Segerstam/Bruckner 8 - Barbican, 28.2.15

[P. G. Tipps]

Rattle has just started having a go at AB's work... Suspect he was wary of doing it with the BPO.

But from now on, having got a taste for it, we will require regular re-leif...

And occasional dollops of Stanislaw. Who I see is back with the LPO later this year for No.5.

When's his No.3 from last year out on disc?

Rattle's done No 7 with the BPO a few times and also No 9 including the SPCM completion, and also No 8 at least once with a different orchestra. He's doing the latter and also No 6 in London. Can't wait for a No 5. Don't miss the Skrow, he knows and loves this music with a passion!

Many foremost conductors start to excel in Bruckner late in their careers, its almost as if they consciously leave the best till last ... ?

[P. G. Tipps]

"Immense"?

"Obese" more like it!

Oooooo ... you are awful!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Great post ahinton. Yes the playing was like the "finest of Central European orchestras " despite the very occasional coarse grained string sound and brass fluff. Completely understandable given the demands of piece and performance tempo. As SR has been mentioned - on the night I couldn't help thinking about the power of hype that sold out his Sibelius cycle a year in advance whereas I sat amongst plenty of empty seats. Some times the best things are on our doorstep . And yes Bruckner 9 at the Proms please with this team . I greatly enjoyed Haitink's with the VPO in 2012 .It's about time for another ...

[Beef Oven!]

I wouldn't have credited SR as having an especially winning way with Bruckner but taking the risk of being the first to perform and record his Ninth Symphony using the latest version of the tetrumvirate's edition of the finale has undoubtedly paid off well.

But let's Leif that on one side for a moment.

I finally persuaded myself to pitch in - with all the misgivings that I still couldn’t quite manage to shake off after having read references to the Eighth being elasticised to almost an hour and three quarters to find out what Segerstam - one of the greatest living conductors of Sibelius, Nielsen, Pettersson et al - actually did with (or possibly to) that monumental work.

Impressions at the outset were twofold and primarily prompted by the fact that, even after a few pages, I somehow felt an instinctive confidence that the playing would be of the standard that BBCSO usually reserves for its very finest performances, provided that they could maintain it throughout – a fairly tall order even for them, given that they don’t usually work with Segerstam and had in any case been anticipating playing it under Bychkov, namely (a) why wasn’t it being performed in a concert hall instead of the Babycan and (b) if only it had been, I'd have wanted to be there rather than iPlayering it (and it sadly seems that there were plenty of unoccupied seats).

An idiosyncratic take on the work, maybe, yet one that kept convincing by contriving somehow to keep falling short of actually sounding like one; more to the point, I think, it took us (albeit incidentally) into the territory of “there’s no one single correct, sacrosanct way in which to perform” this monumental work or indeed anything else worth performing – and that, as it turned out, was the very least that it did!

OK, I wish now that I’d listened to it without any of these preconceptions, not least because at the stunning close of the first movement I caught myself thinking “mon Dieu – we’re there already?! – not possible, surely?” – so much for distendedness, which was notable only for its utter absence. Everything was beautifully contoured by conductor and players with nothing unconvincing about either the overall architecture or the fine detail – and the worst risk when anything’s being "stretched" like this (if indeed it was), namely a compromise in the maintenance of due – and sometimes heart-stopping – tension, was quite simply nowhere in evidence.

By the time that I'd got as far as the trio in the scherzo, I'd more or less come to the conclusion that the most unconventional aspect of this performance was the sheer size of the orchestra performing it – considerably larger than usual ("'three harps, if possible', sir? – nonsense! of course three harps are possible, so you shall have them, along with 18 first violins…"18? 18??? – but is my symphony good enough for this?") – and never the worse for that. OK, BBCSO has a well-deserved reputation for being able to sight-read anything from Haydn and Mozart to Ferneyhough and can turn out performances from middling to splendid on the most modest amount of rehearsal even under conductors with whom they’re unaccustomed to working, but on this occasion they sounded for all the world like the finest of central European orchestras. OK, I did wonder if, exceptionally, that trio section occasionally seemed to threaten to hover between the uncertain, the lacklustre and the point-provingly pedantic, but, frankly, these turned out to be the only moments of possible questionability. The scherzo as a whole rather tended towards the kind of grandness that inhabits the remainder of the symphony than to prioritise energetic forward momentum, but sag it just wouldn’t, which just goes to show, as throughout, how very much in control of it all Segerstam ws.

