Mario Venzago

For his project of recording the complete symphonies of Anton Bruckner on CPO, Mario Venzago has chosen to record each symphony with a different orchestra to re-create the sounds that Bruckner would have heard. Considering that Bruckner's experiences with orchestras spanned three decades, he would have witnessed growth of the orchestra's size and the introduction of new instruments, which clearly influenced his decisions when he composed and revised each work. Venzago performs the Symphony No. 8 in C minor with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, following the 1890 version and employing the same instrumentation and ensemble scale, as well as traditional practices that are documented in performances from that period. The result is an Eighth that sounds strikingly different from the other symphonies, quite far removed from the early Romantic orchestra he used in the First, and considerably expanded from the ensembles he would have expected for the Fourth or even the Seventh symphonies.

Continuing his impressive series of Anton Bruckner's symphonies on CPO, Mario Venzago leads the Bern Symphony Orchestra in period style performances of the Symphony No. 3 in D minor (1889 version) and the Symphony No. 6 in A major (1881 version), using scores edited by Leopold Nowak. Venzago strives for historically informed performances that give varying perspectives on Bruckner's development, employing different orchestras with each release to reveal important differences in the composer's orchestral conceptions and to show that there wasn't one prescription of how the symphonies should sound. Instead, Venzago rejects the massive and heavy-handed interpretations of the early 20th century and tries to re-create the 19th century sound world in all its variety and intimacy. The glistening, vibrato-less string tone, pungent woodwinds, and crisp brass and timpani are easily distinguished from the more homogenized tone colors of a modern symphony orchestra, and Venzago ensures that these distinctive timbres aren't obscured by keeping the orchestral sections lean and discrete.

Anton Bruckner's early symphonies are not as widely performed or recorded as his mature works, so Mario Venzago's double-disc on CPO of the Symphony in D minor, called "No. 0" or "Die Nullte," and the Symphony No. 1 in C minor is a stand-out from the nearly unstoppable run of recordings of the Fourth, Seventh, and Ninth. Venzago and the Tapiola Sinfonietta give exceptional performances that have technical polish and expressive warmth, and the charm the musicians draw out of these pieces makes one wonder why they aren't more popular. Certainly, both symphonies approach the later ones in expansiveness and seriousness, and there's more than a little Brucknerian sonic grandeur in these fledgling efforts. Yet even though these are works of the late 1860s, the music is still strongly governed by Classical models, and because the influence of Richard Wagner is absent in the symphonies prior to the Third, listeners who ordinarily find Bruckner too complicated, heavy, and ponderous may find these lighter works more accessible and enjoyable.

Following his CPO recording with the Tapiola Sinfonietta of Anton Bruckner's Symphony in D minor, "Die Nullte," and the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Mario Venzago presents the Symphony No. 2 in C minor, this time with the Northern Sinfonia. Unlike some contemporary conductors who favor the original 1872 version of this symphony, Venzago performs the more familiar 1877 version, edited by William Carragan. This is the first of Bruckner's symphonies where he expanded the form to an hour duration, and the fertile ideas it contains are appropriate to the greater time frame. Yet this work has never been accepted by audiences in the way most of the later symphonies have, such as the Fourth, Seventh, and Ninth, and the music falters over too many starts and stops, indecisive development, and repetitions. Even so, there is much attractive material here, and Venzago brings it off with a light touch, having the orchestra play delicately and sweetly, almost as if this were a Mendelssohn symphony.

Recently, the E major Symphony has often been counted as Schubert’s 7th symphony. Unlike his other symphonic fragments, the Symphony in E major exists in a complete draft from the first to the last bar in all four movements. More recently, the symphony became accessible to a wider public again in the completed version by Brian Newbould (1982). Now the Austrian composer Richard Dünser, together with the conductor Mario Venzago, has presented a new version of the symphony fragment. The less inspired middle movements have been replaced by supplemented drafts from the year of Schubert’s death. The result: a «new» great symphony by Schubert with a playing time of over 40 minutes; an original and gripping work that immediately convinces with its idiomatic and formal unity.

Mario Venzago’s recordings of Bruckner symphonies with the Tapiola Sinfonietta and other chamber orchestras raised eyebrows and furrowed brows. I doubt his Brahms will provoke much if any controversy. It’s now more than two decades since the release of Charles Mackerras’s pioneering set with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra – discs that were clearly labelled ‘in the style of the original Meiningen performances’, presumably to assure buyers that there was historical precedence behind the notion of a smallish orchestra playing the canonical Brahms four.