Bruckner in Berlin
Under Nelsons, the strings alternate between warm and cool, between slender and lush.
“A storm of enthusiasm for Anton Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony. Cheers for the Berlin Philharmonic under guest conductor Andris Nelsons. It’s a short Thursday evening at the Philharmonie: around eighty minutes of Bruckner, without any heavenly lengths – sometimes sober and crisp, sometimes broad and luxurious. Then again modern and noisy, especially in the scherzo. Not to be forgotten are the rare, precious moments in the Adagio. Those moments when the orchestra suddenly revels in intimate, heartfelt colors.”
“There are Bruckner conductors with whom you already know after the first movement how they will shape the remaining movements. With Nelsons, you don’t know. Even within the movements, he creates surprising contrasts and abrupt changes of character. Under Nelsons, the strings alternate between warm and cool, between slender and lush. The brass play politely and nobly in the middle movements, but then they play all the more strongly in the outer movements. As a result, the finale even mutates into a brass symphony with string accompaniment at times. The remarkable thing about this is that Nelsons’ Bruckner remains pleasant to listen to despite considerable volumes. On the one hand, this is because he consciously prepares and steers towards climaxes. On the other hand, he prefers a full brass sound even in the most intense fortissimo.”
“Ultimately, regardless of the respective interpretative approach, the work is an opportunity to unfold the full orchestral radiance, an instrumental virtuosity that offers a sound for a range of emotions from the deepest dejection to triumphant rapture. There is no question that Andris Nelsons and the Berliner Philharmoniker succeed in this with the utmost brilliance, and the audience responds with storms of applause. For the Latvian star conductor, the work is an “existential experience” that reaches into otherwise inaccessible regions. Accordingly, he interprets it dramatically, highlighting contrasts and extremes. From mysterious violin shimmering, the bass theme rises up, answered by oboe sighs, at first murmuring, then threatening. The quieter secondary theme is also intensified, then breaks off and ebbs away, fragmented into the sharpest contrasts in the smallest of spaces, which the conductor can nevertheless shape into a grand arc.”