''Less than ten years ago,'' wrote Neville Cardus in 1951, ''the Halle Orchestra all but foundered. Only the funnel and bridge were discernible in the tidal wave of the world. No players, hardly; the hall destroyed. But faith remained strong, so the miracle was possible, even in a period not of local but of universal shipwreck.'' The Halle's salvation was Barbirolli, since whose death the old vessel has more than once appeared to be rather dangerously shipping water. Yet here she is under her late master Stanislaw Skrowaczewski sailing proudly on, flags flying, dauntless still. To judge by this extraordinarily inspiring performance of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony, the Halle is an orchestra for whom keeping the faith is the first and last article of its constitution.
It is not, I should say, an obviously 'cultured' performance. There are suaver Bruckner Fourths on record; even, here and there, more phenomenally exact ones. (The Scherzo, for instance, might have benefited from another ten minutes' rehearsal.) But as Cardus was fond of reminding us: in the North of England, in Manchester especially, character has always been valued above 'culture'. In any case, what has Bruckner ever had to do with culture as it is generally defined in Hampstead or Harrogate, Highgate or Harrow?
I should have realized within the first three minutes that this was going to be a remarkable performance—fiery and true, rightly denying even lip-service to the symphony's misleadingly sentimental nickname. In fact, it is about ten minutes into the first movement that the performance's real stature is finally manifest. This is the great modulating chorale at fig. K, two of the most inspired pages in all Bruckner, and their profoundly beautiful aftermath. Bohm and the Vienna Philharmonic are superb here; but, if anything, under Skrowaczewski the tension is ever higher, the Halle brass playing even more exalted. And 40 bars on, in the recapitulation, there is no doubting the added security of the first horn's low-pitched counterpoint to the cellos' rapt arioso in the Halle performance.
Throughout the Halle performance, horns, violas and cellos play supremely well. This is important in the finale where the lyrical subjects are all-important. In one of many fascinating additions and revisions to his book The Essence of Bruckner (Gollancz: 1992), Robert Simpson now goes as far as to suggest that ''the whole of this finale is really an adagio''. (In temper and spirit, he means; a performance by Celibidache first alerted him to this.)
Daniel Barenboim seems more inclined to think this way, too. (As does Abbado in his fine recent VPO version on DG.) Since Barenboim first recorded the Fourth Symphony in Chicago in 1972 he has broadened his interpretation whilst at the same time creating an even more compelling sense of a great organic symphonic utterance. The finale, in particular, is now wonderfully evolved, the whole thing so organically of a piece one fails to notice the occasional bit of otiose detailing left in the works by Bruckner. The slow movement is also further deepened. What in Chicago was a serene meditation (rather dryly recorded in the climaxes) has now become a profound act of spiritual indwelling.
As in earlier recordings in this Berlin/Barenboim series, the Teldec engineers favour a fairly warm sound, apt to the cultured Berlin playing. Pickwick, by contrast, favour a sound that is keener and more immediate, equally apt to the performance in hand. As to comparative recommendations, on this occasion I append them only for form's sake. Barenboim and the Berliners, Skrowaczewski and the Halle both richly deserve the right to be heard on their own terms. If the Halle performance has occupied the greater number of column inches, it is because it is both a surprise—and, in its eloquent down-to-earth way, an inspiration. Bruckner, I am sure, would have loved the cut of its jib.'