a musical misstep; an example of Bruckner’s supposedly unrefined compositional taste, with one calling it “clumsy.” Consequently, early conductors sometimes tried to soften its impact, either by reducing volume, or by arbitrarily accelerating tempo to get past its seemingly awkward interlude.
But Celibidache hears something more, and I think important, in this 30 or 40 seconds of music. Instead of minimizing this passage (starting at the 5min 18sec mark in this video), he instead accentuates it by increasing its relative volume while subtly slowing its tempo and extending its length. Why focus on a brief transitory passage? Because, I would suggest, it points toward Bruckner’s inner struggle between faith and doubt. In the Chicago Chorale preview of the E Minor Mass linked earlier, the conductor mentions Bruckner’s music being “imbued with unquestioning faith.” Perhaps “unquestioning” would have been an accurate adjective to use at that earlier life stage of the E Minor Mass. But between that point and this subsequent F Minor Mass, Bruckner had suffered a nervous breakdown. Coming out of that trauma, the F Minor Mass would be his first major composition. Consequently, I feel in this brief but bleak string passage what I think Celibidache sensed: a first sign of surfacing skeptical questioning that I hear also for brief moments in the Kyrie and in the Agnus Dei. That same sense of spiritual searching and questioning would later surface into long and even bleaker string passages (along with the massively dissonant climactic ascents and descents) of the Eighth and Ninth symphonies.
Mass in F Minor – Benedictus – Rehearsals / part performance
Lastly, to my mind there is no disputing the finest YouTube video of the complete F Minor Mass: the early 2019 performance by the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Edo de Waart, to mark the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Vredenburg Great Hall of Music in Utrecht. It meets every challenge I noted above: superb tempo and clear articulation of the fugue concluding the Gloria; excellent dynamic balance between chorus and orchestra in the Credo; superb vocal quality for the baritone solo "Et Incarnatus Est;" and a contemporary reading of the Benedictus that makes no attempt to minimize the brief intrusion of melancholic doubt
Mass in F Minor – Complete
Now looking back, the Mass #1 in D Minor was a remarkably audacious setting of the Mass for its time period, in light of controversies within the church, when some clerics argued that composers of the day should properly exercise more restraint, to “keep the concert hall out of the Church.” Those disputes clearly did not dissuade Bruckner in composing this work. Why is this a key point? Because this first full-scale symphonic mass directly contradicts the standard cliche about the composer’s supposedly “humble, obsequious, and reticent” personality. Especially in the Gloria and Credo sections, this music is anything but humble, obsequious, and reticent. Instead, it practically seethes with a vibrant, virulent energy; not until his late-in-life Trosterin Musik and Te Deum would Bruckner compose choral works that further explored and extended the unusual soundfield we find in this D Minor Mass.
My personal favorite among YouTube versions of this work is a live church performance by the Philharmonischer Chor and the Saar Orchester des Staatlichen Konservatorium, under the baton of Leo Krämer. But before discussing that rather idiosyncratic and imperfect video, let me first recommend the more traditional (and technically superior) live performance video of the Credo as conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. This video presents the complete Mass, but the link below is cued to start at the 13min mark, a moment before the start of the Credo (which ends at the 25min 40sec mark):
Mass #1 in D Minor -- Credo
https://youtu.be/bnIDsCVIb_o?t=780
While the fine Gardiner performance linked above is my favorite among concert hall performances, this next video / recording was made in the vast and opulent Church of St. Ignatius in Rome in 2017. St. Ignatius’s echoing heights and reverberating marble walls presented insuperable technical challenges for microphone placement and tuning. There are further problems: at least twice, a technician seems to bump or rattle equipment enclosures. Even worse, the video abruptly cuts off a few seconds before the Credo reaches its conclusion (inexcusably sloppy editing seems to have been at fault here). Still, for all the faults of this video recording (and there are many), I find this interpretation more captivating than alternatives on YouTube, because Conductor Leo Krämer allows the music to fully come alive; he never tries to tame the music’s adventurous exhortations of supernatural elements in the Credo’s narrative. Much like Gardiner, Krämer allows this music to plunge into the depths when the liturgy text takes us there, while also allowing swift dynamic changes to suddenly soar to the heights when Bruckner’s interpretation requires. As is oft the case with Bruckner, the solo singers perform for relatively brief passages, but at impactful moments and to splendid effect. Of special note here, is the singing of the rising European opera star, soprano Rebekkah Reister.