The divine adagio – well, yes, OK, more lento than adagio – with those astonishing pre-Vaughan Williams passages with the harps decorating writing for strings divided into more parts than the composer ever divided them into elsewhere; well, what’s to say? What fabulous string playing! Where were the occasional moments of scrappiness or lapses of concentration that in so unconventionally expansive an interpretation might be expected if not quite forgiven? This adagio ran to 34 minutes, so I'm told. I did not notice and cared even less. It sounded more like one single very, very long bar than I think I’ve ever heard it do even under conductors of the order of Wand and Abbado. The brass playing at climax points was appropriately forthright but never overbearing, let alone crude. The overall balance must in part have been helped by the massiveness of the string section, but only in part, since the "chamber music" instances were likewise so finely judged that on occasion I found myself wishing that this was how it would always be done. And, once again, this gigantic slow movement never once lost either momentum, energy or tension – and to maintain the requisite contrasts in tension levels requires the utmost concentration not only from the conductor but also from every individual at all times; to succeed in doing this alone is a remarkable achievement that I imagine would be right at the far edge or, or beyond, the ability of most conductors and orchestras not accustomed to working together, yet there were so many more things in the performance that made this movement live in its own unique world and draw us all right into it as though one could not possibly want to be anywhere else – ever.

Certainly by the time that slow descending major scale finally brought that movement to its sublime close and one adjusted oneself to what was about to follow, any doubts – not only about the performance on its own terms but also about where it stood in the pantheon of Bruckner 8s during the past decades – had simply ceased to live and have being. The principal reservations had, of course, been about how the symphony could possibly expect to occupy almost 105 minutes and still hope to be Bruckner at the peak of his powers, let alone sustain the listener’s concentration; all were swept away never to be seen again and, mercifully, before the first movement had really gotten into its stride. The finale, too, was one of the most controlled and compelling that I’ve ever encountered; was there any evidence of exhaustion within the orchestra? – rather the reverse, if anything, as the playing continued to espouse the uppermost echelons of Austro-German orchestral playing and there was a palpable sense of what pianists John Ogdon and Reinier van Houdt felt about massive Sorabji works somehow granting energies to its performers despite the immense demands that at the same time it makes upon them. I would have expected quite a few more minor slips and glitches along the way under these unusual circumstances; that there were so very few in number and of such minuscule significance speaks with its own eloquence such as almost to beggar belief.

If this is what Segerstam can do with a work of such greatness – and clearly it is – then, once the performance is over and one beings to reflect, it’s hard not to start thinking of the repertoire that one’s dying to hear him conduct next; a good start would surely be the same composer's Ninth Symphony in the proper four-movement form as which it should now always be performed (and of which we now know he actually wrote a good deal more than was long thought – and there might yet be still more pages of it in his hand to come to light).

The orchestra deserves all the accolades that it can get for this performance; I wonder how much rehearsal they had for it? In it, Segerstam has shown himself beyond question to be one of the great conductors of our time, not merely willing but determined to take risks and meet them head on with immense success. But the ultimate star of the show? Well, Bruckner, of course. I cannot imagine what he’d have made of the performance, but I do know that he would have been moved beyond tears to witness the sheer love and unwavering commitment of the conductor and every single player involved.

Now I know that most of the above will cut little ice with our resident teabag and a few others, but hopefully because of its obvious lack of eloquence rather than the content itself - so, come on, where's Jayne Lee Wilson when she's most needed?!...

Thank you for articulating this for us.

[Beef Oven!]

Regarding the comments about Rattle and Bruckner. I never was lucky enough to see the BPO with the great Karajan, but I have attended BPO concerts conducted by Rattle, Haitink, Abbado and can't remember anyone else of the top of my head, but Rattle seemed to think he was conducting Haydn. Just didn't work for me. The others were stupendous. As others have commented, Haitink plays loud. The two massive dustbin lids being smashed together in the seventh, is something I'll never forget!

[johnb]

[QUOTE=Beef Oven!;471976As others have commented, Haitink plays loud. The two massive dustbin lids being smashed together in the seventh, is something I'll never forget![/QUOTE]

When discussing the VPO and the BPO many years ago on R3, I remember Haitink saying that despite the VPO being (then) all male they were the more feminine of the two orchestras and that the BPO never needed any encouragement to play loud. This would have been either before or shortly after Rattle moved there.

[Beef Oven!]

When discussing the VPO and the BPO many years ago on R3, I remember Haitink saying that despite the VPO being (then) all male they were the more feminine of the two orchestras and that the BPO never needed any encouragement to play loud. This would have been either before or shortly after Rattle moved there.

The gig I'm talking about was towards the end of Abbado's tenure. He was scheduled to conduct this performance, but fell ill. 'Flu was cited. Haitink stepped in as a replacement. Not that long before Rattle took over. It was a fantastic performance. I can't remember the year.

[Prommer]

If a slowish Bruckner performance goes wrong in future, could we say that there might have been a Leif on the line?

