Bruckner Symphony No. 9 (ed. Nowak) Manfred Honeck Pittsburgh
Symphony Orchestra
Reference Recordings 733 (SACD:63:12)
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New classical music releases reviewed in detail by Gavin Dixon
Thursday, 12 September 2019
Bruckner Symphony No. 9 Manfred Honeck Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
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Manfred Honeck’s impressive discography with the
Pittsburgh Symphony raises high expectations for this new Bruckner Nine, and it
doesn’t disappoint. Honeck has a knack for reinventing core Romantic
repertoire, but without moving outside of established performing traditions. He
pays particular attention to dance forms—the Bohemian dances in Dvořák, the Ländler
in Mahler—and interprets the music accordingly, often finding a wealth of rhythmic
subtly and interest in forms that other conductors treat as merely generically
rustic. Honeck also likes to tell stories: Even in the most abstract of works
he will find associations and ideas, which he will then elaborate through his
interpretation, that narrative impulse offering ever-more sophisticated nuances
and variations to justify the repetitions of symphonic form.
All of which stands him in opposition to many of the
prevailing tendencies in the recent history of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony.
Unlike many conductors, he is not content to present the work as a monolithic
edifice, nor to trust the work’s formal elegance to deliver meaningful
structure or progression. The liner to this release is dominated by a huge
essay by Honeck himself, giving a detailed account of his interpretation of the
music. The first movement, he says, is all about death. Honeck suggests that
Bruckner is anticipating his own death here. He quickly acknowledges that this
is historically suspect, but it doesn’t matter, it is just the starting point
for his interpretation. The performance is dynamic and incisive. Tempos are
about average, perhaps a little faster, but Honeck has an impressive ability to
deliver weight and impact without resorting to glacial tempos. And the tempos
are continuously fluid, with brisk and often surprising accelerandos into big
thematic statements. And when those big themes come, Honeck sways their rhythms
in almost imperceptible ways (a legacy from his hero, Carlos Kleiber) to drive
and shape the music. The orchestra is on excellent form here, particularly the
brass, whose weighty but focused tone brings scale and majesty to the music.
True to form, Honeck interprets the Scherzo as a
dance, though that takes a leap of imagination, given the drama of the
movement. It begins with luminous pizzicato in the strings, before the brass
enter, again delivering impressive weight and impact. And if none of this
sounds particularly dance-like, the oboe countermelody, which Honeck describes
as “played in the style of an Austrian country musician” provides suitable
relief, and without relaxing the pace. The Trio is surprisingly fast, unnecessarily
so perhaps, but is illuminated with glittering textures from the strings and
woodwind.
In his essay, Honeck associates the Finale with the Agnus
Dei, not through any specific word setting, so much as in tone and style. The
result is a more subdued reading than the previous movements might lead us to
expect, and a slow one too, 27:46 puts it at the longer end of the spectrum. The
orchestral textures now feel more subdued, and the rubato and phrasing, while
still flexible, no longer offer the immediacy and surprises that were so
startling in the first movement. The Adagio
is always the heart of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, but Honeck takes it to
another level, of spiritual contemplation and personal reflection. He makes no apology
in his essay for not including a Finale completion, but the music gives the
answer: Nothing could possibly follow an Adagio
of this solemn intensity.
The orchestra deserves equal praise for their performance
here. The distinctively American brass sound works wonders in Bruckner, but the
sheer precision of the playing from all sections elevates every phrase, and the
distinctive woodwind solos—sometimes rustically styled, but not always—are
another bonus. The SACD sound is immediate and involving, with a surprising
amount of presence for the rear speakers. The double basses seem to be on an
elevated platform centre-stage, and the sheer quantity of bass, from them and
the timpani, in the central speaker takes some getting used to, but is welcome
nonetheless. Another top-quality release from Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh
Symphony, recommended accordingly.
This
review appears in Fanfare magazine issue 43:3
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