Reconstructing Bruckner’s Tempos

I had first to choose a symphony with an extensive recording history, going back into the 1930s, which had copious and explicit tempo indications in the first published score to serve as a basis for evaluating changes. I decided to work with the Fourth, which was recorded by Böhm in 1936, Eugen Jochum in 1939, Walter in 1940, Furtwängler in 1941, and Kabasta and Knappertsbusch in 1944. Nearly 100 commercial recordings of this symphony, in five major versions, have been made since! [that is, up to 1996]

The first published version of 1888 derives from a manuscript prepared by Franz Schalk (first three movements) and Ferdinand Löwe (finale) and then given to Bruckner for his comments and revisions. Bruckner entered many modifications in his own hand, including extensions of ideas proposed by Schalk and Löwe. When he was finished, the score was taken to the publisher, Gutmann, with perhaps some final adjustments by Schalk and Löwe. (My source for this history is Benjamin Korstvedt of the University of Iowa [now at Clark University], whose dissertation was devoted to this subject.) In the Finale, in which lay my principal interest, the Löwe score contains metronome markings at the beginning (half note = 72) and also at the great unison theme at the first climax (half note = 66). Then explicit directions call for exact half-tempo at the second theme (around half note = 33), with stepwise changes to somewhat faster tempos during the second theme group. At the third theme, the tempo of the unison theme (66) is to be re-established, and the tempo of the very beginning (72) is to be resumed only at the mysterious onset of the development. The manuscript specifications of this tempo scheme, at first in Löwe’s writing, are continued through the movement in Bruckner’s own hand. Do any of the recorded versions carry out these instructions? No!

Still, the earliest performances show some influence of the 1888 tempos, even when the conductor was using the newly-published Haas edition of 1936 which did not include the metronome markings or the half-tempo specification. Tempos tended to be brisk, though nobody made the great distinction between the tempos of the first and second theme called for by Löwe. Then, about 1953 or 1955, tempos started to become slower, particularly at the great unison theme near the beginning, and at the coda. In the last 40 years, the slowing has become extensive and inexorable, even in the work of a single conductor. For example, at the beginning of the coda, Walter used 56 in 1940 and 48 in 1960; Masur used 61 in 1975 and 46 in 1993; Barenboim used 46 in 1973 and 42 in 1992, and Klemperer, with a very fast 73 in 1951, slowed to 68 in 1954, 62 in 1961, and 56 in 1966. By contrast, Eugen Jochum remained roughly constant between 48 and 43 in five performances from 1939 to 1975, while the general downward trend is confirmed by Celibidache (1974?) and Muti (1985) at 39. At the same time the unison theme has in modern performances become so distended and pretentious as to lose all shape and interest. I presented these results in a paper at the Bruckner conference at the University of Manchester in England in the spring of 1996. That paper included the following sentence: “This downward trend, already seen in whole-movement timings and conclusively shown in individual tempos, cannot proceed much further without fatally damaging the symphony.”

A great virtue of the Löwe tempo scheme is its clear delineation of the structure of the exposition: first theme fast, second theme slow, first theme fast again. Those requirements cannot be ignored without lessening the capacity of the form to carry the listener along. I do not mean to suggest here that the listener must be trained so as to appreciate explicitly the details of formal analysis. Rather, the composer and the interpreter must collaborate in order that the listener may hear the composition most effectively. Thus the composer must create a simple, self-consistent, and complete system of tempo indications, and this obligation is particularly incumbent when the forms are large. In this respect Bruckner’s manuscripts, which have been used as the basis of the Collected Edition, are essentially private, unedited documents, with rather few tempo indications. Only the first publications, largely ignored by the editors of the Collected Edition, contain enough tempo indications to tie up all the loose ends and bring out the form successfully.

To present out these points at the Manchester conference, my friend Aaron Snyder and I prepared a composite tape, taking excerpts from several performances to recreate the Löwe tempos. The result has a combination of stern dignity and warm, flexible lyricism that added up to much more than the individual excerpts might lead one to expect. We used recordings by Dohnányi and Janowski for the first and third themes, and Walter (1960) for the second theme. Dohnányi’s steady grandeur, Janowski’s meteoric intensity, and Walter’s gentle urbanity together made a remarkable listening experience. Maybe someone will soon put it all together in one performance! Meanwhile, I recommend strongly the purchase of these three recordings (move quickly on the Janowski; despite our Editor’s favorable review, it has been remaindered), as well as the Kabasta, the Andreæ, the 1963 Konwitschny, the Mehta (never on CD), the Ormandy, the Milan Horvat recording (presented under the macaronic pseudonym “Denis Zsoltay”), and the wonderful Böhm reading of 1936. Of course the Furtwängler performances of 1951 are essential, and the Knappertsbusch recordings, while not in any way reflecting Löwe’s overall scheme (even though he was using that score!) have an earthy integrity that is irresistible. Where are the modern conductors with their digital recordings? Not in the same league, I am sorry to say.