[ahinton]

If a slowish Bruckner performance goes wrong in future, could we say that there might have been a Leif on the line?

I Wand-er; Haitink you could, but it might Rattle some if you did.

[jayne lee wilson]

Rattle has just started having a go at AB's work... Suspect he was wary of doing it with the BPO.

But from now on, having got a taste for it, we will require regular re-leif...

And occasional dollops of Stanislaw. Who I see is back with the LPO later this year for No.5.

When's his No.3 from last year out on disc?

Rattle recorded No.7 with the CBSO, (reviewed in G. 12/1997 by SJ), and the 4th with the Berlin Phil, (in G. 7/2007 with RO). Rather mixed response from both reviewers, with SJ feeling the 7th emphasised the monumental at the expense of the human and pastoral, missing the humour and birdcalls (and I had to agree, hearing it live on R3); RO, whilst admiring the finale as "Barbirollian", felt the Berlin 4th had no great distinction and suffered from even muddier-than-usual sound in the Philharmonie. I wasn't going to buy that one, already out of love with the recording qualities of the venue. With a better balance, I admired the Berlin 9th more for its completeness than as a Bruckner performance; again I felt it lacked some character though the finale is terrifically convincing. An earlier, live LSO (unfinished) 9th didn't do much for me either...

It's very hard to find one-and-threequarter hours for unbroken listening just now, but latterly I've tended to prefer Bruckner more melodiously shaped - swifter, lighter and Schubertian... a Goshawk rather than an Eagle.

I'll try to get a listen to Segerstam (whose Eagles must be even bigger than Gandalf's), but I always was averse to Celi's vaster Meditations on a Brucknerian Theme anyway, so...it doesn't look good.

[P. G. Tipps]

I wouldn't have credited SR as having an especially winning way with Bruckner but taking the risk of being the first to perform and record his Ninth Symphony using the latest version of the tetrumvirate's edition of the finale has undoubtedly paid off well.

But let's Leif that on one side for a moment.

I finally persuaded myself to pitch in - with all the misgivings that I still couldn’t quite manage to shake off after having read references to the Eighth being elasticised to almost an hour and three quarters to find out what Segerstam - one of the greatest living conductors of Sibelius, Nielsen, Pettersson et al - actually did with (or possibly to) that monumental work.

Impressions at the outset were twofold and primarily prompted by the fact that, even after a few pages, I somehow felt an instinctive confidence that the playing would be of the standard that BBCSO usually reserves for its very finest performances, provided that they could maintain it throughout – a fairly tall order even for them, given that they don’t usually work with Segerstam and had in any case been anticipating playing it under Bychkov, namely (a) why wasn’t it being performed in a concert hall instead of the Babycan and (b) if only it had been, I'd have wanted to be there rather than iPlayering it (and it sadly seems that there were plenty of unoccupied seats).

An idiosyncratic take on the work, maybe, yet one that kept convincing by contriving somehow to keep falling short of actually sounding like one; more to the point, I think, it took us (albeit incidentally) into the territory of “there’s no one single correct, sacrosanct way in which to perform” this monumental work or indeed anything else worth performing – and that, as it turned out, was the very least that it did!

OK, I wish now that I’d listened to it without any of these preconceptions, not least because at the stunning close of the first movement I caught myself thinking “mon Dieu – we’re there already?! – not possible, surely?” – so much for distendedness, which was notable only for its utter absence. Everything was beautifully contoured by conductor and players with nothing unconvincing about either the overall architecture or the fine detail – and the worst risk when anything’s being "stretched" like this (if indeed it was), namely a compromise in the maintenance of due – and sometimes heart-stopping – tension, was quite simply nowhere in evidence.

By the time that I'd got as far as the trio in the scherzo, I'd more or less come to the conclusion that the most unconventional aspect of this performance was the sheer size of the orchestra performing it – considerably larger than usual ("'three harps, if possible', sir? – nonsense! of course three harps are possible, so you shall have them, along with 18 first violins…"18? 18??? – but is my symphony good enough for this?") – and never the worse for that. OK, BBCSO has a well-deserved reputation for being able to sight-read anything from Haydn and Mozart to Ferneyhough and can turn out performances from middling to splendid on the most modest amount of rehearsal even under conductors with whom they’re unaccustomed to working, but on this occasion they sounded for all the world like the finest of central European orchestras. OK, I did wonder if, exceptionally, that trio section occasionally seemed to threaten to hover between the uncertain, the lacklustre and the point-provingly pedantic, but, frankly, these turned out to be the only moments of possible questionability. The scherzo as a whole rather tended towards the kind of grandness that inhabits the remainder of the symphony than to prioritise energetic forward momentum, but sag it just wouldn’t, which just goes to show, as throughout, how very much in control of it all Segerstam ws.