Mass #1 in D Minor -- Credo
https://youtu.be/bnIDsCVIb_o?t=780
While the fine Gardiner performance linked above is my favorite among concert hall performances, this next video / recording was made in the vast and opulent Church of St. Ignatius in Rome in 2017. St. Ignatius’s echoing heights and reverberating marble walls presented insuperable technical challenges for microphone placement and tuning. There are further problems: at least twice, a technician seems to bump or rattle equipment enclosures. Even worse, the video abruptly cuts off a few seconds before the Credo reaches its conclusion (inexcusably sloppy editing seems to have been at fault here). Still, for all the faults of this video recording (and there are many), I find this interpretation more captivating than alternatives on YouTube, because Conductor Leo Krämer allows the music to fully come alive; he never tries to tame the music’s adventurous exhortations of supernatural elements in the Credo’s narrative. Much like Gardiner, Krämer allows this music to plunge into the depths when the liturgy text takes us there, while also allowing swift dynamic changes to suddenly soar to the heights when Bruckner’s interpretation requires. As is oft the case with Bruckner, the solo singers perform for relatively brief passages, but at impactful moments and to splendid effect. Of special note here, is the singing of the rising European opera star, soprano Rebekkah Reister.
Mass #1 in D Minor-- Credo
What reviewer Ralph Moore says with reference to the Credo of the later F Minor Mass applies equally here: “…Bruckner makes no compromise in his emphasis upon his elevation of the hieratic and mysterious aspects of Catholicism. Hence, we are rarely consoled by the reassurances such as temper the uncomfortable realities of death and grief in Brahms’ roughly contemporary Requiem….no other liturgical works save those by Berlioz create such majestic and awe-inspiring scenarios as, for example, the holy row which heralds Bruckner’s depiction of the Resurrection. The grandeur and urgency of his idiom here leave no room for the period finickiness of ‘transparent textures’; this is music which seeks to confront the Believer with the terror of the Last Judgement.”
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2019/Sep/Bruckner_mass_HDTT.htm
I think the sense of aural cacophony surrounding this St. Ignatius performance also suggests that Bruckner deliberately composed this work with an attentive ear for how it would resonate within a cathedral, reconciling each musical passage with an anticipated overlay of echoing upper registers and undercurrents of lower-register reverberations. As a listener, I might have assumed echoes and reverberations to be distracting, but in this setting of the Mass, the opposite seems true. Once I permitted myself to think beyond the typical “studio sound” where every melodic line must be insulated (or isolated), the penumbra of re-echoing sounds in this recording imparted a vibrancy I’d not sensed before. I’m not going to even suggest a link for a full YouTube of this entire Mass, because I don’t believe any conductor has yet interpreted and recorded this Mass to its full potential; I suppose the live performance by John Eliot Gardiner comes closest.
Along the same lines, I now want to do flashbacks to two works that formed the transitional period between the modest rural church masses mentioned at the outset, and the great festive masses numbered 1, 2, and 3 just discussed. These transitional works are the Requiem in D Minor (1849), and the Missa Solemnis (1852).
The Requiem has long been the more-frequently performed of these two "bridge" compositions; sufficiently highly-regarded to be included in the NAXOS multi-CD set, “A History of the Requiem,” where it shares a CD (part III) with the Requiem by Duruflé. But until after this blog was first posted, I felt this work, like the Mass #1 in D Minor, had never been performed, interpreted, and recorded to its potential—at least in YouTube recordings. The NAXOS recording mentioned above sadly typified the rather pedestrian performances of the full work one usually hears.
