Prom 45: Thursday 18th August 2011 at 7.00 p.m.(Larcher, Bruckner)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor Ilan Volkov are joined by Proms featured artists, Viktoria Mullova and Matthew Barley, for the world premiere of Thomas Larcher's BBC Commission. The second half of the concert is dedicated to Bruckner's vast architectural masterpiece - his fifth symphony.

The leading Austrian composer Thomas Larcher's first double concerto is predominantly solemn and sacred but very rhythmical. It utilises a concertino group as well as the two soloists and the orchestra to bring an added dimension of colour. The cellist Matthew Barley has helped Larcher incorporate improvisation and free time in the piece, building on aspects of rhythm, but Larcher says there is still a grounding in Mozart, Bach and Beethoven.

Ilan Volkov is a renowned interpreter of Bruckner's Music. The 5th Symphony is one of his longest symphonies and, arguably, his most complex work. A huge challenge to perform, it is also a Symphony which embodies a unique atmosphere of spiritual exaltation in a dramatic struggle to overcome the pain and frustration of life.

Thomas Larcher: Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra (BBC commission; world premiere)
Bruckner: Symphony no. 5

Viktoria Mullova (violin)
Matthew Barley (cello)
Christof Dienz (electric zither)
Martin Brandlmayr (percussion)
Luka Juhart (accordian)
Thomas Larcher (prepared piano)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Ilan Volkov (conductor)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Nowak or Haas? Not that there's much difference in this symphony. Indeed, I've followed the Nowak score while listening to the Haas and failed to find any discrepancies.

[prokkyshosty]

Oh PLEASE let the electric zither be in the Bruckner!

Actually, I feel bad for Mr. Barley and Ms. Mullova as I really wonder how many people are going to brave a late night prom after 1 1/4 hours of Bruckner. I fear the attendence for that one might be... sparse.

ps. Alpen, it is the Nowak edition.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Alpen, it is the Nowak edition.

But is there any difference?

[scottycelt]

But is there any difference?

Alas, I can't read music but I hear a little flute passage near the very end of the symphony in the Nowak that doesn't appear in the Haas. Can anyone confirm?

[RobertLeDiable]

Well the Larcher was a right pile of poo. What a waste of a commission fee. Roll on Bruckner!

[Bryn]

But is there any difference?

Well, reputedly, Pierre Boulez was/is unable to tell the 5th from the 8th, though thankfully he directed a very fine performance of the latter, though he did use the edition that Haas cobbled together, rather than either of the Nowaks (which offer what the composer left as performing options, rather than the mix and match approach of Haas).

[jayne lee wilson]

Just a little unfair I think, Bryn - Haas used his musical intuition and judgment to restore passages (in the 8th especially) which he felt Bruckner only excised due to pressure from his friends and colleagues, many of whom saw his structures as imperfect, overlong sonata-forms. Karajan and Gunter Wand almost always used the Haas editions on musical grounds. The 5th is one of the least controversial, neither performed nor, thankfully, much revised during Bruckner's lifetime.

Not an ideal performance tonight, was it? Rather too much accelerando and whipped-up excitement in the finale (and elsewhere), the brass a little disappointing in the great coda. Slow movement finely done though.

Klemperer with the VPO(1968) and Welser-Most with the LPO gave great, urgent, passionate performances (both live in Vienna), but they didn't undermine the weight and elemental grandeur of the finale by rushing those ascents to the climaxes during the double fugue and the approach to the coda. I always feel that if tempi relations in Bruckner are too obviously contrasted, it never quite works. It sounds like an attempt to create excitement, the music doesn't need it. Conductors like Karajan, Wand and Klemperer always tried to serve the music.

Some of the greatest Bruckner performances often seem to relate all the movements to one basic pulse, the differences felt rather than heard. But when a seemingly sober kapellmeister like Wand did the 5th with the BBCSO (mid-90s Proms) he really let the brass rip in the coda, it was overwhelming!

Well, reputedly, Pierre Boulez was/is unable to tell the 5th from the 8th, though thankfully he directed a very fine performance of the latter, though he did use the edition that Haas cobbled together, rather than either of the Nowaks (which offer what the composer left as performing options, rather than the mix and match approach of Haas).

[RobertLeDiable]

Thankfully there's more than one way to interpret a Bruckner symphony. Powerful, passionate performance tonight, with some superb playing.

[PaulT]

Has anyone heard Herbert Blomstedt's recent Querstand recording of Bruckner 5? I bought it recently following a performance of the 5th he gave at the Salle Pleyel in Paris. Its a wonderfully refreshing performance of what I often think can be a rather dull symphony. This is on a par with Wand, no question.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Well the Larcher was a right pile of poo. What a waste of a commission fee. Roll on Bruckner!

Couldn't listen closely but it sounded very like music to me RLD: why do you reckon I should have been thinking dark brown thoughts??

[Petrushka]

Just a little unfair I think, Bryn - Haas used his musical intuition and judgment to restore passages (in the 8th especially) which he felt Bruckner only excised due to pressure from his friends and colleagues, many of whom saw his structures as imperfect, overlong sonata-forms. Karajan and Gunter Wand almost always used the Haas editions on musical grounds. The 5th is one of the least controversial, neither performed nor, thankfully, much revised during Bruckner's lifetime.