The divine adagio – well, yes, OK, more lento than adagio – with those astonishing pre-Vaughan Williams passages with the harps decorating writing for strings divided into more parts than the composer ever divided them into elsewhere; well, what’s to say? What fabulous string playing! Where were the occasional moments of scrappiness or lapses of concentration that in so unconventionally expansive an interpretation might be expected if not quite forgiven? This adagio ran to 34 minutes, so I'm told. I did not notice and cared even less. It sounded more like one single very, very long bar than I think I’ve ever heard it do even under conductors of the order of Wand and Abbado. The brass playing at climax points was appropriately forthright but never overbearing, let alone crude. The overall balance must in part have been helped by the massiveness of the string section, but only in part, since the "chamber music" instances were likewise so finely judged that on occasion I found myself wishing that this was how it would always be done. And, once again, this gigantic slow movement never once lost either momentum, energy or tension – and to maintain the requisite contrasts in tension levels requires the utmost concentration not only from the conductor but also from every individual at all times; to succeed in doing this alone is a remarkable achievement that I imagine would be right at the far edge or, or beyond, the ability of most conductors and orchestras not accustomed to working together, yet there were so many more things in the performance that made this movement live in its own unique world and draw us all right into it as though one could not possibly want to be anywhere else – ever.

Certainly by the time that slow descending major scale finally brought that movement to its sublime close and one adjusted oneself to what was about to follow, any doubts – not only about the performance on its own terms but also about where it stood in the pantheon of Bruckner 8s during the past decades – had simply ceased to live and have being. The principal reservations had, of course, been about how the symphony could possibly expect to occupy almost 105 minutes and still hope to be Bruckner at the peak of his powers, let alone sustain the listener’s concentration; all were swept away never to be seen again and, mercifully, before the first movement had really gotten into its stride. The finale, too, was one of the most controlled and compelling that I’ve ever encountered; was there any evidence of exhaustion within the orchestra? – rather the reverse, if anything, as the playing continued to espouse the uppermost echelons of Austro-German orchestral playing and there was a palpable sense of what pianists John Ogdon and Reinier van Houdt felt about massive Sorabji works somehow granting energies to its performers despite the immense demands that at the same time it makes upon them. I would have expected quite a few more minor slips and glitches along the way under these unusual circumstances; that there were so very few in number and of such minuscule significance speaks with its own eloquence such as almost to beggar belief.

If this is what Segerstam can do with a work of such greatness – and clearly it is – then, once the performance is over and one beings to reflect, it’s hard not to start thinking of the repertoire that one’s dying to hear him conduct next; a good start would surely be the same composer's Ninth Symphony in the proper four-movement form as which it should now always be performed (and of which we now know he actually wrote a good deal more than was long thought – and there might yet be still more pages of it in his hand to come to light).

The orchestra deserves all the accolades that it can get for this performance; I wonder how much rehearsal they had for it? In it, Segerstam has shown himself beyond question to be one of the great conductors of our time, not merely willing but determined to take risks and meet them head on with immense success. But the ultimate star of the show? Well, Bruckner, of course. I cannot imagine what he’d have made of the performance, but I do know that he would have been moved beyond tears to witness the sheer love and unwavering commitment of the conductor and every single player involved.

Now I know that most of the above will cut little ice with our resident teabag and a few others, but hopefully because of its obvious lack of eloquence rather than the content itself - so, come on, where's Jayne Lee Wilson when she's most needed?!...

That's all very well and impressively expressed (apart from the last irrelevant paragraph) but ....

PS ... I do agree that Bruckner may well have been moved quite beyond tears after this performance but, like you, I have really no idea whether that would have been a sign of approval or not!

[Beef Oven!]

That's all very well and impressively expressed)

[Prommer]

The one thing Rattle will not do is take any of these works slow, for fear of being thought old-fashioned... More fool him.

Leif and let live!

(Enough now, Ed. Nurse?)

[Prommer]

Live Leif and Prosper?

Be Brian and Blessed?

Order the T shirts for their next gig.

(Nurse...Arghh....!)

[P. G. Tipps]

I see young Harding is conducting the first version (no, not the 'original', silly!) of Bruckner 4 with the LSO at the Barbican in December.

At least I assume it's the earlier version as he's already recorded it with the same forces ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLtCeOwsaXQ

Interesting (and relevant here) the comment about being 'slow and leaden', it's 'anything but' to my ears and indeed a rollicking good listen. It clearly demonstrates some of the exciting stuff the composer ultimately ditched to make the work more 'acceptable' to lesser beings.

Yes, nowt as queer as folk, right enough ...