Bruckner: Symphonie Nº. 2 Trevor Pinnock CHAMBER ARR ANGEMENT BY ANTHONY PAYNE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC SOLOISTS ENSEMBLE Bruckner: Symphonie Nº. 2 Trevor Pinnock CHAMBER ARR ANGEMENT BY ANTHONY PAYNE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC SOLOISTS ENSEMBLE Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) Symphonie No. 2 in C minor (Arr. Anthony Payne) q Moderato.......................................................................... 17:45 w Andante............................................................................ 14:27 e Scherzo: Mässig schnell..................................................... 6:09 r Finale: Mehr schnell...........................................................16:10 Johann Strauss II (1825 – 1899) t Wein, Weib und Gesang, Opus 333 (Arr. Alban Berg).......... 10:55 Total Time: 65:39 Recorded at St George’s, Bristol, UK March 2013 Produced by Jonathan Freeman-Attwood | Engineered by Philip Hobbs Post-production by Julia Thomas | Design by gmtoucari.com Photos by Hana Zushi, Royal Academy of Music Cover Image Improvisation 9, 1910 (detail) by Wassily Kandinsky ©ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2014 Trevor Pinnock Conductor Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble Violin Oboe Trombone Eloisa-Fleur Thom Eleanor Tinlin Ashley Harper Julia Pusker Viola Clarinet Timpani Ricardo Gaspar Matthew Scott Fergus Brennan Richard Waters Michael Pearce Cello Bassoon Piano Pei-Jee Ng Natalie Watson Chad Kelly Bernadette Childs Bass Horn Harmonium Andrei Mihailescu Anna Douglass Alexander Binns Carys Evans Rebecca Alexander Flute Trumpet Emma Halnan Darren Moore 4 A New Essence for Bruckner Arnold Schoenberg founded his Society for Private Musical Performance in 1918 as a reaction against the commercialisation of music in post-war Vienna. Restoring music’s value by turning inwards and closing ranks may seem strange to us in an age when the constant accessibility of music has become a cultural assumption, yet Schoenberg believed that elevating the currency, purity of expression and mystique of music inevitably meant a degree of exclusivity. By giving expert performances, in private, by subscription and without critics (a notice of ‘Kritikern ist der Eintritt verboten’ was pinned to the door), applause or accompanying programmes or notes, a new platform of creativity for the cognoscenti was established. Sometimes audiences did not know what they were going to listen to until they turned up. Quality of execution through careful preparation was matched by a discriminating presentation of the works of eminent living composers, whose musical creations were often refashioned for the Society in manageable chamber scorings. A wide variety of pieces by Ravel, Debussy, Bartók, Mahler, Johann Strauss, Webern, Berg and Schoenberg were all regularly heard in a chamber idiom of winds, string quintet, piano and, crucially, the Society’s ‘signature’ harmonium. The experiment was short- 5 lived. It barely lasted three years but its legacy is an interesting one, not least for an evocative, alternative landscape it offered to now-established masterpieces and the generosity by which composers honoured and ‘critiqued’ their fellow artists, through arrangements which distilled the very essence of the musical language in this micro-oeuvre. That this music could be presented with such finely drawn lines and in such favourable conditions allowed fine works to resonate in challenging ways which ultimately celebrated their most durable characteristics. Of special interest to Schoenberg was the potential for getting to the heart of a large orchestral work through the intimacy and flexibility of single instrumental ‘voices’ interacting as if the works were conceived as chamber creations. This principle cast a magic spell on reworkings of pieces such as Mahler’s Symphonie No. 4, Das Lied von der Erde and Debussy’s L’aprés-midi d’un faune (also recorded for Linn by Trevor Pinnock and the Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble). The challenge continues in this latest ‘premiere’: Bruckner’s Symphonie No. 2 in C minor. I asked composer Anthony Payne (of Elgar’s Third Symphony fame) if he would adopt the principles of Schoenberg’s Society in a new version of this symphony. We might imagine Bruckner to be a bridge too far within this aesthetic 6 though, actually, Bruckner’s Symphonie No. 7 was reworked in 1921. Our retrospective appraisal of this earlier gem arguably merits even greater attention as we identify, through adopting the ideals of the Society, an especially coherent ensemble work, one with a fresh and perhaps even more pervasive Schubertian dialect than Bruckner’s original canvas for full orchestra. Whilst employing a slightly larger ensemble than the core group used by Schoenberg, we hope that this scoring serves to reveal the luminescent appeal of a little-known nineteenth- century masterpiece — whilst also extending Schoenberg’s and his pupils’ practice of refined intimacy. Yet, unlike Schoenberg, we aim to disseminate the