I once tried to introduce a friend to Bruckner via the Fifth Symphony. The concert did not go down well – ‘the work of a madman’ was just one of the reservations I recall. And perhaps the Fifth is not the best way in to one of music’s more diffident symphonists. Much tinkered with, both by the composer and others, it is pivotal to the later symphonies, the longest he had written so far, and in the outer movements fiercely experimental in terms of form. On closer questioning, the friend wearily cited repetition and stop-start as difficult to grasp, and, even for a Brucknerphile, there can be problems in sorting out any implied hierarchy in the parade of potent, self-contained themes and gestures that dominates the first movement. Of all the symphonies, it is also a work that, depending on the conductor, can deliver a huge range of readings, starting with the well-worn ‘cathedral of sound’ description – one that has not served Bruckner’s cause at all well.
This was something the conductor Adám Fischer clearly understood in a deeply satisfying performance, always with an ear to Bruckner’s longer plan, which mercifully steered well away from bombast. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment has over the years been moving into romantic repertoire, and the Queen Elizabeth Hall’s clipped acoustic was not ideal for the slightly larger forces, based on six double-basses ranged right at the back of the stage, with the players’ vivid dynamism visually and aurally seeming to steer and animate things from behind. There was, though, no hiding behind any resonance, and you could hear ensemble taking a while to settle. The strings, with some discreet vibrato, produced a warm, substantial and well-shaded sound; the trumpets, trombones and tuba rose to the robust, nineteenth-century occasion with ease; the horns conjured up a romantic bloom, although I missed the longed-for prominence in their two brief-but-memorable descending figures just before the chorale’s final peroration; and the woodwind had a poetic charm reminding you that Bruckner did not orchestrate like an organist.
After the first movement’s magical introduction, Fischer kept the main Allegro taut, not over-indulging the various brakes on momentum and drawing a bracing urgency from the players. Yet, even with a potentially pulverising coda, you knew there was more in store. In the great Adagio, conducted with a sure sense of connection between tempo, pulse and rhythm, and with an affecting opening oboe solo, Fischer clinched Bruckner’s climactic process of paring his material down to basics, at the same time as leaving room for a sense of lingering regret. The Scherzo was a virtuosic blast, enfolding a ghostly, Mahler-anticipating Trio. The resumé of previous themes – Bruckner paying his respects to Beethoven’s Choral Symphony – was beautifully done, warming the seat for the Finale’s main, fugal business, here delivered with a quasi-conversational clarity and breath-taking confidence, and when the brass Chorale soared in on top of all the counterpoint, you realised that Fischer had from the start been preparing the way for this magnificent, cathartic moment.
The post Adam Fischer and the OAE – Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony appeared first on The Classical Source.