An incidental result of the study was the demonstration that National Socialism had nothing to do with the change of tempos from fast to slow. Conductors with Nazi sympathies played both fast and slow; so did stern anti-Nazis! If the Nazis wanted more monumentality in their Bruckner, at least in this symphony there was not sufficient time during the 12-year history of the thousand-year Reich to develop such a tradition. But, as we shall see here and elsewhere, other symphonies have different histories.

The finale of the Eighth has three metronome markings. They are present in the Nowak editions of both the 1887 and 1890 versions, the composite Haas edition, and the first published edition of 1892.  One occurs at the beginning (half note = 69), one is at the second theme (half note = 60), and one is at the recapitulation of the second theme (60 again).  Every conductor of this symphony in every edition and at every time has seen these indications, but do they follow them? No, not ever in recorded history! Most curious is that although only in the rare 1892 score is there an indication for the third theme to return to the initial tempo, most conductors do get faster there. But they rarely come anywhere near the tempos they use for the opening theme, which can be as fast as 94. To my mind such hurtling tempos, at which the trumpeters have no chance of playing their fanfares cleanly, falsify the movement totally, no matter how exciting they may seem at the moment. At present I know of only two recordings in which the opening is performed slower than 70. These are the Knappertsbusch studio performance of 1963, an exact half note = 69, and Klemperer’s 1970 performance on EMI, an astounding half note = 63. This particular Klemperer performance is outrageous, not only for his molasses-like tempos throughout, but also for his cuts in the finale; he excises the codetta and three quarters of the development, as well as the entire third theme group in the reprise. Klemperer’s reading of this symphony with the Cologne orchestra has none of these faults and is one of my favorites. Koussevitzky has similar cuts, but they were necessitated by the 50-minute length of the radio presentation for which the recording was made. In both cases it is too bad we do not have complete recordings, because the concepts behind the performances are interesting and stimulating. (It is even sadder to see that fifty years later, public radio stations have almost universally adopted a dumbed-down hour-by-hour format that pretty much eliminates Bruckner, Mahler, and much of Shostakovich while benefiting nobody except the station administrators.)

The 1963 Knappertsbusch performance was described by the redoubtable Jack Diether in American Record Guide as “just like slow motion,” and “a bore, but a magnificent bore”—perhaps partly because after directing the first theme at exactly the specified tempo of 69, Kna goes on to the second theme at 42 instead of 60. The recording that comes closest to the 69-60-69 contour specified in 1892 is Takashi Asahina’s with the New Japan Philharmonic on Fontec 9054. Of similar character are the Neeme Järvi, the Furtwängler at Vienna in 1954, and the Furtwängler at Berlin (Titania Palast) in 1949; then Kubelík, Berlin Karajan and Vienna Karajan in 1988, the fine López-Cobos, one of his best, the Vienna Schuricht, and Horenstein. Some will be troubled to see Karajan on this list; he comes nowhere near the short lists for the other symphonies. Karajan does tend to play everything legato, which is particularly irritating in the scherzo. Many listeners would rather have the tempos wrong and the articulation and the mood correct. The 1944 Karajan (Prussian State Orchestra) is extremely slow, but over the years Karajan’s Eighth grew steadily faster, tending to come closer to satisfying the demands of the score. The performances of Bruckner symphonies with Hans Knappertsbusch as conductor are endlessly fascinating and enriching, even though they satisfy hardly any tempo criterion one may be able to establish. With little of Furtwängler’s intellectual approach, they still have a personal quality of earnestness and lyrical grace that overwhelms any objection one may have to the occasional sloppy entrance.

Other performances of interest must include the Mravinsky, now available in the second large set of CDs (the Ninth was in the first set), the Suitner, a splendid reading well received by Jerry Fox elsewhere in this issue [November/December 1996], and the Eichhorn. Asahina’s Eighths are his best work, and the more recent recordings seem to contain somewhat better orchestral playing than the earlier ones. The Fontec set of Symphonies 4, 5, 7, and 8 is lavishly presented and quite attractive.

In the finale of the Eighth, the performance of the first theme at 69 and the second theme at 60, returning imperceptibly to 69 as the third theme approaches, would produce a far more authentic allegro feeling than the frequent present practice, which is to start with a minute-and-a-half of hysterical activity at 88 and then begin another slow movement at a tempo of 46. One must remember that Bruckner, a symphonist among symphonists, revered and imitated Beethoven, and Beethoven concluded his symphonies with robust allegros. Robert Simpson’s commendation of Sergiu Celibidache for transforming the finale of the Fourth into another adagio is misplaced. It is possible, of course, to see beauty in a performance at any speed, but I should think that the beauty that proceeds from the composer’s own specifications might have a chance to be greater and more profound.