Concert Review: Climbing Twin Peaks

The Carnegie Hall Bruckner cycle reaches its climax.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Your guide to Bruckner: Daniel Barenboim.
Photo by Paul Schimhofer © 2017 Deutsche Grammophon/UMG

This week, Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin are wrapping up their epic cycle of nine Bruckner symphonies at Carnegie Hall. Friday's concert featured the Symphony No. 7 paired with Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante in E Flat Major. Saturday featured No. 8 all by itself: the longest work in the Bruckner catalogue and the most demanding of the listener's sense of faith: in both Bruckner himself and the ability to build enormous bridges of sound bulwarked by harmony and counterpoint.

Concert Review: The Total Perspective Vortex

Night Two of Bruckner (r)Evolution with the Cleveland Orchestra.

Bruckner's music puts everything in perspective for the listener.
With thanks to Douglas Adams for the idea.

The second concert in the Cleveland Orchestra's four-evening survey pairing the late Bruckner symphonies with minimalist composer John Adams outstripped the first. Franz Welser-Möst conducted the second in this concert series, pairing the two composers in an effort to show Bruckner's influence on contemporary minimalists.

The main reason for this was the presence of violinist Leila Josefowicz. The Canadian soloist stunned the audience with her fearless, fleet interpretation of Mr. Adams' three-movement violin concerto, a treacherous composition from the pen of the composer of Nixon in China. Placed next to the Bruckner, the influence of one composer on the other was clear, creating the fresh perspective that is Mr. Welser-Möst's intent.

This concerto is written on a large scale, with a long difficult solo part that never seems to yield the stage to the orchestra. Ms. Josefowicz tore eagerly into the opening movement, and produced sweet lyric tone in the long, slow chaconne. Mr. Welser-Möst accompanied the soloist with a sensitivity, keeping the pace of the chaconne smooth and flowing, with a slow circular groove that was almost percussive in its steadiness.

Ms. Josefowicz displayed astounding technique in the final movement, racing over the chugging ostinato rhythms with such force that she shredded the horse-hair on her bow. Without missing a beat, she conducted a swift bow repair and raced to the finish line of the piece. It was a bravura monologue for this talented soloist, the kind of reading that makes a good case for further exploration of Mr. Adams' music by the most conservative music lover.

Bruckner's Seventh Symphony is the composer's most popular work, the piece which "broke" him with the Viennese public and finally earned the grudging respect of critic Eduard Hanslick. The Seventh is written on the same large scale as the other late Bruckner works, with the addition of four Wagner tubas to the brass choir. This is a hybrid of horn and tuba, invented by Wagner for the first performances of his own Der Ring des Nibelungen.

The Seventh builds to a series of slow, relentless climaxes before pausing and building again, rising to a mighty height at the end of its first movement. The coda of the opening Sonata Allegro pays homage to Wagner himself, with the entire 13-strong brass section playing a chorale that sounds like the opening of Das Rheingold played backward. It is an astonishing effect.

Anton Bruckner.

Bruckner dedicated this symphony to Wagner, and quoted from the composer several times in the score. But these quotes (which range from "Lohengrin" to the Ring do not undercut the power of the second movement, a long, worked-out funerary ode to Wagner, who had died in 1883. This slow movement, which gradually rises to its flowering climax is among this composer's greatest achievements. On the podium, Mr. Welser-Möst respected the composer's intentions and maintined the slow surge of power.

The third movement, a bucolic series of Austrian peasant dances, allowed the conductor and orchestra to show their playful sides. Woodwinds and strings whirled and stomped through the trio section, in the form of a Ländler, a kind of Austrian Alpine hoedown. Mr. Welser-Möst displayed mastery of the tricky triple-double "Bruckner rhythm" that dominates this movement.

The finale elevated the listener back to the heights of Bruckner's sonic mountain, with a return of the opening brass chorale and a new theme developed within the woodwinds. At the work's climax, the backward Wagnerian chorale returned, leaving the listener on the windy heights, under the starry vault, marvelling at the scope of Bruckner's creation. It was a stirring end to the second New York concert by this fine orchestra, who were in excellent playing form and inspired by the exceptional material in front of them.

Bruckner (r)Evolution concludes this weekend with the Eighth and Ninth Symphonies. Tickets are available through Lincoln Center Festival.

