BRUCKNER Symphony No. 3 in D minor (Edition of 1877 with additions from 1889)
Philharmonia Orchestra/Lovro von Matačić
BBC Legends BBCL 4079-2 [59:26]
The tape itself is a miracle. Here we have Lovro von Matačić at eighty-four, conducting his final Promenade Concert in July 1983—and the BBC, bless them, were experimenting with digital recording just then.
The warm acoustics of the concert hall seem to breathe through the recording.
The result has come down to us on a Telefunken-Mitsubishi X-80 open reel DASH format machine, one of only two hundred ever manufactured, which the producers had to track down at the National Museum of Photography, Film and — well — Television in Bradford. The sonic clarity is startling: put away any thoughts of archival tolerance. This sounds like a broadcast from last summer, with air around the instruments, timpani that register with proper weight and bloom, brass that sings without glare, and a stereo spread that places you in the stalls at the Albert Hall on that July evening four decades past.
Now, the Third. Bruckner’s problem child, perpetually revised, never quite satisfactory. Matačić uses the 1877 edition with interpolations from 1889—though really, the textual question with this symphony is a thicket one shouldn’t enter without proper preparation.
The original 1873 score (Nowak’s edition, based on the Wagner dedication manuscript) reveals what Bruckner first imagined, before doubt and well-meaning friends got to him. Inbal on Teldec and Tintner on Naxos have recorded that version, and both belong on any serious Brucknerian’s shelf. But most conductors work with the revised texts, and Matačić is no exception—though you’ll notice at the "Scherzo"’s coda that he’s imported the truncated 1889 ending.
The textual purity brigade will object. Let them. What matters is that Matačić understands this symphony’s architecture—knows where it sags, where it soars, where Bruckner’s reach exceeded his grasp.
In the opening movement he takes the long view, shaping phrases with expressive freedom yet never losing the thread of the larger design. His tempo shifts are so organic you don’t notice the gear changes, which is precisely how it should be done. The cellos dig into their lines with real bite (the Philharmonia was in fine form that night) — and; when the recapitulation arrives, Matačić has prepared it with such quiet inevitability that the moment lands with genuine poignancy.
The "Adagio" is noble, direct—though you really must hear the 1873 version to grasp what Bruckner originally intended. Still, Matačić’s urgent forward motion gives the movement a searching quality that partly compensates for the textual compromises. The "Scherzo" benefits from the recording’s full-bodied brass reproduction, and Matačić’s rhythmic pull is just right.
He lets the bucolic Trio dance along without sentimentality—a trap many conductors fall into. Then comes the "finale". There’s no escaping it: this movement doesn’t measure up to the great peroration Bruckner would later achieve in the Fifth or Eighth.
The material simply isn’t strong enough, the organization not quite cogent. Matačić does what he can—and his “best” is considerable—but even he can’t transform second-rate Bruckner into first-rate. The stately “polka” episodes contrast well with the chorale passages, and he keeps things moving so the music doesn’t outstay its welcome.
When the coda finally arrives, there’s genuine triumph in the sound, a sense of hard-won resolution. This is Matačić’s legacy as a Bruckner specialist, often overlooked when the pantheon is assembled. He recorded the Fourth with the Philharmonia for Walter Legge in 1954—the first Bruckner symphony ever set down by a British company—and went on to record the “Die Nullte,” Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth for various labels.
Legge chose him because Karajan, his star leader, performed only the Eighth and Ninth at that time, and Legge deemed those commercially unviable. (How times change.) Matačić’s credentials were impeccable even then. What this BBC Legends release gives us is a chance to hear a master Brucknerian in his final years, still commanding the architecture of these vast structures, still finding poetry in the details.
The Philharmonia responds with warmth and precision—you can hear they’re enjoying themselves. The disc quality removes any excuse not to listen. Yes, the Third remains problematic, flawed in ways no interpretation can entirely redeem.
But this rendition makes as strong a case for the work as any I know. A real gem from the archives.
