SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Widmann and Bruckner:  Sergei Nakariakov (trumpet), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Jiří Bělohlávek (conductor) 5.10.2007, Barbican Hall, London (JPr)

It must be difficult being a composer in any generation, you are desperate for a performance of your work then two come along on the same night. At the Barbican there was the UK première of Jörg Widmann’s ad absurdum described as a ‘Konzertstück for trumpet small orchestra’ composed in 2002 but that had to wait till January 2006 in Essen for its first ever performance. The trumpet soloist then, as on this evening, was Sergei Nakariakov to whom the composition is dedicated and for whom it was always intended. A second trumpeter now has it in his repertoire because in Germany David Guerrier was performing the work with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie in Saarbrücken. Now this would not seem that important, except that the work is fiendishly difficult to perform with much rapid double-tonguing but towards the end throws everything at the climax including a hurdy-gurdy before the work ends with two ‘raspberries’ and an exhausted sigh from Nakariakov, in fact, the inexhaustible trumpet soloist. Hurdy-gurdy players for a symphony orchestra performance cannot be easy to find, in fact I am reliably informed that there are on two that can be called upon, so both of them had a job that night.

The music critic, Max Nyffeler, has said ‘To understand Jörg Widmann the composer you first need to have heard Jörg Widmann the clarinettist’. Unfortunately I have not, however the composer starts off well with me because he apparently asked himself the question, ‘When does virtuosity become noise?’ before composing his Konzertstück. Widmann sets himself the task of testing his soloist to the edge of their virtuosic limit, playing loud, fast and getting faster in a sort of perpetuum mobile for trumpet. There are only a few elegiac calls as relief all against the background of strings, woodwind, a large battery of percussion played by one player, and the hurdy-gurdy whose unusual sound takes a while to pick out even when the rest of the orchestral sound is low.

The young German composer was in the audience to hear his own work and if his aim is to push the borders between organised sound as ‘music’ and noise this insistent piece that accelerates on towards that exhausted conclusion inventively examines it. With most twenty-first century music there is often an ‘emperor’s new clothes’ hint that the composer has their tongue in their cheek and turning the spotlight on us the audience to stand up and shout ‘are they still tuning up or is this is?’ – for once the wit was in the music and the smile on the faces of those in a very small audience was entirely appropriate. The BBC Symphony Orchestra under their chief conductor, Jiří Bělohlávek, accompanied Sergei Nakariakov with great commitment.

Writing about a recent performance of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony at the Proms in July with Kurt Masur and a double orchestra I bemoaned the lack of ‘visceral excitement’ - with Bělohlávek and the BBC SO it was as visceral as I think it could hope to be. I have dealt with this following issue before but will keep going on about it until I am satisfied that it is understood; when it states in the programme notes by generally reliable Stephen Johnson that ‘Bruckner idolised Wagner … yet his music rarely sounds like Wagner’ the first statement is correct … the second ever so wrong! The week or so before this concert I had spent in seeing (and not reviewing thankfully) about three-quarters of a Ring cycle at Covent Garden sitting a few rows from the front immersed in orchestral Wagnerian sounds. Now I may not be able to read much music but thanks to a sturdy memory can recognise the instrumentation, harmonies and sounds of Das Rheingold in the Bruckner’s dream-inspired Allegro, Tristan in the mournful Adagio, ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ in the rustic Scherzo and Götterdämmerung right at the end in the Finale and that is just for starters. The brass as it blazed sturdily forth throughout was Wagnerian and not just in the deliberate use of four ‘Wagner tubas’ here and there. Cannot people hear the connection? This is from the Bible I believe – ‘He who has ears, let him hear’ – and it is very apt here.

If it was not in the music then it is in the history of the composition as Bruckner was in Bayreuth for the Ring première in 1876 and the Parsifal première in 1882, while there Wagner agreed to perform all his symphonies, in 1883 (unfortunately for Bruckner) Wagner died but he returned to Bayreuth for Parsifal again that year … all this before and during the composition of his Seventh Symphony. Bruckner had sensed that ‘the Master’ would not be able to keep that promise, and this premonition dwelt in him as he began working on the first movement and Scherzo of this Seventh that he indeed completed in 1883. One of the first conductors of the Seventh was Hermann Levi, the conductor of those Bayreuth Parsifals, and invited to that performance in Munich in 1885 were members of two organisations devoted to the legacy of Wagner, the local Wagner Society and something called the ‘Holy Grail’ and as well the work being dedicated to King Ludwig II. Remember the most influential music critic of the day Eduard Hanslick, described Bruckner as ‘the Wagnerians’ newest idol’. None of these would be interested in music that ‘rarely sounds like Wagner’.

This is not to deny Bruckner’s greatness as a composer in any way but to recognise the influences on his music that people now want to ignore. With Bělohlávek and the BBC SO the Seventh Symphony was given a stunning performance with the orchestra playing this Austro-German music for all it was worth. From the opening theme in cello and violas, followed by the dark and brooding interventions of the ‘Wagner tubas’ and the absolutely apt (and Wagnerian) cymbal clash and triangle at the climax of the Adagio (included here unlike with Masur) through to the affirmative, exhilarating and loud conclusion with the repeated trumpet theme – this is a performance of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony I will remember – and it deserved many others to be there to fill up all those empty seats.

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