Spiritualization of the Sensual

Written for and published by the Boston Musical Intelligencer on 22 November 2024

In a bicentennial homage, the mighty Berliner Philharmoniker and Chief Conductor Kirill Petrenko brought Anton Bruckner’s monumental 5th Symphony to a sold-out Symphony Hall. The Celebrity Series presented this night for the history books in which Petrenko and the Berlin Phil created sheer poetry at scale, with musical art elevated to its highest and best-realized ideal.

On the BP’s American tour, Bruckner’s symphonic art-temple alternated with a program of comparatively lithe works by composers with American connections: Rachmaninov’s Isle of the Dead, Dvořák’s 7th Symphony, and Korngold’s Violin Concerto (Vilde Frang and Benjamin Beilman replacing a sadly indisposed Hilary Hahn). Boston was the third stop after Washington D.C. (Dvořák et al.), New York (lucky to hear both programs: Bruckner once and Dvořák et al. twice ), then on to Ann Arbor (both programs), and finally to Chicago (Bruckner alone, as in Boston).

Berlin Philharmonic at Symphony Hall (Rob Davidson photo)

The Berliners wielded both programs as rhetorical tools to assert the polyphonic strength of the Western canon; the Bruckner made the major metropole statement. To select Bruckner on tour, let alone the contrapuntally immense 5th, is a necessary risk for the composer’s big year – perhaps especially so in Boston, where reception to his music has been lukewarm at best. A full standing ovation of over two thousand shows no disappointment for a concert event that easily figures among the best, if not the best, of the year ― one that should, regardless, feature as an indelible memory of great art on rhapsodic display.

But what makes the music of Bruckner played by this orchestra and this conductor so great? Jeffrey Gantz’s history of the work explains HERE. But my words must lend themselves in explaining the Berliners’ humility, not for their own sake, but in service of their craft as the sum artisanal beauty. Every chair of this orchestra is occupied by a virtuoso musician, one who contributes to the profound instrumental organism that is the Philhamoniker. This reviewer first heard Petrenko and band at the start of his chief conductorship, playing Beethoven’s 9th in August 2019 at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate; you can read about this concert HERE. They were excellent then. Five years later, the relationship deepens with riches, bringing to life the eerie timbre of a lost age of expressive symphonic ecstasy.

The orchestra entered the hall at a staggered American pace, to take their seats antiphonally (the first violins in their usual slot, celli to their left and bassi back behind, violas, then seconds flanking the stage) – the timpani, brass, and woodwinds perched themselves on assembled risers for improved sight, so as to aid breathing and entrances against the inevitable sonic delay [would that the BSO would bring back risers]. Concertmaster Daishin Kashimoto entered for a brief tuning followed by Petrenko to the rostrum. And thus, the hush of anticipatory profundity then emerged.

The opening bass line pizzicati motive made for the hair-raising entrance of the bowed violas, then seconds, and firsts in sotto voce canon, staggered and suspended as a tragic plea coming to life from the abyss of abject silence. The rounded tones of the brass asserted themselves through arpeggiated declamatory entrances yielding another first movement motive. This juxtaposition of brass versus strings proved an orchestrational leit motive the symphony over: the Brass as God Almighty and the strings as plaintive, fallen Man. The “introduction” transitioned to the first movement’s B-flat Minor Allegro section, then leading to a second pizzicato theme, one seemingly Renaissance in its nonchalance. The opening doloroso theme would return in different texture, more adamant than the first time as the woodwinds took over the bass line to accompany the yearning upper strings in vibratissimo hysterics. Bellicose inversion added variety to the main Allegro theme in contrast to lyrical thematic material.   

Bruckner’s adagios are always peak moments, and no less so here in the second Satz. More pizzicati opened as triplets in contrast to the sorrowful duple melody from the oboe. Hemiola and descending minor 7ths were never so painful. This theme and orchestration would return in varied formats, some gesangsvoll and sweetly nostalgic, others in defiant fury as triplets turned to whirling torrents of 16th notes in the first violins. The Berliners achieved great wandering and mysticism in this movement through the perfect symbiosis of passing lines, texture, and artful exchange of tone color. 

Chef Dirigent Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic (Rob Davidson photo)

The third movement unleashed the white-hot virtuosity of the orchestra. The molto vivace Scherzo theme passed cut-and-paste to the lyrical phrases of a Ländler, matched in part by the off-beaten Trio. The whiplashed contrasts astounded in grace of control.

Thematic, rhythmic, and orchestrational leit motives laid like breadcrumbs in previous movements were now combined in the Finale, utilizing the only suitable form for jubilant controlled expression: Bruckner’s musical redemption in the form of a double fugue and climactic chorale. As the themes from previous emerged in cellular form, the micro units then burst forth to macro as the celli and bassi declared the march-like first fugal subject. Sweeping melodic transformation of the Ländler theme from the Scherzo poured forth as a gesangsvoll polyphonic kaleidoscope. The orchestra shifted and swayed to this music with the shimmering precision of a school of fish. Fugal episodes transpired in reminiscence of Wagner’s Meistersinger Overture and Beethoven’s B-Flat Grosse Fugue.

As the first fugue lapsed, the chorale theme proclaimed itself in psalmodic responsory between strings and brass before the commencement of the second fugue. One notable fugal episode saw Petrenko crouch and place his baton in hand low to signal a pallid, emotionless churning that brimmed until the return of color — launching to yet further passages of fugal indulgence. A dominant pedal point in the timpani ferociously led the way to tonicization at figure Q. The final chorale proclaimed itself with majesty, as if the whole proceeding hour or so of music had prepared for this ascension. The rounded chord and thud led by the timpani and band at the conclusion launched the whole hall in acclamation of rightful exultation.

Petrenko’s conducting was so good throughout it renders almost no discussion. A true supportive musician without ego in execution, he directed as a monk and servant to the spirit of the music: authoritative direction whilst remaining in the sound. He helmed tempo fluctuations, accelerandi, and rubati with expert control, resulting in architectural momentum throughout the whole symphony – rendering with clarity the masterpiece’s quasi-cyclical structure. A work that mixes the melodic lilt of Schubertian simplicity alongside the harmonic ricercare of old masters and the textural immensity of Wagner, Bruckner’s unique musical language rightfully figures among the other 3 Bs of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms; we need to hear more of him.

In an age of seeming decay, Petrenko and the Berliners serve as grand ambassadors of the Western cultural tradition, and indeed, of the human spirit. Legendary Chief Conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, whose live 1942 recording of this work I’d recommend HERE, would be proud in knowing his band maintains and delivers this tradition. This concert fulfills Furtwängler’s ideals: that the “musician’s task is the sensualization of the spiritual as much as the spiritualization of the sensual.”