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Review of Janson's Bruckner set
Posted by John Proffitt on November 17, 2020, 4:33 pm
I would offer a couple of brief correctives to Ralph Moore's thorough review of the Bavarian Radio SO release of Mariss Janson's Bruckner recordings.
In the Symphony 7, Janson's use of the Nowak score includes the percussion and timpani at the Adagio climax. It is the Haas edition of B7 that omits the percussion.
Dermot Gault's impressive - and essential - The New Bruckner gives a thorough discussion of Symphony 7 and the history surrounding the cymbal, triangle, and timpani at the Adagio climax. (1) The idea for this came from Bruckner's young associates, and conductor Arthur Nikisch was so convinced of the effect during rehearsals that he *insisted* on using it in the performance, which Bruckner agreed to. (2) The scribbled remark "not valid" and marginal question marks on the slip of paper that adds the percussion parts to the score is in current scholarship not seen as Bruckner's handwriting. (3) perhaps most importantly, the subsequent performances of which Bruckner was keenly aware included the percussion; the conductor's score given by Bruckner to Karl Muck included the percussion; and the first published edition by Gutmann included the percussion and the composer was fully aware of this.
The final evidence which should put the "invalid" argument to rest is Bruckner's obvious liking of the effect in Symphony 7: in his composition following the B7 premiere, he included cymbals in the 1888 edition of Symphony 4, multiple cymbals in Symphony 8 (both versions!), and cymbals in his last completed large-orchestra work, Helgoland.