Best Bruckner Symphony

[smithreeseii]

 

[smithreeseii]

No real Bruckner fans here eh?   

[pianowolfi]

Best? Don't know. My favorites are the No.4 and No.8, so far. No 8 is just wow wow wow

*tadammm ---tadaaaam ta daaa da da da* yeahhh ( this last "da" needs to be really short..)

[smithreeseii]

Yeah the 8th is very good.  But yeah, the actual question asks for your favorite.  I have the wrong thing on the title, asking for the best, sorry.

[point of grace]

sorry, i only know the 4th

[gep]

Question: why are there only a number of Symphnies in your vote list? Why not all 11?

Personally, a close tie between 8 and 9, but when pressed I'd go for 9. Mind you, I mean the Ninth including the Finale! The Ninth without the Finale is really a fragment (albeit a big one); unfortunately most people think it complete in three movements. The Finale is the most disturbing of any Bruckner Finale, which is probably the reason why people rather ingnore it (if they know there is a Finale to begin with). OK, the Finale is not entirely complete (and less complete now than at the time of Bruckner's death because of souvenir hunters), but still: GET TO KNOW IT, if you do not do so.

Best performance of the 3 movement fragment: Furtwängler/Berliner Phil 1944.
Best completed version (i.e. with Finale): hard driven to choose between Carragan, Letocart and Cohrs/Samale/Phillips/Mazzuca.

All best,
gep

[ahinton]

Question: why are there only a number of Symphnies in your vote list? Why not all 11?

Personally, a close tie between 8 and 9, but when pressed I'd go for 9. Mind you, I mean the Ninth including the Finale! The Ninth without the Finale is really a fragment (albeit a big one); unfortunately most people think it complete in three movements. The Finale is the most disturbing of any Bruckner Finale, which is probably the reason why people rather ingnore it (if they know there is a Finale to begin with). OK, the Finale is not entirely complete (and less complete now than at the time of Bruckner's death because of souvenir hunters), but still: GET TO KNOW IT, if you do not do so.

Best performance of the 3 movement fragment: Furtwängler/Berliner Phil 1944.
Best completed version (i.e. with Finale): hard driven to choose between Carragan, Letocart and Cohrs/Samale/Phillips/Mazzuca.

All best,
gep

Good points all! I do think, however, that it is important that these completions of Bruckner's final finale need to be given as much exposure as possible because, although their history is now quite a long one, performances of this symphony as a four-movement work remain very few and far between compared, for example, to complete ones of Mahler's Tenth; quite why that should be at this stage I am unsure, but I can only conjecture that, as the "fragment"(!) that is its first three movements is on so much larger a scale than the first movement of Mahler's Tenth Symphony (the only one that the composer completed more or less in full), it has had a greater chance of becoming perceived (albeit quite wrongly and inappropriately) as a symphonic entity in and of itself. Much as I love Bruckner's Ninth Symphony, I have tended to avoid listening to it often until relatively recently, because I know from the outset that it will all end in utter frustration (which is hardly an apposite response to the end of its third movement!).

Best,

Alistair

[gep]

And how about Bruckner Symphony's performers? My occupation with Bruckner has been sharply on the increase lately, mainly due to my delving in the various completions of the Finale of the 9th. I've got several complete set now (or partially complete if there are no complete sets from this or that conductor), and some are very good and/or interestingly different.
How about Celibidache (3-9)? I really do not know if it should be that slow at some points (77mins for the three movements of the 9th??), but he's got my attention! Volkmar Andreae is an interesting "oldy" set from 1953 with rather quick tempi. Tintner is quite good too, as is Skrowaszewski. Dennis Russel Davies is in the mail as we speak.
Jan Peter Marthé is [fill in various favorite exceedingly scatological words], really.... Bruckner died over a century ago, no need to murder him now, especially not in St. Florian itself!! and 

One observation: Bruckner has been, for me, always been second after Mahler. Presently he's gaining. Don't know why, perhaps it's the same as getting to know Schubert after you've underwent Beethoven? 

Opinions, anyone?

gep

[djealnla]

I would vote for either the 8th or the 9th.

[lisztrachmaninovfan]

I cannot vote, because Bruckner's Symphony No.3 or 6 isn't up there. Why don't you just list all of his symphonies?

[pianoplayjl]

Why isn't there a no.3? I like the end of the 1st movement especially.