After finishing my PhD I went through several years when I didn't do much regular playing. Being out of the university environment meant that there were fewer opportunities, and in any case the demands of a young family and building a career meant that time for playing was limited.
I was surprised therefore to be rung up completely out of the blue one evening to be asked whether I would be interested in joining a local orchestra. I was a bit ambivalent, as I was not sure that I could afford the time: what persuaded me was being told that the main work on the next programme was Bruckner's 7th symphony. As soon as I heard that I had no hesitation in accepting. That was well over 20 years ago and I still play in that same orchestra. Who knows what would have happened had that first programme been an all Brahms concert! (I will explain the significance of that comment in a later post)
I'd had discovered the fourth and eighth symphonies of Bruckner at school and I got to know the seventh fairly well at university - I remember we had a lecture about the symphony and a friend and I had had great fun several times bashing through the piano duet version but this was the first time I had had a chance to play the 7th.
It was a truly memorable experience.
Judged purely on their own merits it has to be said that the bassoon parts are pretty dull but of course what really counts is being part of the great unfolding of the symphonic drama. Two particular moments (of course in Bruckner moment is a relative term) stand out. The first was the coda of the slow movement. After the great climax - and we did include the cymbal clash - there is the haunting passage led by the solo wagner tubas which legend has it was inspired by the news of the death of Wagner. This works though some exquisite chromaticisms before finally ending up, after a movement of some 25 mins or more - on a profoundly satisfying C sharp major chord for the brass. That chord has to be one of the most perfectly placed harmonic resolutions in all music and in the resonant acoustic of the cathedral in which we were playing it seems to last for an eternity. Wonderful just to be able to experience it from within the middle of the orchestra.
The other moment was the very end of the symphony. I don't think that I had ever quite "got" the last movement in the way that I had the other three. Without doubt it contained some marvellous music but I hadn't really appreciated how it all hung together. That was the revelation of this performance. Everything seemed directed to that extraordinary final cadence where there is mighty clash of gears and then suddenly all the tension is released into what seems like the bright light of the purest E major. I know I am in danger of auditioning for pseuds corner as I write this, and I don't often think of music in quite such graphic terms - but I was consciously of a huge adrenaline rush during those final triumphant bars and was left feeling complete ecstatic - I don't ever recall quite feeling the same way in any music performance I have taken part in before or since. I remember the feeling lasting a very long time - well after the applause had died down and after I had packed the instrument away. In fact it probably took until I was well on the way home before I came down to earth - It was a good job there was not much traffic on the road back that night!
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Great performances one. Janet Baker. Nuit's d'ete
Instarted this series a long time ago but haven't added to it since I restarted this blog so it is time to finish it
Janet Baker is one of the very greatest of singers. So many of her performances capture the essence of the music in a way which makes it impossible to imagine any other performances. Sea Pictures is one of them and her performance of Doppo Notte from Ariodante is another.
I was lucky enough to hear her live several times. The most memorable was a performance of les niuits d'ete at the concert hall in Nottingham. This was towards the end of her career but she was still in stunning form. For once the old cliche of being able to hear a pin drop was absolutely true. The concentration was intense and the joy at the end was shared by everybody there.
There are other singers of this repertoire who I greatly admire, but Janet Baker was in a class of her own
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