Not an ideal performance tonight, was it? Rather too much accelerando and whipped-up excitement in the finale (and elsewhere), the brass a little disappointing in the great coda. Slow movement finely done though.

Klemperer with the VPO(1968) and Welser-Most with the LPO gave great, urgent, passionate performances (both live in Vienna), but they didn't undermine the weight and elemental grandeur of the finale by rushing those ascents to the climaxes during the double fugue and the approach to the coda. I always feel that if tempi relations in Bruckner are too obviously contrasted, it never quite works. It sounds like an attempt to create excitement, the music doesn't need it. Conductors like Karajan, Wand and Klemperer always tried to serve the music.

Some of the greatest Bruckner performances often seem to relate all the movements to one basic pulse, the differences felt rather than heard. But when a seemingly sober kapellmeister like Wand did the 5th with the BBCSO (mid-90s Proms) he really let the brass rip in the coda, it was overwhelming!

Agree wholeheartedly with this.

[EdgeleyRob]

Well the Larcher was a right pile of poo.

I'm not so sure it was that good? Bruckner 5 was super.

[jayne lee wilson]

"A rather dull symphony" - eh, what? Could you elaborate please?

It's one of the 7 wonders of the symphonic world, with an extraordinary level of melodic inspiration, harmonic originality and long-term architectural design, exceptional in any composer's output. PaulT, you may well have been the victim of dull performances, so thank goodness you've heard Blomstedt. I don't know that recording, but that conductor is firmly in the great austro-german tradition of Bruckner interpretation. He is a difficult composer to sensationalise, or make "entertaining".

Volkov's reading was not dull, perhaps a little over-excitable, but it was a young man's Bruckner, a reading on the way to a real interpretation. He really does seem to love this music, and I hope he comes back to it often. It takes a long time - why do you think Haitink was cheered to the rafters after performing it with the Berlin Phil last spring? And no, it wasn't just "the right notes in the right order", more "the art that conceals art" (still available on the Berlin Phil DCH). But Volkov's performance in Glasgow earlier this year, far tighter and more polished than tonight, almost persuading me on its own terms, still failed to blaze at the crowning moment in the coda. I hope he listens to others before he plays it again!

Has anyone heard Herbert Blomstedt's recent Querstand recording of Bruckner 5? I bought it recently following a performance of the 5th he gave at the Salle Pleyel in Paris. Its a wonderfully refreshing performance of what I often think can be a rather dull symphony. This is on a par with Wand, no question.

[makropulos]

Just a little unfair I think, Bryn - Haas used his musical intuition and judgment to restore passages (in the 8th especially) which he felt Bruckner only excised due to pressure from his friends and colleagues, many of whom saw his structures as imperfect, overlong sonata-forms. Karajan and Gunter Wand almost always used the Haas editions on musical grounds. The 5th is one of the least controversial, neither performed nor, thankfully, much revised during Bruckner's lifetime.

Not an ideal performance tonight, was it? Rather too much accelerando and whipped-up excitement in the finale (and elsewhere), the brass a little disappointing in the great coda. Slow movement finely done though.

Klemperer with the VPO(1968) and Welser-Most with the LPO gave great, urgent, passionate performances (both live in Vienna), but they didn't undermine the weight and elemental grandeur of the finale by rushing those ascents to the climaxes during the double fugue and the approach to the coda. I always feel that if tempi relations in Bruckner are too obviously contrasted, it never quite works. It sounds like an attempt to create excitement, the music doesn't need it. Conductors like Karajan, Wand and Klemperer always tried to serve the music.

Some of the greatest Bruckner performances often seem to relate all the movements to one basic pulse, the differences felt rather than heard. But when a seemingly sober kapellmeister like Wand did the 5th with the BBCSO (mid-90s Proms) he really let the brass rip in the coda, it was overwhelming!

It's pretty much a non-issue in No. 5 (the amusement there is Mahler's performance of it that got the work down to something lasting about 40 minutes - there's a nice article by Ernst Hilmar somewhere listing all the cuts...), but I thought Bryn's comment on Haas's No. 8 was a model of restraint. After years of being told in no uncertain terms that it was the only serious edition (told, that is, by the likes of Robert Simpson), I'm glad that Haas's edition of No. 8 is now properly regarded with a certain amount of suspicion since his (possibly well-intentioned) bits of re-composition were at least as interventionist as the alleged efforts of his so-called interfering friends. And I think it's significant that a conductor as serious about Bruckner as Bernard Haitink now seems to prefer Nowak (1890) to Haas - joining the distinguished ranks of Boehm, Giulini, Jochum (once Nowak was published), Matacic, Solti and Tennstedt.

"Conductors like Karajan, Wand and Klemperer always tried to serve the music." - I'd like to think you're not suggesting that Volkov, a most intelligent musician, is trying *not* to serve the music? I rather enjoyed his dramatic view of the piece, though, as you say, he was a bit let down by some slightly thin playing.