Prom 27 (3.8.12): Wagner & Bruckner

[amateur51]

I enjoyed both pieces very much - I thought I'd gone off the Idyll but this was a reviving performance :smuiley:

The Bruckner was very grand with some tremendous rhythmic flexibility as well - I'd say that as a team they have it under their skin and can do what they want (within limits :biggrin). Not too hot last evening so I hope that it was a comfortable experience in the Hall.

[Petrushka]

Pretty impressive stuff from Donald and his band. They sounded thoroughly rehearsed. Ideal tempi and as usual with this orchestra some fine woodwind contributions. Timpani rather weak. A most enjoyable if not terribly moving performance.

That just about sums it up for me too, though I'd categorise the timpani as frustratingly poor and ill-defined. The player needed to create a much bigger impression than this. Many a Bruckner performance can stand or fall on the output from the timps and I'm afraid this one fell just that bit short for me because of this. That apart there was much to enjoy.

Seasoned Bruckner 8 Prom watchers may well remember a performance given by Bernard Haitink and the EUYO several yeara ago where the timpani made such a terrific impression that the player (Spanish, if memory serves) received a tremendous and well-deserved ovation at the end in one of the loudest cheers I've ever heard in the hall. Unforgettable stuff! I wonder where that player is now?

[Boilk]

I've only listened to (actually watched) the first movement so far, and the phrasing of some passages lacks detail.

Also, between different sections there's very little/no breathing space ... Runnicles goes straight in. Isn't AB changing his organ stops, and doesn't that entail a brief pause?

[jayne lee wilson]

I'd put my lack of response down to exhaustion, but it seems others here missed that special or spiritual quality that ennobles the greatest Bruckner performances. But it remains hard to define. I did feel the orchestral tone was a little lacking in textural richness - a burnished quality that seems written into the DNA of Vienna or Berlin, impregnated into the very walls of their great acoustics. Yet Haitink has found it too in Amsterdam. The BBCSSO seemed a little strained in the grandest moments. Yet Runnicles did achieve a mighty patience - that sense of all tempi deriving from a basic pulse, which I personally prefer to what has been called the "stop-go" approach, the most devout exponent of which would be Jochum. So this could be great Bruckner in the making.

The very end of this performance was disconcerting for me, as Runnicles played the final three notes as a quick triplet, almost identical to those in the repeated phrase leading up to it. This sounds far too curt and dismissive as the last gesture of such a grandly integrated structure - whatever the score says the conductor has to be emphatic here, even to the extent of playing it as three accented notes. Barenboim usually tends to the same quick approach but at least emphasises its finality. The original 1887 score does this, and give the effect of "just stopping", if the conductor doesn't underwrite the phrase slightly.

[Flosshilde]

Also, between different sections there's very little/no breathing space ... Runnicles goes straight in.

To avoid inter-movement applause?

I will have to 'listen again' as I missed it last night.

[Boilk]

The very end of this performance was disconcerting for me, as Runnicles played the final three notes as a quick triplet, almost identical to those in the repeated phrase leading up to it. This sounds far too curt and dismissive as the last gesture of such a grandly integrated structure - whatever the score says the conductor has to be emphatic here, even to the extent of playing it as three accented notes. Barenboim usually tends to the same quick approach but at least emphasises its finality. The original 1887 score does this, and give the effect of "just stopping", if the conductor doesn't underwrite the phrase slightly.

One of the few delights of this performance for me was that Runnicles DIDN'T slow down for the very last three notes - a pleasant surprise, as most overdo it here. The score (Bruckner's original markings, who knows?) does have accents over the last three notes and the word riten., but the work's rhythimic leitmotif is lost the way most conductors suddenly slam on the brakes.

As for Jochun's "stop-go" approach, it's certainly in accord with Bruckner the organist changing the stops between sections of music. His orchestral writing does seem rather vertically conceived. Jochum's approach to the very end - at least in his Hamburg Philharmonic recording - is somewhere between Runnicles' extreme and Barenboim's

[jayne lee wilson]

One of the few delights of this performance for me was that Runnicles DIDN'T slow down for the very last three notes - a pleasant surprise, as most overdo it here. The score (Bruckner's original markings, who knows?) does have accents over the last three notes and the word riten., but the work's rhythimic leitmotif is lost the way most conductors suddenly slam on the brakes.

As for Jochun's "stop-go" approach, it's certainly in accord with Bruckner the organist changing the stops between sections of music. His orchestral writing does seem rather vertically conceived. Jochum's approach to the very end - at least in his Hamburg Philharmonic recording - is somewhere between Runnicles' extreme and Barenboim's

Very useful reference to the score, Boilk, thanks ( I did hunt around - why on earth aren't such things available online for free?)

Admittedly it is always hard to know whose hand inscribed various accents and so on, but I'm surprised you don't feel the need for at least some sort of emphasis here. Of course those three notes are threaded through the 8th, from the very first thematic statement in the 1st movement, but that's why, certainly compared to the 1887 score, you surely need some gesture of conclusion at this final arrival. It is a huge moment, after more than 80 minutes of intense symphonic metamorphosis, and it follows an elongation of the last chord before it. So it is unfair to describe conductors as "slamming on the brakes", and it's not just a last reference to a leading motif.
The traditional classical "riten." in a final cadence (like those cadential shakes in baroque music) does have its uses, it's not always a mahlerian schlamperei!

