Michael Tanner

Bowled over by Bruckner

Plus: the middlebrow composer who writes music that appeals to people who think it is highbrow and a glorious performance of Haydn

The two Proms concerts given on consecutive evenings by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra were well planned: a short opening work, and after the interval a long and demanding symphony. Moreover, the big symphonies were by Bruckner and Mahler, to the latter of whom this orchestra has been devoted almost since its foundation. Willem Mengelberg, the orchestra’s chief for 50 years, was the only conductor, Mahler said, that he could trust with his works, and the orchestra has been headed by a succession of distinguished Mahlerians ever since.Bruckner, meanwhile, entered the orchestra’s repertoire in a major way in the 1950s, and has been there ever since. Daniele Gatti, who became the orchestra’s seventh chief conductor last year, was making his first Proms appearance in that role.

Wolfgang Rihm’s In-Schrift (1995), with which the first concert began, is a striking piece, with much for the percussion and low brass to do, and for the prominent harps, but no upper strings. I have tended to think of Rihm as a middlebrow composer who writes music that appeals to people who think it is highbrow; possibly I am one of them, but I haven’t usually liked his work as much as I enjoyed In-Schrift, with its blatantly Fafner-ian passages and its exquisite ending, which made me want to hear it again immediately.

I’m glad I didn’t, for after the interval came one of the most demanding works in the repertoire, Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, a work with which I am obsessed. Each time I listen to it I am more than ever convinced that it is one of the greatest musical works, and more than ever bewildered as to precisely what its greatness consists of — not that there is any reason for doubting, but it remains so original, so unlike any other work, even other works by Bruckner, that bafflement is an unusually large ingredient in my awe.

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