The Requiem has long been the more-frequently performed of these two "bridge" compositions; sufficiently highly-regarded to be included in the NAXOS multi-CD set, “A History of the Requiem,” where it shares a CD (part III) with the Requiem by Duruflé. But until after this blog was first posted, I felt this work, like the Mass #1 in D Minor, had never been performed, interpreted, and recorded to its potential—at least in YouTube recordings. The NAXOS recording mentioned above sadly typified the rather pedestrian performances of the full work one usually hears.
Knowing Bruckner’s knack for composing thunderous, apocalyptic passages, as in the Aeterna Fac of the Te Deum, or the coda of the Ninth Symphony’s 1st movement, a casual listener might first come to this work expecting something like the "Dies Irae" of Verdi’s Requiem. But I feel Bruckner envisioned his Requiem being centered on a more introspective mood of mourning and remembrance, while still confronting emotional tensions and spiritual dimensions he found within our rituals surrounding death. In this respect, I find it interesting to compare and contrast the requiem settings by Bruckner (1849) and Schumann(1852). Composed only three years apart, they each have a very similar runtime of just over 30min, and both find a middle path of solemn contemplation of mortality without naïve sentimentality on the one hand, or hand-wringing histrionics at the other extreme. Just as an aside, I find it intriguing that both composers also forego Mozart's emphasis on two sections of the Sequentia (with Mozart achieving superb expressive effect in each); I'm referring to "Tuba mirum" and "Lacrimosa." Yet neither is given focus by these romantic age composers.The former seems surprising for Bruckner, given his penchant for brilliant brass perorations; the latter seems surprising for Schumann, given his talents for evoking elegiac moods.
The key technical quality setting Bruckner's Requiem apart from both Mozart and Schumann arises from his intense study of Bach, evidenced by the superb fugue in the Offertorium (video #5 in the playlist). Mozart certainly deployed fugal writing to brilliant effect in his Requiem, but his fugues are firmly cast in the Classical idiom. Bruckner, by contrast, creates his own uniquely brilliant fusion of counterpoint as intricate as anything from the baroque period, with the more adventurous harmonics of the romantic age. His fugue in the Requiem's Offertorium on "Quam Olim" is nearly as masterful as the great fugue noted earlier that ends the Gloria of the F Minor Mass:
Requiem (WAB 39)—Fugue: Offertorium. Quam Olim.
https://youtu.be/37XBgxXEExM
Bruckner also deploys solo singers in sequential variations that show influence of Bach, as revealed by the inventive beauty of the Agnus Dei. This strikes me as a point where Bruckner’s years of extensive formal study bear special fruit. This Agnus Dei is another 4 minute miniature, like many of the motets, even showing influence of antiphonal form. But while it wears a patina of antiquity, this work is also firmly situated in the romantic idiom, finding its way to a fitting climax in light, when the music seems itself to shine with the ecstatic utterances: “Lux! Lux Aeterna!” In this video, that climax is followed by a brief “Requiem aeternam” passage (1min.) that returns to the reflective, philosophical mood, and then concludes with another brief (1min.) but impressively definitive rendering of the “Cum sanctus.” I personally suspect it was this unique genius of Bruckner's in fusing elements from across different historical periods that gives his Requiem a more powerful cumulative stature that Schumann's. Schumann's Requiem appeals to me personally, but has never enjoyed much performance success or critical esteem. I suspect the reason is that Schumann's work seems entirely a creation within its particular time period, while Bruckner's Requiem takes on that aspect of so many of his greatest works: an aspect of "standing outside of normal time," to paraphrase one comment by Celibidache.
