Prom 63: Messiaen/Mozart/Bruckner (2.09.15)

[jayne lee wilson]

I had a good listen again to this Bruckner 7 at the weekend.

I could hear all the virtues Flay lists.. but throughout like Mr Tipps had a sense of something missing, but I found it hard to put a finger on. Mystery, perhaps... Certainly not 'bombast' or 'grandeur' or a 'marmoreal Cathedral in sound' aspect (I truly disliked those late Karajan recordings).

Afterwards I listened to one of my most recent acquisitions, the LPO Live recording of Bruckner 3 conducted by the almost-nonagenarian Stanislaw Skrowaczewski last year.

Now THAT's a Bruckner performance. Every phrase, every bar, seems to say something over and above just the sound. Not sure what, but it kept me riveted 100 times more than the Prom No. 7. There has to be something more than just a trim, crisp rendition of the notes.

Was invited this evening to Haitink's performance of No 7 next Tuesday with the LSO (with Perahia in Mozart as a bonus!) - we shall see.....!!!

Did you see Peter Oundjian's (and my own) comments re. the Schubertian angle, Cal? (Vide #16, #23)... this approach has a deep tradition of its own, vide Schuricht, Haintink's first Amsterdam tapings, Volkmar Andreae, even some of Tintner (1 & 2 especially)... haven't heard it, but the recent Ivan Fischer 7th on Channel Classics seems to do this too according to reviews...

[Hornspieler]

Some very interesting posts here.

I remembe rplaying Bruckner 7th under Sergiu Comissiona (a pupil of Silvestri) in the Royal Festival Hall and shortly after playing Tod und Verklarung under Norman del Mar (an authority on Richard Strauss)

I was struck by the similarity of the two works - the final triumph of transfiguration.

As we played the final bars of the Bruckner, I felt a surge of triumph - not at my own playing (which was, of course, immaculate ) but that the whole reason for all the hours of work and the endurance of the hardships of being a member of the music profession, with its anxieties and disappointments were justified by those final triumphant bars.

Does anyone else experience that sort of reaction?

Forgive me if I take the liberty of quoting a poem which I wrote during a period of frustration and depression in the mid 1970s:

Life's Ambitions

When we were little children
Our wishes, too, were small
To have a brand new pedal car
To grow up very tall
As many sweets as we could eat
And roller skates beneath our feet

In time, as we grew older
Ambition took its hold
To have a job that mattered
And win a crock of gold
As many girls as we could bed
The loveliest one of all to wed.

But what about our middle years
When bleakness looms ahead?
The future then is loneliness
Ambition now is dead
We sought a life that was not there
So how then can we not despair?

... well, Bruckner's 7th symphony is almost a musical biography of my life.

So I don't listen to it now, played by others. I can listen to it in private in my head.

Hornspieler

[P. G. Tipps]

Some very interesting posts here.

I remembe rplaying Bruckner 7th under Sergiu Comissiona (a pupil of Silvestri) in the Royal Festival Hall and shortly after playing Tod und Verklarung under Norman del Mar (an authority on Richard Strauss)

I was struck by the similarity of the two works - the final triumph of transfiguration.

As we played the final bars of the Bruckner, I felt a surge of triumph - not at my own playing (which was, of course, immaculate ) but that the whole reason for all the hours of work and the endurance of the hardships of being a member of the music profession, with its anxieties and disappointments were justified by those final triumphant bars.

Does anyone else experience that sort of reaction? .... Hornspieler

What a fascinating post ...

I've thought for some time that the glorious closing bars of Tod und Verklarung are pure Bruckner. However, I've also read that R Strauss (another of my favourite composers) was rather dismissive of Bruckner's music though I learned a very long time ago never to believe everything I see in print!

Returning to Bruckner 7, I think I know exactly what you mean. Bruckner's triumphant conclusion is all the more exhilarating because of the mental struggle and uncertainty that precedes it. However that uncertainty and struggle are never hysterical or full of self-pity but calm, measured and, yes, even majestic and grand in parts. Contrary to Andre Previn's truly absurd remark that Bruckner was 'always on his knees' when composing.this symphony sounds more to me like Dignity & Grandeur set to music!

Caliban is lucky to have been invited to next week's Haitink/LSO concert. A safer pair of conducting hands when it comes to understanding and conveying to the listener the intriguing other-worldly 'mystery' of the Seventh would be very hard if not impossible to find.

[Roehre]

....
I've thought for some time that the glorious closing bars of Tod und Verklarung are pure Bruckner. However, I've also read that R Strauss (another of my favourite composers) was rather dismissive of Bruckner's music though I learned a very long time ago never to believe everything I see in print!

