Prom 74 - 6.09.13: Vienna Philharmonic

[edashtav]

An Early Report of Richter Conducting Adolf's 8th!

In view of the Interval Talk before Tuesday night’s performance of Bruckner’s 4th which suggested that one editor [Robert Haas] of the complete Bruckner edition was a Nazi sympathiser, readers may be amused by this few lines that I noted in the London Daily News (03.02.1893).

In June, he [Dr. H. Richter] proposes, it is said, to introduce several novelties – of a somewhat briefer character, let us hope, than Adolf [sic] Bruckner’s new symphony in C, No.8, which at its recent production under his direction at the Philharmonic Concert, Vienna occupied the whole of the programme.


As an aside, we often grumble that concerts are getting shorter. Note that 120 years on from that first performance, we’ll get a generous selection of Bach’s organ works in addition to the Bruckner.

I'm looking forward to being at the Albert Hall on Friday but with a little trepidation in case this mammoth symphony turns out to have been written by Adolf Hitler, aged 2.

[scottycelt]

I saw Maazel conduct the 7th with the LSO in 1999. I'm usually too engrossed in the music, and in my own thoughts, to notice the conductor too much but I do remember thinking Maazel's body language seemed a bit odd. He just seemed to strut onto the podium and glare at those around him before commencing. At the end he acknowledged the applause in much the same manner, just glaring at the audience and without as much as a hint of a smile.

Having said all that I thought the performance was pretty good especially if you like your Bruckner in a 'heavy-metal', plodding sort of style.

I'm really looking forward to Friday night's Prom, though I'm afraid I won't be present in the RAH as much as I would love to be!

[Petrushka]

While in Grinzing Cemetery in Vienna a few years ago searching for Gustav Mahler's last resting place I chanced upon the tombstone of Leopold Nowak and did one of those swift double-takes as my mind switched from thoughts of Mahler to those of Bruckner.

I will be in the RAH on Friday and despite the general disdain for Maazel I doubt if the VPO will inflict any damage on their beloved Bruckner.

[Nick Armstrong]

While in Grinzing Cemetery in Vienna a few years ago searching for Gustav Mahler's last resting place I chanced upon the tombstone of Leopold Nowak and did one of those swift double-takes as my mind switched from thoughts of Mahler to those of Bruckner.

I will be in the RAH on Friday and despite the general disdain for Maazel I doubt if the VPO will inflict any damage on their beloved Bruckner.

I heard Maazel conduct Bruckner 8 with the Philharmonia in 2001. I went with a (Jewish) friend whose comment on the way out was: "too Jewish"... I do recall it sounding more like Mahler.

Not wishing to be a wet blanket, I've just found a youthful Tom Service's Graudiad review of the concert: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2.../artsfeatures2

[Alison]

Good old Tom normally errs on the side of generosity too !

On the other hand I recall LM's complete Bruckner cycle getting a warm review in Gramophone (Rob Cowan).

[Petrushka]

Somewhat puzzled by one of the Bach organ works in the first half. The Chorale Prelude Vor deinem Thron tret' ich hiermit BWV 668 isn't included in my Simon Preston complete set of the Bach Organ Works. Is there some doubt about its authenticity or have DG and Preston slipped up?

Can someone who knows these pieces better than I do offer an explanation?

[Hornspieler]

This has got to be the worse organ playing that I have ever heard - and I've been to a few weddings in the local churches.
Sounds like someone playing in a duffle bag. Shame its not a MUFFLE BAG!

NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE

HS

[mercia]

Somewhat puzzled by one of the Bach organ works in the first half. The Chorale Prelude Vor deinem Thron tret' ich hiermit BWV 668 isn't included in my Simon Preston complete set of the Bach Organ Works. Is there some doubt about its authenticity or have DG and Preston slipped up?

Can someone who knows these pieces better than I do offer an explanation?

can't say I know it myself, BWV668 appears to be the last of the "Great Eighteen"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Eighteen_Chorale_Preludes

I've just noticed this

Only the first page of the last choral prelude BWV 668, the so-called "deathbed chorale", has survived, recorded by an unknown copyist. The piece was posthumously published in 1751 as an appendix to the Art of the Fugue, with the title Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein (BWV 668a), instead of the original title Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit ("Before your throne I now appear").

There have been various accounts of the circumstances surrounding the composition of this chorale. The biographical account from 1802 of Johann Nicolaus Forkel that Altnikol was copying the work at the composer's deathbed has since been discounted: in the second half of the eighteenth century, it had become an apocryphal legend, encouraged by Bach's heirs, Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach and Wilhelm Friedmann Bach. The piece, however, is now accepted as a planned reworking of the shorter chorale prelude Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein (BWV 641) from the Orgelbüchlein (c 1715).

[carol_fodor]

I agree with Mr Hornspieler that the organist's technique is rather ham-fisted. But isn't it a nonsense anyway, playing Bach on that monstrous RAH instrument?
We ought to be hearing lots of lovely soft-foundation fluty noises with 2 foot and even 1 foot 'ranks'.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The instrument may be bigger than those Bach played on, but do we as listeners really want tobe subjected to the wheezes and mechanical clunks of some of those old instruments?

[Nick Armstrong]

Can't decide if that first movement was ponderous or monumental (I'm not in a very good place to judge). Look forward to comments!

[ardcarp]

There is a great tradition of playing Bach on [what some now think of as] 'unsuitable' instruments. We would never hear any Bach at all in our cathedrals were authentic instruments a pre-requisite. As it is there is a great tradition of Cathedral Bach, Town Hall Bach (into which RAH Bach probably falls) and Parish Church Bach. The likes of W.T.Best. George Thalben Ball and no doubt Bruckner himself made Bach work by using the full resources of the Romantic instrument. As has often been said in other contexts on the Forum, Bach's music transcends the medium.

I wonder how much experience tonight's soloist had had playing big British organs with radiating and concave pedal-boards? I wouldn't join Hornspieler in his condemnation of the playing. He brought clarity and a steadiness of tempo, but I guess he found the occasion a tad scary...and it seemed to show from time to time. Playing In dir ist Freude (the encore) on a couple of gentle flutes was a nice idea. It's usually a blood-and-guts piece.

[Stan Drews]

According to the RadioPlayer, we're listening to #7 in C minor. Och well, I suppose the key's about right.

[carol_fodor]

Can't decide if that first movement was ponderous or monumental (I'm not in a very good place to judge). Look forward to comments!

How about monumentally ponderous?
( which the scherzo definitely isn't.... the word 'lightweight' springs to mind, I'm fed up with the quasi-Mendelssohn and taking a break before the slow movement)

[Nick Armstrong]

According to the RadioPlayer, we're listening to #7 in C minor. Och well, I suppose the key's about right.

Utterly delectable horn-playing ...whichever symphony it is!