The key technical quality setting Bruckner's Requiem apart from both Mozart and Schumann arises from his intense study of Bach, evidenced by the superb fugue in the Offertorium (video #5 in the playlist). Mozart certainly deployed fugal writing to brilliant effect in his Requiem, but his fugues are firmly cast in the Classical idiom. Bruckner, by contrast, creates his own uniquely brilliant fusion of counterpoint as intricate as anything from the baroque period, with the more adventurous harmonics of the romantic age. His fugue in the Requiem's Offertorium on "Quam Olim" is nearly as masterful as the great fugue noted earlier that ends the Gloria of the F Minor Mass:
Requiem (WAB 39)—Fugue: Offertorium. Quam Olim.
https://youtu.be/37XBgxXEExM
Bruckner also deploys solo singers in sequential variations that show influence of Bach, as revealed by the inventive beauty of the Agnus Dei. This strikes me as a point where Bruckner’s years of extensive formal study bear special fruit. This Agnus Dei is another 4 minute miniature, like many of the motets, even showing influence of antiphonal form. But while it wears a patina of antiquity, this work is also firmly situated in the romantic idiom, finding its way to a fitting climax in light, when the music seems itself to shine with the ecstatic utterances: “Lux! Lux Aeterna!” In this video, that climax is followed by a brief “Requiem aeternam” passage (1min.) that returns to the reflective, philosophical mood, and then concludes with another brief (1min.) but impressively definitive rendering of the “Cum sanctus.” I personally suspect it was this unique genius of Bruckner's in fusing elements from across different historical periods that gives his Requiem a more powerful cumulative stature that Schumann's. Schumann's Requiem appeals to me personally, but has never enjoyed much performance success or critical esteem. I suspect the reason is that Schumann's work seems entirely a creation within its particular time period, while Bruckner's Requiem takes on that aspect of so many of his greatest works: an aspect of "standing outside of normal time," to paraphrase one comment by Celibidache.
Requiem (WAB 39)—Agnus Dei – Requiem-Cum Sanctus
After this blog's first version was posted (literally within a week), a new recording was issued by RIAS Kammerchor of Berlin, that finally brought the Requiem's potential to better light. And I mean light in a literal sense, because this Requiem differs from stereotypical masses of mourning that seem suffused in darkness and despair. The RIAS performance is athletic, swiftly paced (for the most part), and seems suffused with light, which I think was Bruckner's original intent. But the music is not celebratory, nor does it present a façade of false happiness. It simply confronts the loss and grief attending death within a more philosophical and reflective context. Because RIAS issued each movement of the Requiem as a separate YouTube video, I've assembled a playlist of the 10 videos so the listener can hear them in order:
In spite of my sense that this interpretation of the Requiem presents a truer (and long overdue) insight into Bruckner's musical intentions, it is not perfect, and still falls a bit short of the performance in Budapest I'll discuss below. I feel it falls short of the Budapest performance in 3 respects: 1) the initial movement, Introitus, is paced a bit too slowly for the string introduction to set the stage with its strident dissonance. Bruckner generates dissonance here not by the proverbial pressing of two adjacent keys of the scale at exactly the same time, but by playing those adjacent notes in rapid and slightly overlapping succession. Any slowing of tempo thus relieves some of the emotional tension the string passages provide. 2) The Agnus Dei, by contrast, seems played by RIES Kammerchor a bit too hastily; I feel a touch of elegaic calmness is called for here, to let the lyrical beauty of the solo singing prevail. 3) Most importantly, throughout this performance, the lower register resonance normally provided by cellos seems oddly attenuated and minimized. In one sense, this contributes to the sense of this music being suffused by light and lightness. But this is still a Requiem, after all, and the lower-register sonority so effective in the Budapest performance simply doesn't resonate.
Requiem (WAB 39)
In spite of my sense that this interpretation of the Requiem presents a truer (and long overdue) insight into Bruckner's musical intentions, it is not perfect, and still falls a bit short of the performance in Budapest I'll discuss below. I feel it falls short of the Budapest performance in 3 respects: 1) the initial movement, Introitus, is paced a bit too slowly for the string introduction to set the stage with its strident dissonance. Bruckner generates dissonance here not by the proverbial pressing of two adjacent keys of the scale at exactly the same time, but by playing those adjacent notes in rapid and slightly overlapping succession. Any slowing of tempo thus relieves some of the emotional tension the string passages provide. 2) The Agnus Dei, by contrast, seems played by RIES Kammerchor a bit too hastily; I feel a touch of elegaic calmness is called for here, to let the lyrical beauty of the solo singing prevail. 3) Most importantly, throughout this performance, the lower register resonance normally provided by cellos seems oddly attenuated and minimized. In one sense, this contributes to the sense of this music being suffused by light and lightness. But this is still a Requiem, after all, and the lower-register sonority so effective in the Budapest performance simply doesn't resonate.