Sorry if I wasn't clearer about the "stop-go" approach. Far from considering organ stops (pitch/register), I was thinking of any such reading which varies tempi in an overt attempt to excite the music in to a climax, or relax it into a gesangsperiode and so on, especially those which set off abruptly at a different pace from the previous section. However well-conceived (and I do enjoy a wide range of approaches) it always tends to the "apologetic" view of Bruckner, to wit the supposed need to generate excitement and local interest in music which designedly avoids such transient musical pleasures.

I think Haitink, in his earlier Amsterdam cycle and related live recordings, was remarkably successful in finding a swifter, more urgent approach to Bruckner which doesn't rely on abrupt changes of tempi.

[heliocentric]

( I did hunt around - why on earth aren't such things available online for free?)

There is of course IMSLP, but they seem only to have the original version of the 8th at the moment.

I wouldn't say the work's motivic integrity is lost by slowing down at the very end. The pitches are still there after all. But regarding "stop-go" versus "urgent" I would say the most important thing in a Bruckner symphony interpretation is that it should be consistent - as soon as the temptation arises to appreciate/criticise it in terms of one detail or another, that's a sign that maybe the longer-range relationships aren't getting sufficient attention (either by the conductor or the listener or both!). In other words, I would say that whether a massive rit at the end is or isn't appropriate depends a lot on what's been happening in all four movements up to that point. I can't say I found the Proms performance so very involving, and my attention drifted from time to time.

[Boilk]

Sorry if I wasn't clearer about the "stop-go" approach. Far from considering organ stops (pitch/register), I was thinking of any such reading which varies tempi in an overt attempt to excite the music in to a climax, or relax it into a gesangsperiode and so on, especially those which set off abruptly at a different pace from the previous section. However well-conceived (and I do enjoy a wide range of approaches) it always tends to the "apologetic" view of Bruckner, to wit the supposed need to generate excitement and local interest in music which designedly avoids such transient musical pleasures.

I see what you mean about "stop-go" and on the basis of that, would have to consult the scores to see what the tempo markings (if any) are. When I hear the first movement's second subject (at letter D) I do feel it needs more oomph, and yet the score says a tempo. Perhaps that's what being nurtured on Jochum does to one!

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

It seems that I enjoyed this Prom a good deal more than some contributing here. I much preferred this performance to some of the glossier ones (with some great European orchestras) I've attended in the past. My review is now online: http://www.classicalsource.com/db_co...w.php?id=10360

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

(I could imagine them playing Nº 7 quite beautifully - especially under a conductor such as Volkov or Noseda)

They have recorded Bruckner 7 under Runnicles, to be released on Hyperion this autumn.

[amac4165]

A valiant effort with some fine individual performances in the Bruckner 8, but I do feel that for the BBCSSO, this Bruckner symphony was "a bridge too far" (I could imagine them playing Nº 7 quite beautifully - especially under a conductor such as Volkov or Noseda))

Runnicles seems to be quite popular with the players (I was talking to one of them only last week) but I was unimpressed. I never felt that he had control. Some entries were ragged because there was no direction from the podium at critical points of entry - the very opening of the scherzo being a typical example.

Very disappointing for me, I'm afraid. I have a great affection for this orchestra, but unlike the BBC Philharmonic, I feel they lack that something extra. Maybe the chopping and changing of Leaders over the last couple of years has something to do with it.

HS

More or less my opinion in the hall - although be honest I felt it was as I expected so probably was not as disappointing for me.

amac

[gedsmk]

More or less my opinion in the hall - although be honest I felt it was as I expected so probably was not as disappointing for me.

amac

Interesting. It was "as I expected" also: beautiful, impressive, controlled, never cheap, hard-won, completely absorbing, riveting from start to finish. That this was being done by a provincial band made it seem even more "Catholic" in a sense Bruckner would understand: in our frailty we yet strive to reach the divine. My own opinion of course, which is what makes this board so refreshing! I hope they do number 5 next year and would strive to get to it.

[RobertLeDiable]

Interesting. It was "as I expected" also: beautiful, impressive, controlled, never cheap, hard-won, completely absorbing, riveting from start to finish. That this was being done by a provincial band made it seem even more "Catholic" in a sense Bruckner would understand: in our frailty we yet strive to reach the divine. My own opinion of course, which is what makes this board so refreshing! I hope they do number 5 next year and would strive to get to it.

I agree and am glad you liked it too, but a "provincial band"? Forgive me but surely it isn't necessary in this day and age to patronise our non-London orchestras in that way? Many (most?) of them are of international standard and that includes the BBC Scottish these days. It's such an odd way to think of orchestras in any case. Would people refer to the Rotterdam Philharmonic as a 'provincial band' because it's not in Amsterdam, or the Bamberg Symphony as provincial because it's not in Berlin? Is the Halle a provincial band? What about the Pittsburgh Symphony?

[amateur51]

Runnicles seems to be quite popular with the players (I was talking to one of them only last week) but I was unimpressed. I never felt that he had control. Some entries were ragged because there was no direction from the podium at critical points of entry - the very opening of the scherzo being a typical example.


HS

An interersting point made from your practical experience, Hornspieler.

I've recently finished watching the filmed rehearsals of Brahms symphony no 3 by the New Philharmonia Orchestra with Klemperer in 1970 in which Gareth Morris, then Chair of the orchestra and a fine flautist, says the opposite - that constant cuing for entries should not be necessary if everyone is concentrating and the rehearsal time has been satisfactory. He was making this point because OK was clearly quite incapable of cuing consistently and yet he made all the important gestures, particularly in the performance as compared to the rehearsals.