Comparative Listening: The Bruckner Seventh

"There is the same slow, broad introduction, the drawn-out climaxes that grow, pull back and then grow some more--a sort of musical coitus interruptus"--Bernard Holland, reviewing a Bruckner symphony.

The survey comparing recordings of classic symphonies continues. (Maybe I should call this Battle of the Box Sets?) This week, the subject of analysis is Anton Bruckner's roof-raising Seventh Symphony, sometimes known as the "Lyric."

Bruckner

Bruckner worked on a big scale, writing four-movement symphonies that have been described by numerous other writers as "cathedrals of sound": slow arpeggios of ever-ascending strings and brass reaching heavenward. It has also been said that Bruckner wrote the same symphony nine times, an unkindness that misses the point. The little organist from Linz wasn't repeating himself: he was refining and reworking his central idea, creating new and different stairways to heaven.

With the Seventh, written in 1883 (and revised in 1885), Bruckner expanded his orchestral palette even further with the addition of four Wagner tubas, the brass horn/tuba hybrids invented by Richard Wagner for the first performance of the Ring. This choice was not accidental. Wagner died while Bruckner worked on the Seventh, and the work contains numerous allusions to the other composer.

The Contenders:
Berlin Philharmonic cond. Eugen Jochum (DG, 1965)
Berlin Philharmonic cond. Herbert von Karajan
Royal Scottish National Orchestra cond. George Tintner
Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin cond. Riccardo Chailly
SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra cond. Sergiu Celibdache
Berlin Philharmonic cond. Daniel Barenboim (Teldec/Warner Brothers Classics, 1994)

I. Allegro Moderato
Like every other Bruckner symphony, the Seventh opens with a hushed figure for strings, meant to evoke the opening of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Bruckner works methodically, building bricks of sound. The sonic wall rises slowly to a climax, played by a brass chorale. Then the brass stop, and the building resumes with strings, rising to another climax, and so forth. The first movement ends when the brasses start to play descending figures against the rising strings, an effect that reminds the listener of the rushing Rhine from Wagner's Das Rheingold.

Performances of this movement average out at 20-22 minutes, with Chailly being the slowest. All three Berlin Philharmonic recordings have those brass chorales breaking in a sonic wave over the listener. Celibidache's radio broadcast has a mystic quality to it, shared with many of that conductor's performances.


II. Adagio: Sehr Feierlich und Sehr Langsam
The second movement is a molten, shifting Adagio that allows the most Romantic conductors full rein as Bruckner pours out his grief for the passing of Wagner. The relationship between the two composers is at the heart of this movement, and its slow three-note figure recalls the preludes to Act I and III of Parsifal, Wagner's last opera.

Surprisingly, Sergiu Celibidache is not the slowest Adagio out of the box. That honor goes to Eugen Jochum's first commercial recording of the symphony at a solid 25'. Tintner is the fastest here, although still relatively sedate, given the flowing nature of the music.

III: Scherzo: Ser schnell
This lumbering movement is in the form of a Ländler, the Austrian peasant dance beloved of Beethoven, Bruckner and Mahler to show cheerful rustics galumphing through the countryside. Serious brass blowing here, followed by a relaxed trio and a final galumph. Every conductor gets to the trio 3'30" into the movement. Barenboim doesn't reach that point until 3'45".

Listen for yourself: Sergiu Celibidache conducts Bruckner's Seventh.

IV: Finale: Bewegt: Docht nicht schnell

Bruckner closes this symphony with a Rondo, but on a gigantic (in other words, typically Brucknerian) scale. The movement built from a five-note melody that recalls the first movement of his Sixth--as if the theme from that darker symphony had finally been resolved. This merry tune is played over a bed of shimmering strings in the cellos, woodwinds, and finally, of course the brass. This joyous shout brings Bruckner's most uplifting symphony to a thunderous close, as the ecstatic chorale of instruments soars up to final, uplifting series of chords that once more evokes Wagner's Das Rheingold.

The massive Rondo allows the most variance of interpretations between the six recordings considered. Celibidache is surprisingly sprightly here, a shade under 12 minutes. Daniel Barenboim's second recording with the Berlin forces opts for more weight, clocking in at 13'29".

For more on Bruckner's symphonies and these recordings, check out our Bruckner Buyer's Guide from 2010.