The parallels I sense between this Requiem and the Mass #1 extend beyond their shared D Minor key. Just as it seemed to take an unorthodox performance in the Church of St. Ignatius to uncover hidden expressive dimensions in the Mass #1, I first found a church performance of the Requiem that is also unorthodox, and that also invites us to consider this music’s unexplored depths. This is a performance in Budapest by the ELTE Béla Bartók Orchestra and Concertchoir. Let me now repeat that quote from Bartje Bartmans: “Bruckner's compositions helped to define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving harmonies.”
As indicated earlier, Bruckner begins this Requiem with what were meant to be strident dissonant passages in the strings, as noted by musicologist A. J. Howie as far back as 1981, when he described the “…extremely sharp, closely-spaced dissonant sounds…” (“Traditional and Novel Elements in Bruckner’s Sacred Music;” The Musical Quarterly. Oct. 1981). Yet, conservative conductors have been so adept at softening or hushing that dissonance, their impact has largely been lost, and their emotive force driving the entire Requiem has been undermined. But this ELTE Béla Bartók ensemble and their conductor have no such discomfort—perhaps because of their familiarity with Bartok’s dissonant string music? In this performance, Bruckner’s radical dissonance is dramatically “out there” –emphasized from the very first notes. The choir then enters and weaves equally dramatic chorales over the dissonant “sawing” of the strings. Even the soloists add to the drama, with finely articulated phrasings. But it remains, nevertheless, (and somewhat paradoxically) a philosophical and reflective sort of drama, searching for meaning in the rituals surrounding death, and finding a unique dimension not found in Mozart, not found in Verdi. I’m not claiming that makes this work better, or even as good as, those great requiems by Mozart and Verdi. But this is a unique work, and I think potentially better than conventional wisdom currently assumes.
As good as this Budapest performance was, this video recording was made by an amateur with a portable device(!), and the result is technically flawed; the sound is very substandard, and in the weirdest parallel of all to the St. Ignatius performance of the Mass #1 Credo, this recording also ends before the Requiem is concluded (in the “Comments” section, the amateur remarks that the storage card in his device ran out of memory). Oddly, the one place where this recording outdoes the RIAS Kammerchor video in technical quality is heard in the passages sung by solo singers midway through the Dies Irae; the phrasings are beautifully articulated, and the recording quality seems at least adequate to the task. This link is cued to the 5min 20sec start point in the video where solo singers begin; this section with the soloists runs 4 minutes to the 9min 20sec point:
Requiem Mass – Dies Irae--solo singers
https://youtu.be/_Ebfzu-pCW4?t=320
Until and unless some conductor with a quality orchestra, chorus, and venue for recording, somedays hears this video from Budapest, comprehends the distinctively different and dynamic aspects of Bruckner’s Requiem it reveals, and then works to surpass it, the RIAS Kammerchor performance I playlisted earlier remains the recording of choice, with the ELTE Béla Bartók Orchestra and Concertchoir performance being the interpretation of my preference. For those who can tolerate its flaws, here is the complete Budapest performance video:
Requiem Mass – Dies Irae--solo singers
https://youtu.be/_Ebfzu-pCW4?t=320
Until and unless some conductor with a quality orchestra, chorus, and venue for recording, somedays hears this video from Budapest, comprehends the distinctively different and dynamic aspects of Bruckner’s Requiem it reveals, and then works to surpass it, the RIAS Kammerchor performance I playlisted earlier remains the recording of choice, with the ELTE Béla Bartók Orchestra and Concertchoir performance being the interpretation of my preference. For those who can tolerate its flaws, here is the complete Budapest performance video:
Requiem Mass – Complete (minus the final Agnus Dei—Cum Sanctus)
https://youtu.be/_Ebfzu-pCW4
A last thought about dissonance is worth mentioning here: the strident sawing of strings in the Requiem's early passages was certainly not unique in Bruckner's compositional history. Years after the Requiem, Bruckner created a very similar effect in his so-called Symphony #0. Here, in a performance by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the passage begins a bit beyond the 12min point into the video; the effect here is to generate the tension-building of Bruckner's climactic technique in a way that builds into the coda of the symphony's first movement. (the link below is cued to start the video at the inception of the dissonant passage in question, instead of the symphony's beginning). The dissonant sawing weaves between foreground and background and then to foreground again, with Bruckner overlaying threads of contrasting harmonics from brass and woodwinds, just as in the Requiem where the choir provides the weaving effect. The dissonance is not of extended length, again as in the Requiem, lasting just over a minute until the 13min 30sec point. But pronounced duration is not needed here precisely because the dissonance is so immediately effective in its intended effect.
