Bruckner 7th (Davies Symphony Hall, Jan. 23, 2003)

Bruckner 7th (Davies Symphony Hall, Jan. 23, 2003)

The performance of Bruckner symphony is a major event that is worth travelling miles for. I'd be perfectly happy to listen to a Haydn or Mozart symphony on my CD Player and not miss hearing it in a symphony hall. The same cannot be said of a Mahler or Bruckner symphony where the hall experience is simply extraordinarily different and overwhelming.

The Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco has a reputation for bad acoustics (I was told this during a guided tour of the SF Opera House which is across the street). I haven't noticed anything particularly odd but the joke goes that if you write a review of any concert there you had better specify your seat number as well. Because someone in a different seat would have had a totally different experience.

The SF Symphony Box office offers 40 center terrace tickets for most performances and these go on sale 2 hours prior to the performance. The cost of a ticket is about half that of the cheapest ticket that you could buy in advance. Of course, this requires one to be at the hall an hour prior to the window opening but it is well worth it. These seats are almost within hand shaking distance of the timpani player and allows one to watch the conductor's expressions which help a lot in getting a better understanding of the music.

Unfortunately my trek turned out to be in vain. The center terrace seating was not available for that afternoon as the first half of the evening featured an all-male chorus who would be occupying those seats. The calendar display listed a Mozart work but the playbill indicated an all Bruckner evening with the short Trosterin Musik (Music the Comforter) and Helgoland, considered his last completed work. This was an unexpected bonus and I did not mind giving up the center terrace for the vocal talent. Fortunately, tickets were still available for the side terrace which are as close to the orchestra (but much pricier).

The all male chorus was something new and I did not quite know what to expect. It had the Bruckner stamp alright.

I am a late entrant to the Bruckner club and have known his works for about a year only. Apart from the unique musical style, I also find his personality and his unique life events very engrossing. The delayed recognition of his worth, his odd personality quirks, difficulties in finding a mate, the fiasco of the 3rd symphony premiere, his meetings with Wagner, numeromania, piety, the version problem that still feed many academic theses etc. all contribute to the aura.

What I find unique about his symphonies is his style of closing a theme with a full stop and after a pause beginning another as if the previous theme did not exist at all. Some may carp at this refusal to create bridge passages, but their error is in assuming that he could not do what he chose not to. There are just too many examples but the most striking is the scherzo of the Fifth where he begins with a fast version of the opening theme of the second movement, then come to a full stop and begin something totally different. This may be a bit bewildering at first but once you get a grasp of his methods and how he ties it all together at the end, it is well worth the while.

It was a thrill to actually see the Wagner tubas in a live performance. Closer examination of the closing sequence of the first movement and the slow movement reveals what is probably a very conscious tribute to the composer of the Ring. Much is made of the choice of using the cymbal clash in the second movement. This performance did feature the clash.

KDFC, the classical music station of the SF Bay Area, played the entire concert last night and I was happy to catch a part of it.