REVIEW: Vienna Philharmonic and Bruckner's Extreme Romanticism
Above, Franz Welser-Möst conducts the Vienna Philharmonic. Photo by Chris Lee.
March 1, 2024
Carnegie Hall’s festival Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice continued with three concerts by the storied Vienna Philharmonic, Franz Welser-Möst conducting, beginning with Anton Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony. It’s the Cathedral of St. John the Divine of symphonies — clocking in at an hour-plus in length, yet famously unfinished (the composer had a pressing appointment with the work’s dedicatee).
What Bruckner did complete of his Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, between 1887 and 1896, is still an imposing creation. The piece’s relevance to the Weimar Republic (1918 - 1933) must have to do with the composer’s evolving reputation — Wagner’s country cousin — and his ambitious ouvre’s slow-to-be-established place in the repertory. (The version performed here didn’t see the light of day until 1932.)
Rather than tack on one of several speculative completions of Bruckner’s sketches for the final movement, Welser-Möst insightfully substituted Alban Berg’s Three Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 6. Maximalist and exaggerated, Berg’s concise suite for gigantic orchestra represents a natural next step from Bruckner’s extreme Romanticism.
Franz Welser-Möst conducts the Vienna Philharmonic. Photo by Chris Lee.
The music of Bruckner and Berg, both Austrian, is in the DNA of the Vienna Philharmonic, and to hear them play it is to better understand what it is about: expression. Their timbre is bright, their pitch is heightened, and their tremolos wide and dug in. But, what really comes through is the sheer joy each player exudes through their playing. This is a fearless orchestra. They go for broke.
Bruckner must have had this sensibility in mind when he conceived his gargantuan symphonic statements. His large-scale tapestries of sheer sound make perfect sense in the Vienna Philharmonic’s hands. The tone of Vienna’s string section has an unapologetic forthrightness sustaining Bruckner’s extremely long notes; the woodwinds resound with piercing resonance; the horns are veritable athletes; the brass section listens and balances, and doesn’t just blare.
Welser-Möst, for his part, is a shrewd partner and manager, navigating these epic canvases with an ear for detail, but a gentle hand. The first movement of the Bruckner — Feierlich, misterioso — with its dramatic, chromatically descending four-note motive, has moments that can feel cartoony; Welser-Möst’s pacing ensured earned gravitas. The subsequent Scherzo: Bewegt, lebhaft, with insistent, violent gestures that foreshadowed many developments (musical, as well as non-musical) coming down the pike, was driven by a merciless, unified sense of pulse and commitment to dynamic contrasts. A joy to listen to. The third movement, Adagio: Langsam, feierlich, was wrenching and ecstatic.
The Vienna Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall. Photo by Chris Lee.
The program had no intermission, furthering the notion of Berg’s Three Pieces as a functional finale. This quintessentially Second Viennese School score from 1915 embodies Expressionism. Remnants and echoes of dance and march tunes are obscured by abstract splashes and detritus, as if Berg was dropping a bomb on the music of the nineteenth century. The audience in Carnegie Hall on Friday night was rapt until, without knowing what hit them, Vienna’s percussionists theatrically wielded their giant hammer, bringing the music to a decisive end, like a door being slammed shut, or the fall of a guillotine.
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