This was the first time I’ve heard the RLPO live in their home base and, indeed, the first time I’ve heard them at all since the 1970s, when they were, I remember, conducted by Charles Groves. They sounded a bit ropey then – now they sound like an extremely fine band. Their hall lacks reverberation, but is better than the Sheffield equivalent, and has good sightlines, though maybe the acoustic did make the heavy brass sounds of this work a bit unrelenting.
Domingo Hindoyan, their new music director, conducted a fast-ish performance of the symphony – it came in just slightly under 77 minutes, as opposed to, say, Reggie Goodall’s 90 – though the Furtwangler recording from Vienna in 1944 is much the same timing as Hindoyan’s. The RLPO sounded, as I said, in great shape under their new boss, , with a magnificent string sound and stylish brass. Maybe the woodwind were a bit submerged, but that might be Bruckner, or indeed the version used – this was the Haas edition which includes some music, particularly in the slow movement and finale, that the Nowak one leaves out
The best crafted movement, I felt, was the 3rd (slow) one, where the orchestra played beautifully. It had a magnificently managed climax, with the final roar of exaltation sounding wonderful – the elderly lady next to me muttered audibly to her husband “blooody ‘ell’ as the 2nd cymbal crash reverberated round the hall (they had earlier been grumbling about the noise of the brass in the scherzo….). For me the performance was at its best from the trio of the scherzo to the end of the slow movement. The trio’s sudden move to exaltation was particularly well done.
The first movement didn’t quite offer the sense of menace and terror there can be in this music. I found the pace too brisk – imposing moments of drama like the crashing of the brass and timpani near the end of the first movement didn’t have their full impact. The quiet end of the first movement sounded oddly matter of fact. The Finale was too brisk at the start – the timpanist couldn’t articulate his thwacked repeated double notes clearly or forcibly enough before the repetition of the opening theme, but breathing and spacing got better as things went on, and the ending was well handled. Throughout, occasionally phrasing seemed clipped and insufficiently spacious, but the characteristic ticking sound in Bruckner which seems to be signifying world weariness came across well just before the coda in the finale.
Stephen Johnson had provided a very interesting video talk on the RLPOs website which stressed Bruckner’s precarious mental health. I had never really thought about this clearly before but it is very obvious in this work – the sudden plunges into darkness and the music occasionally sounding as though it had lost its way…..
Altogether, I thought that Domingo Hindoyan had the Wagner aspect of Bruckner well displayed, but both the Schubert and God aspects were inhibited by his speeds – there was insufficient time for lyricism and contemplation
The house was by no means full but the performance was very well received
Finally, at something of a tangent, a photograph I have never seen before, of a very frail Bruckner, just before he died, is attached. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Mr Hindoyan and the RLPO performed the newly completed version of Bruckner’s 9th symphony which Simon Rattle recorded? Just saying……
John's musical journey 