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| Ingo Metzmacher © feliXbroede |
The prospect of hearing Anton Bruckner's Symphony No.8 in
C minor seemed to take some audience members of the Israel Philharmonic
Orchestra out of their comfort zone. Or did it, at the same time, draw and
challenge listeners to experience the epic work in all its sweeping radiance? Bruckner's Symphony
No.8 was conducted by Maestro Ingo Metzmacher (Germany).
This writer attended the performance in the Sherover Theatre, Jerusalem, on May
31st, 2026.
Bruckner was in his sixties when he wrote his monumental
Eighth Symphony, informed by Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, and Bruckner’s own
earlier works. The making of Symphony No.8, the composer's last completed
symphony, however, got off to a rocky start. Writing it occupied Bruckner for
three years. Finishing the first version in 1887, Bruckner sent the score to
conductor Hermann Levi., who rejected the piece, claiming it was basically
unperformable. Over the next few years, Bruckner effectively recomposed the
work. In the 1887 version, for example, the first movement ends in major-key
triumph. The revised version ends the first movement (Allegro moderato) with
"sighs" from the violas in minor-key dejection, melodramatically
described by the composer himself as " when one is on his deathbed, and
opposite hangs a clock, which, while his life comes to its end, beats on ever
steadily: tick, tock, tick, tock". The other movements were also subtly
but profoundly revised, resulting in heightened focus of Bruckner's musical
ideas. Many Bruckner symphonies exist in more than one version. The Eighth
exists in four. The version performed at the recent IPO concert was the
scholarly edition of Leopold Novak, published in 1955 and based on Bruckner’s
1890 version. The work is scored for a large orchestra, with 15 brass
instruments, including eight horns, four of which double on Wagner tubas.
Symphony No.8 was premiered in December 1892,
with the Vienna Philharmonic performing it at the Musikverein (Vienna) and
conducted by Hans Richter. The audience included Brahms, Hugo Wolf and
Johann Strauss. The critic Eduard Hanslick spoke of the work as having a
"nightmarish hangover style - a future we therefore do not envy!"
Indeed, Brahms had previously described Bruckner's works as "symphonic
boa-constrictors".
Offering more explanations as to extra-musical ideas behind the symphony, Bruckner himself suggested that the Scherzo, (he
places it before the slow movement) was "a portrait of the figure of
German Michael" (a bucolic rustic from German folk tradition), the
languid, radiant, harp-ennobled trio section of the Scherzo depicting Michael
dreaming. The composer added that the opening of the Finale was inspired by the
Cossacks, the Russians having visited the Austrian Emperor not long before.
Whether today's listener wishes to rely on- or relate to such associations
raises some questions. What is imperative to all hearing the work, however, is
the fact that Bruckner was a spiritual composer, and that his spirituality as a
person is certainly present in Symphony No.8. Bruckner was also a renowned
organist. The brass section of Symphony No.8 often functions as an organ, a direct connection with
Bruckner’s deeply religious nature. From the unsettling darkness sounding
right at the start of this symphony, building up power repeatedly and then
letting it subside, to the Finale's coda, in blazing C major, Ingo Metzmacher's
direction was one of commitment, transparency and musical precision, of
structural comprehensibility and precise ensemble control. Relinquishing the
use of a baton, he shows the audience through the symphony's vast, grand
canvas, through its dark sonorities and moments of shattering drama, also
leading us through such uncanny moments as that at the centre of the first
movement, where Bruckner paints one of the emptiest, most desolate musical
landscapes ever - a single flute sounding over tolling, funereal trumpets
and chromatic "gasps" in the basses. As per usual, the IPO's
outstanding instrumentalists, both sections and individual players, provided
some memorable moments, too many to mention here. Hearing and watching the
players in the huge wind sections was a stirring experience. From the Scherzo
on, all eyes were on timpanist Dan Moshayev, his playing punctilious
and sensitive. Metzmacher and the IPO players joined in profound, mutual
elucidation of the music, in.an organic inevitability that comes when orchestra
and conductor find a synergetic union. Not only exposing the music’s darkness
and pain, but also its optimistic, spiritual ecstasy, Ingo Metzmacher's
conducting was both passionate and eloquent, never manic. Born in Hanover in
1957 (where his father was a well-known 'cellist), this was his first
appearance with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In an interview with
Colin Anderson in TWENTIETH-CENTURY REFLECTIONS, Maestro
Metzmacher makes reference to "the German tradition" which he
clarifies as "clear, forward music-making, very honest, not a big show for
yourself."
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