RIHM In-Schrift
BRUCKNER Symphony No. 9
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Daniele Gatti (conductor)
There aren't many reasons I'd sign up to stand for a Bruckner symphony - either it is 1) preceded by an interesting piece; 2) performed by big names; or 3) both. Well, the Dutch Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is in town with its new chief conductor Daniele Gatti. For all his popularity in continental Europe, it is actually incredibly hard to be able to hear Wolfgang Rihm's work live in the UK. Rihm won the 2015 Grawemeyer Award for "In-Schrift-II" when most of the world don't even have the chance to hear its 1995 predecessor "In-Schrift", a commission for St. Mark's Basilica in Venice. Every now and then I would put on a Rihm work to enjoy his sonic imagination. A lot of his works are characterised by some pulsating energy where groups of instruments would gravitate towards "an axis of direction", causing a lot of exciting events within mixtures, and the music keeps mutating around this vortex. Admirers would call them "sound sculptures" as there are indeed copious remarkable explorations of timbres whilst haters would think his music has no real content. Essentially that's the feeling for "In-Schrift". It scores for a very "earthy" group of instruments - no upper strings and includes a contrabass tuba. It's quite something to hear a bunch of low-register instruments blasting out under the high ceiling of RAH, and I don't think many composers are bold enough to insert a whole minute of (5) woodblocks hitting (against nothing else) in the middle of an orchestral work. Rihm has written more intoxicating music (like "Chiffre I") but it was a curious experience nonetheless. I hadn't heard Bruckner 9 since sixth form, and revisiting it reminded me that I used to have a heart. Gatti consciously avoided vulgarity by paring down the earth-shattering drama in the opening movement. It was technically proficient, the structure flowed and there were individual glorious moments but on the whole it did not really take off. II was powerful and clinical. It is difficult to come across a satisfactory ending as the work is technically inconclusive. For all its lovely build up and ebb and flow in III the performance ended with little feeling of structural and emotional resolution and one walked away from this Prom feeling hanging mid-air. Perhaps it was the intention.
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