Eighty-four years young when this astounding performance was captured on July 4, 1978, Karl Böhm presides over one of those wonderful, rare evenings in which everything goes right. I defy any confirmed Brucknerian to listen to this recording and not come away shaken and profoundly moved. Not only has Böhm inspired a second-rate orchestra to surpass itself in every department (and exploded the myth that he was little more than a stodgy Kappelmeister, particularly toward the end of his life), but the recording captures the players in a near-ideal acoustic space–neither too dry nor too reverberant. A touch of ambient hiss and the occasional rustle from the audience aside, you can close your eyes and with little effort imagine yourself in a good balcony seat. So get comfortable. There’s magic in the air tonight.
At 72 minutes, this recording lops off eight minutes from Böhm’s DG studio recording with the Vienna Philharmonic. Fans of certain “historical” Bruckner conductors, such as Oswald Kabasta, will find themselves particularly drawn to this swiftly urgent, dynamic approach. The performance seethes with white-hot intensity. Böhm takes the opening broadly and then begins steadily applying the pressure, the second subject a bit faster, the third theme faster still, until the by the time he reaches the development section the music has built up an unstoppable momentum. The approach to the recapitulation unleashes an orchestral cataclysm, and the movement ends with the most wonderfully graded, in-tempo diminuendo I ever hope to hear. The scherzo sustains these elevated energy levels. Note the excellent balances between horns, trumpets, and winds at the climaxes, as well as the beautifully flowing tempo for the trio, expressive but not a note out of place.
Böhm lets the Adagio breathe generously, and at just a bit under 25 minutes finds an absolutely perfect basic tempo. Listen to the way the violins phrase the opening melody under a firm accompanying pulse: Böhm makes his players sing. Each phrase has shape, direction, and meaning. How wonderful it is to hear the harps naturally imbedded in the texture of the string chorale rather than individually miked and excessively prominent. Böhm’s vocal approach pays huge dividends in the movement’s central section, its numerous short exchanges between winds, brass, and strings always purposefully articulated, the music rising like a force of nature to the great climax and subsiding into a wonderfully poetic coda. The opening of the finale blazes, an adrenaline-pumping onslaught of sound, and there’s no dragging in the second subject or development. By the time the coda arrives you wonder how Böhm and his players could possibly have anything left to give; but they play as if possessed, effortlessly riding the crest of one last, incandescent climax.
If there are any flaws in the execution, they’re too insignificant to be mentioned. Textually speaking, Böhm uses the Nowak edition, although both Palexa and DG claim that he uses Haas. He does, however, follow Haas in restoring one small cut of about seven bars (beginning at measure 610) in the finale, just before the last appearance of the march-like third subject, and it makes very good sense. We all remember those few, special live concert occasions when the music making seemed to take on a life of its own, when we knew nothing could go wrong, and we lost ourselves completely in the thrill of the moment. They can’t be planned. When conductor and orchestra “connect”, and when the repertoire is right (I can’t imagine, for example, a piece like Ibert’s Divertissement casting this kind of spell), they just happen. Such events are very rare, and very precious. This is one, a true musical testament; and thanks to Karl Böhm, the engineers of the Swiss radio, and Palexa, you can own it and enjoy it forever.