I'll close with comments about the second major transitional work, the Missa Solemnis in B-flat Minor. Here is a case where I feel Bruckner's remarkable fusion of elements from the range of musical traditions -- plainchant, Palestrina, baroque, classical, romantic-- fell short of mastery. The music never quite entirely fails, yet almost never quite entirely fulfills its promise, leaving the work as a whole oddly uneven, with impressive and unimpressive passages sometimes following upon one another in quick succession. The "Kyrie," in and of itself, seems to me its one section of sustained success, and in its episodes of emphatic descending choral articulations even sounds unexpectedly modernistic:
A last thought about dissonance is worth mentioning here: the strident sawing of strings in the Requiem's early passages was certainly not unique in Bruckner's compositional history. Years after the Requiem, Bruckner created a very similar effect in his so-called Symphony #0. Here, in a performance by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the passage begins a bit beyond the 12min point into the video; the effect here is to generate the tension-building of Bruckner's climactic technique in a way that builds into the coda of the symphony's first movement. (the link below is cued to start the video at the inception of the dissonant passage in question, instead of the symphony's beginning). The dissonant sawing weaves between foreground and background and then to foreground again, with Bruckner overlaying threads of contrasting harmonics from brass and woodwinds, just as in the Requiem where the choir provides the weaving effect. The dissonance is not of extended length, again as in the Requiem, lasting just over a minute until the 13min 30sec point. But pronounced duration is not needed here precisely because the dissonance is so immediately effective in its intended effect.
I'll close with comments about the second major transitional work, the Missa Solemnis in B-flat Minor. Here is a case where I feel Bruckner's remarkable fusion of elements from the range of musical traditions -- plainchant, Palestrina, baroque, classical, romantic-- fell short of mastery. The music never quite entirely fails, yet almost never quite entirely fulfills its promise, leaving the work as a whole oddly uneven, with impressive and unimpressive passages sometimes following upon one another in quick succession. The "Kyrie," in and of itself, seems to me its one section of sustained success, and in its episodes of emphatic descending choral articulations even sounds unexpectedly modernistic:
Missa Solemnis-- Kyrie
Earlier I summarized my feeling about the Missa Solemnis by saying: "Here is a case where I feel Bruckner's remarkable fusion of elements from the range of musical traditions -- plainchant, Palestrina, baroque, classical, romantic-- fell short of mastery." Two further thoughts: 1) given the technical challenges of this unlikely stylistic fusion, the remarkable thing is not that Bruckner ever fell short of full success, but that he ever succeeded at all--and indeed, then often went beyond success to musical mastery. 2) Given the uneven performance history of the Requiem, I think we have to conclude that much of Bruckner's early choral sacred music remains vulnerable to unsatisfactory performances based on expressive misinterpretations and misjudged choral / instrumental dynamics. So I feel I must leave the door open a crack for some future performance of the Missa Solemnis to do what RIAS Kammerchor did with the Requiem: to force us to reconsider this work by discovering that it has previously unrealized expressive dimensions.
No comments:
Post a Comment