Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 (original 1894 version, ed. L. Nowak)

Chronique

As a leader in the movement for historically informed performance, Roger Norrington has consistently applied scholarship to the music of the 18th and 19th centuries and produced recordings of the classics in period style on original instruments. Usually, this has involved researching the appropriate instrumentation of the period, following seating plans for typical orchestras and pursuing documentation from contemporary sources on the way the music was played in its time. Norrington's forays into music from the Classical and early Romantic eras have been the most satisfying because of the insights they provide into the composers' expectations and the results they probably got. This 2010 performance of Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 in D minor ostensibly presents the music in the manner it would have been heard in the 1890s, with an orchestra laid out according to the Viennese style, with articulation and phrasing that would have been commonplace, and with slightly faster tempos than are heard elsewhere. Also noticeable is the absence of 20th century vibrato in the strings, which Viennese orchestras likely didn't start using until 1938. So in terms of sound, this is thought to be close to what Bruckner might have heard in 1896 had he lived to complete the Ninth and heard it played. Unfortunately, this recording from Hänssler Classic a cerebral exercise that has little feeling for the monumentality and profundity of the piece, and there is no grandeur, mystery, or tragedy in Norrington's nit-picking interpretation. He gets virtually all details right and can point with pride to the pristine sonorities he elicits from the SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. But his Ninth is too tidy and sterile to be taken seriously by fans of the composer, and the deal-breaker is the boredom that ensues from Norrington's near metronome-like accuracy: the music isn't played with expression, but simply read mechanically. However, Norrington's reputation in this late Romantic repertoire precedes him, so most devotees of this piece and of Bruckner will know to avoid this release.
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