pieces as widely as possible. You may applaud and you are permitted to read this note. Critics? © Professor Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Principal, Royal Academy of Music, 2014 7 About the Commission Standing in the Academy’s foyer after another entrancing Sunday morning Bach cantata programme, I was button-holed by the Principal, Jonathan Freeman-Attwood. I didn’t realise that I was about to lose my next five months’ composing time, as he captured my interest with his plan to resurrect the idea of Schoenberg’s Society for Private Musical Performance, concentrating on those notable chamber arrangements of what were for the time (1918) rarely heard orchestral masterpieces (Mahler’s Symphonie No. 4, Debussy’s L’aprés-midi d’un faune, etc). Then, like a bolt from the blue came the question, how would I like to extend the tradition by contributing an arrangement myself. I held my ground, ‘Like what, for instance?’ ‘What about Bruckner’s Second Symphony?’ came the reply. I was stunned. As it happened this was the only Bruckner symphony I’d never heard, and while admiring much of this composer’s work, I did not consider myself a committed Brucknerian. I gulped and said I’d have a look at it. I acquired a score and recording, and quickly came to the conclusion that despite Bruckner’s massive orchestral effects, a chamber arrangement for judiciously chosen forces was a distinct possibility. As is often the case with pre-twentieth-century German music, the basis of the orchestral texture was the string sonority, and if I could replace that aspect of the score with, say, a sextet of 8 two violins, two violas, a cello and a double bass, I would be well on the way to solving my problem. The wind and brass sonorities in Bruckner also provide an exciting presence of course, but I felt they could be represented with a bold central core of flute and oboe with pairs of clarinets, bassoons and horns, plus a single trumpet and trombone supported by harmonium and piano to imply more than was actually present in the line up. I decided to accept the commission, but feared the amount of hard work involved at a time when other commitments were hanging over me. I am an unrepentant luddite, and have never reconciled myself to the use of computer programmes to speed the process of producing a full score. This was to be a hand-written job, and the symphony consisted of some 1,750 bars. ‘Well dear reader’, as Charlotte Brontë might have said, ‘I completed it’, and during the course of five months’ hard labour came to admire the symphony enormously. Certainly, I now think it structurally the tightest of Bruckner’s earlier symphonies. Performed magnificently under Trevor Pinnock’s direction by one of the finest chamber groups I’ve heard in the Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble, the arrangement exceeded my most extravagant expectations, and I owe to all concerned my heartfelt gratitude. © Anthony Payne, 2014 9 Conductor’s Note Two factors dominated my thought and inspiration as I prepared Bruckner’s Symphonie No. 2 for performance. The first was my image of him improvising in the great church of St Florian. I could almost hear him experimenting with the elements of the Symphony which he may initially have presented in improvised form on the organ at Crystal Palace in August 1871. The second was the discovery of Bruckner’s own manuscript score which I was amazed to find freely available on the internet. The hours spent with this precious document revealed much about Bruckner’s alliance of visionary material and a classicism traceable to Schubert. The score includes his own meticulous corrections of phrasing and many of his pencilled early revisions. I was also struck by his numbering of bars into units, which I took to be less indicative of his known obsession with numbers than of his desire to keep his far reaching musical ideas within a strict classical framework. In choosing a performing version I had to make a judgment on the many revisions that Bruckner made to the original text in 1873 and 1877, with the encouragement of his friend Herbeck, and subsequently in his final revision in the 1890s. Good editions are now available of most of the different stages of revision although I have yet to see one which incorporates a radical reworking of the 10 central section of the slow movement pencilled into Bruckner’s manuscript score. I have chosen to adopt some of the composer’s later adjustments which seemed especially well-suited to this performance with a chamber ensemble. Bruckner’s visit to London in 1871 was clearly a happy one. He received enthusiastic acclaim for his virtuoso playing and commented that ‘In England my music is really understood’. I believe that his Symphonie No. 2 deserves to be better known and I am delighted to present it with the outstanding Royal Academy Soloists Ensemble in this remarkable chamber arrangement by Anthony Payne. © Trevor Pinnock, 2014 11 The series: reigniting Schoenberg’s vision This is the second release in the Royal Academy of Music’s series of chamber reductions.