Returning to Bruckner 7, I think I know exactly what you mean. Bruckner's triumphant conclusion is all the more exhilarating because of the mental struggle and uncertainty that precedes it. ....

It's not by chance that Bruckner 7 was his first and greatest success.
With the slow mvt and that finale (inspired/coinciding with Wagner's death) Per aspera ad astra is almost naturally developed.

Richard Strauss was not very keen on Bruckner's symphonies, but he wasn't much impressed by Brahms's music either.
Nevertheless: Tod und Verklärung's finale pages owe quite a lot to Bruckner, especially the seventh. And it is nice to compare the main theme of Festliches Präludium op.61 with Brahms's slow mvt from his String sextet no.1 op.18.
Bruch too wasn't highly regarded. It didn't stop Strauss to incorporate a melody of Bruch's 1st violin concerto into the Alpensinfonie ("a melody too beautiful to be used only once", Strauss remarked).

Being dismissive doesn't stop people borrowing....

[Nick Armstrong]

Caliban is lucky to have been invited to next week's Haitink/LSO concert. A safer pair of conducting hands when it comes to understanding and conveying to the listener the intriguing other-worldly 'mystery' of the Seventh would be very hard if not impossible to find.

Yes, very lucky! It's a purple fortnight for concerts - VPO Gerontius, Haitink Bruckner 7 and Jurowski Mahler 7...

Did you see Peter Oundjian's (and my own) comments re. the Schubertian angle, Cal? (Vide #16, #23)... this approach has a deep tradition of its own, vide Schuricht, Haintink's first Amsterdam tapings, Volkmar Andreae, even some of Tintner (1 & 2 especially)... haven't heard it, but the recent Ivan Fischer 7th on Channel Classics seems to do this too according to reviews...

Yes I did, jayne. Interesting that you cite Haitink's early work as falling into this category... let's see what happens next week.... But I don't see a bright line between the different 'angles' - the work can be taken in a more 'Schubertian' style and still 'say' something. Very subtle things, inflections, nuances are at play here I think - it's not just about speed and dynamics. That indescribable extra meaning element has to be communicated somehow - and that was I think what was lacking in the Prom: neat, well-prepared, well-played... but somehow empty.

.

[blackalbum]

At the risk of diverting the discussion from the merits of the Bruckner, I thought that the playing in the Mozart was the most affecting of all the late piano concertos this season. I haven't had time to say this on here since the performance but I'd be interested in others' views.

[Barbirollians]

At the risk of diverting the discussion from the merits of the Bruckner, I thought that the playing in the Mozart was the most affecting of all the late piano concertos this season. I haven't had time to say this on here since the performance but I'd be interested in others' views.

That prompts me to listen to this soon as I should have thought Pires's K488 would be difficult to top .

[jayne lee wilson]

Some very interesting posts here.

I remembe rplaying Bruckner 7th under Sergiu Comissiona (a pupil of Silvestri) in the Royal Festival Hall and shortly after playing Tod und Verklarung under Norman del Mar (an authority on Richard Strauss)

I was struck by the similarity of the two works - the final triumph of transfiguration.

As we played the final bars of the Bruckner, I felt a surge of triumph - not at my own playing (which was, of course, immaculate ) but that the whole reason for all the hours of work and the endurance of the hardships of being a member of the music profession, with its anxieties and disappointments were justified by those final triumphant bars.

Does anyone else experience that sort of reaction?

Forgive me if I take the liberty of quoting a poem which I wrote during a period of frustration and depression in the mid 1970s:



... well, Bruckner's 7th symphony is almost a musical biography of my life.

So I don't listen to it now, played by others. I can listen to it in private in my head.

Hornspieler

"In places deep
With roots entwined
I live the life I left behind"

(From "Nevermind", by Leonard Cohen).

[Nick Armstrong]

"The sound should be fabulously clear in its textures. After all, it comes straight out of Schubert.
As a string quartet player, I did all the late Schubert. Playing those masterpieces is very close to conducting a Bruckner Symphony."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/11123359/Peter-Oundjian-from-injury-to-triumph.html

It won't get you all the way with 5, 8 and 9 perhaps, and it's not the only Bruckner performance tradition, but I'm delighted that more conductors are seeing, and playing, Bruckner this way - acknowledging the Schubertian style as an essential part of Bruckner's musical language.

.... and let's not forget the chamber reduction by Hanns Eisler and others, which I've been listening to this year with pleasure: doesn't work in all the movements, but some of it is gorgeous and it's all fascinating...

[richardfinegold]

I heard PO lead the Detroit SO in Bruckner 8 about 5 years ago. The Orchestra has a French Russian sound, not what I consider a good Bruckner sound, but the results, which were lighter than we are used to in this repertoire, were very good.