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Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Anton Bruckner - Symphony No. 0 (Riccardo Chailly)


Information

Composer: Anton Bruckner
  1. Overture in G minor
  2. Symphony No. 0 in D minor "Die Nullte" (1869, ed. Nowak): 1. Allegro
  3. Symphony No. 0 in D minor "Die Nullte" (1869, ed. Nowak): 2. Andante
  4. Symphony No. 0 in D minor "Die Nullte" (1869, ed. Nowak): 3. Scherzo. Presto
  5. Symphony No. 0 in D minor "Die Nullte" (1869, ed. Nowak): 4. Finale. Moderato

Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
Riccardo Chailly, conductor
Date: 1988
Label: Decca
now part of this collection
http://www.deccaclassics.com/us/cat/4753312


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Review

The designation Nullte—or No. 0—for Bruckner's early D minor Symphony has perhaps brought it a certain ridicule; but it is a substantial and attractive work that took shape in the winter of 1863–4 and was completed and significantly revised during 1869. The revision thus post-dates the official Symphony No. 1 completed in Linz in 1866.

Die Nullte was first performed in 1924 under the direction of Franz Moissl and first recorded by the Concert Hall Orchestra under Henk Spruit (Nixa nla) and then by Haitink and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1966 (Philips nla). Haitink's performance was one of great skill and decorum, the music sweetly and fluently realized with every care for fidelity to the musical text but no concern spuriously to 'make something of it'. Rozhdestvenksy's 1983 Melodiya recording, which usefully couples the early F minor Symphony fancifully dubbed ''Double-Zero'' by Le Chant du Monde/Harmonia Mundi on the cover of their two-CD set, is altogether more forceful with plenty of dramatic underlinings. The recording though exacerbates this. It is typically fierce, with virtually no dynamic below mezzo forte, plus a good deal of articifial microphoning, some exposed edits and tape noise.

Technically, Chailly's new Decca recording is greatly to be preferred. It has a proper dynamic range from tripleforte down to a beautifully soft but audible pianissimo, a silent background and more natural balances. The Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra is generally superior to the Moscow band though it lacks the complete surety of the deleted Concertgebouw performance. In particular, the Berlin RSO strings can occasionally sound undernourished in alt., and there is some less than precise wind tuning in music that particularly exposes the wind choir. Chailly's reading is more humane than Rozhdestvensky's. The presto scherzo, described by Robert Simpson as resembling ''enraged Rossini'', sounds under Rozhdestvensky like early Prokofiev or perhaps enraged, dyspeptic Kalinnikov, where Chailly makes it sound urgently and youthfully Brucknerian. And he is delightfully lazy in the lovely Trio. In general, Chailly takes a broader view of the work than either Haitink or Rozhdestvensky. In the first movement, I sometimes felt that this weakens what is structurally a very fine, occasionally audacious, piece of symphonic writing; but the finale is a tour de force. Chailly is quite unapologetic about Bruckner's fugal revels—shades of the finale of the Fifth Symphony yet to come—and the orchestra, especially the cellos, cope expertly with the delectably fleet but damnably awkward second subject. The early Overture in G minor is also played with great warmth and conviction.

I suppose the ear can adjust to the sound of the Rozhdestvensky records; but unless you particularly want his ''Zero plus Double-Zero'' coupling, the new Chailly is undoubtedly preferable both as a performance and as a recording.

-- Richard Osborne, Gramophone

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Anton Bruckner (4 September 1824 – 11 October 1896)) was an Austrian composer. His symphonies are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, strongly polyphonic character, and considerable length. Bruckner composed eleven symphonies, scored for a fairly standard orchestra. His orchestration was modeled after the sound of his primary instrument, the pipe organ.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Bruckner

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Riccardo Chailly (born 20 February 1953 in Milan) is an Italian conductor. He started his career as an opera conductor and gradually extended his repertoire to encompass symphonic music. Chailly was chief conductor of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (1982-1988) and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (1988-2004). He is currently chief conductor of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig (since 2005). He recorded exclusively for Decca.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riccardo_Chailly

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