ADDA Alicante under Josep Vicent begin a new season with Bruckner's Seventh Symphony

 

Anton Bruckner was born in 1824, meaning this year is his bicentenary. In recognition of this, the new season of Alicante concerts opened with a performance of his Seventh Symphony by the ADDA orchestra under the artistic director, Josep Vicent.

This is a mammoth work that lasts over an hour. The first two movements alone exceeded forty minutes. As a result, as with this evening, it is often played alone, with no other work either before or after it to offer musical contrast. With such immersion, an audience ought to feel bathed in the musical style to such an extent that the experience is all enveloping.

But nothing involving Anton Buckner is ever that that simple. He was a paradoxically simple man, yet simultaneously outrageously complex. Deeply religious, but with an often-expressed passion – unrealised - for young girls, he seemed to offer up to the world a riddle that could never be solved. A professor in Vienna and a teacher of many years, he never attained sufficient confidence in his own abilities to finish definitively most of his works. Near constant revision, often prompted by the lukewarm praise of others, left multiple versions of many of his works. This can give much scope for conductors to pick and choose, to incorporate this revision or ignore another. Definitive Bruckner is an oxymoron.

And with the work of Anton Bruckner, no one is going to notice very much, given that by design the music often swerves, changes direction or delights in apparent non sequiturs quite often. Bulow described the composer as “half genius, half simpleton” and he had the reputation, even in society events, of turning up dressed like a peasant. He was an enigma, was overtly sensuous with the sound of his music, but deeply religious, and lived, generally speaking, the life of an ascetic. His express motivation was to write music to celebrate the glory of God, in both scale and depth.

The ADDA programme notes quoted Wilhelm Furtwangler saying that Bruckner composed Gothic music that had mistakenly been transplanted into the nineteenth century. Stylistically, the music is far from Gothic, but perhaps its architecture is not. Personally, I would go as far as describing the symphonies as cathedrals, where the parts only come together when the whole is considered from afar. There are no grab quotes from these symphonies, except perhaps in the scherzi, and even these are heavy on process rather than melody.

A possible problem with the cathedral analogy is perhaps that the composer had forgotten to include a door. It is possible to experience this music and feel permanently shut out. Yes, the edifice is impressive. Yes, it towers above us. But does it ever reveal its interior?

Having discussed the work, what about the performance? Well, it was faultless, committed, subtle, and even communicative. The Wagner tubas did not play a wrong note all evening, which is rarely the case with this notoriously mind-of-its-own instrument. Their sound, booming and enveloping, when added to a full orchestra created a special world, which the audience eagerly inhabited.

Josep Vicent drew every morsel of texture from the score and the resulting detail, even within the tutti, was simply vivid. In recognition of the work’s dedication to Ludwig II of Bavaria. The concert bore the subtitle “Legend of the mad king”. It wasn’t a legend, but it was a great start to a new season.

Alicante enthuses over Joshua Bell, Alan Gilbert and NDR Elbphilharmonie in Bruch and Bruckner

 

It looked like a middle-of-the-road program of Romantic staples. Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy and Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony were both written around 1880, though, as with everything, Bruckner took all criticisms to heart and later reworked various aspects of his work without changing its overall shape. These works of similar origin, of course, also contrasted. The Bruch Fantasy was written for a star performer, Pablo Sarasate, and clearly the composer had its potential for audience popularity in mind, whereas Bruckner probably did not write anything outside the intensely personal, internal drive to express his faith. The Fantasy uses popular song and folk melodies as its basis, whereas Bruckner‘s music always seems driven by a very personal energy. In any case, these are works that this particular listener has heard many times and represent an approach to music which is not a great personal favourite. I had also prepared, choosing earlier to listen to a performance of the symphony I recalled from a previous tour of Spain by a foreign orchestra some years ago, a tour which included a performance of the symphony in Alicante which I attended. Thus prepared, I applauded the North German Radio (NDR) Elbphilharmonie orchestra onto the stage.

What I had not anticipated was a performance the like of which I have rarely heard. Joshua Bell arrived to play the Bruch Scottish Fantasy. Now reputations can be built on marketing, in which case the performance experience of the ego is often less than the promise. With Joshua Bell, one feels, the opposite is true. He is in such control of the music, so at ease with its expression, that the instrument, the human being, the art and interpretation become a single force. The result would be devalued by the label ‘spellbinding’. It felt at times like an effort to remember to breathe, so completely absorbed were this audience in the performance. It was an experience enhanced by Joshua Bell’s obvious ability and delight in communicating with conductor, fellow musicians and audience to create a sense of inclusion and sharing. An encore seemed inevitable and appeared. It was again a popular choice, but in unfamiliar guise. Thus, O Mi Babbino Caro from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi became a violin solo with understated orchestral accompaniment.

Thus far not mentioned, the conductor Alan Gilbert then led his NDR Elbphilharmonie orchestra in the Bruckner symphony. Given the orchestra’s previous association with Gunther Wand, this was surely familiar territory for the band, but this familiarity not only bred respect, but immediate and radiant brilliance. Their relationship with their recently adopted chief conductor is clearly not only going to build on the orchestra’s tradition but also enhance it.

There was not a moment in this performance when the playing, the interpretation, the sound, the phrasing, even the complete musical sense fell below the breath-taking, even revelatory. Often, Bruckner’s tremolo strings create the oral equivalent of a painter’s wash, stating nothing in itself, but colouring the overall effect with a dominating presence. In the hands of the NDR and Alan Gilbert, the tremolos clarified by adding what felt like the perspective of another dimension within the image. Through this clarified air, the landscape was able to offer its magical, often guilt-ridden detail.

Long before the end of this performance, it was clear that this was one of the very best interpretations of music I have ever heard. My earlier preparation became irrelevant. Nothing could have prepared a listener for this radiance, this sheer beauty of sound, this perfect balance, this always enlightened phrasing. For the first time in this concert goer’s experience, the music of Anton Bruckner made sense as well as an impression.

Joshua Bell, Alan Gilbert, Max Brooke, Anton Bruckner and the orchestra of North German Radio thus combined to deliver what can only be described as the experience of a lifetime.