Masur Reunites Germany, Gives Not Spectacular Performance of Bruckner

Bernard Jacobson, of the Seattle Times, muses upon his Brucknerian experiences and Masur saves the world.

Who knew that one performance of a Bruckner Symphony could have altered history in such a profound way?

figure Masur: German dictator following the collapse of the German Democratic Republic.

Masur is a master of the Austro-German classics

Wow. Kurt Masur, a German conductor, is a master of German music? Will wonders ever cease?

One of the most memorable moments in my lifetime's experience of Bruckner...

Does one really distinguish lifetime experiences of Bruckner from those of other Austro-German romantic composers?

...was of a soft brass chord in the Third Symphony. It shone like sunlight glinting on the surface of a calm sea.

Ah...the glorious Third Symphony. Sounds sublime.

The conductor was Kurt Masur.

You know what...I think the guest conductor for this concert is Kurt Masur. What a coincidence!

So it was exciting to learn that the great German maestro had chosen music by Bruckner,...

I'm pretty sure "exciting" is not the word I would choose, but to each his own...

...along with Mozart's 40th Symphony, for his long-awaited debut Thursday with the Seattle Symphony.

Excellent. On with the review.

Bruckner's Fourth has none of the wondrous rapt mysticism of his Seventh,...

Well, I have two problems here. First, what the fuck? What a completely random comment. Did you not just get through with a personal anecdote about the Third Symphony? What. The. Fuck.

Second, where do you get off not using the word "symphony" in this sentence? Fourth what?

I'm sure we all know what you mean, but less is hardly more when referencing specific pieces of music.

...the other most popular of his symphonies. It is all nature poetry, and this was a supremely natural performance,...

Well, this would seem to be an obvious sentiment, except, despite having the same root word, "nature" and "natural" aren't really referring to the same thing. Are they Mr. Jacobson?

I assume that by "nature" you mean "the natural world as it exists without humans", and by "natural" you mean "free from affectation" and not so much "formed by nature". Yes?

...and this was a supremely natural performance, to such a point that Masur had no truck...

Masur didn't have a truck*?! How else could one traverse "nature" without the 6.1L, 425 horsepower, high octane, 4.06 inch Bore, 90.9 mm Stroke Hemi Engine inside the indestructible Dodge Ram?!

figure hemi: The only way to tackle "nature". Masur strangely doesn't own one.

So...no truck. Not even a truck-like car?

figure el camino: Cars that most definitely don't help you get laid. Also, Kurt Masur doesn't have this.

...with the rather mannered little hesitations that Bruckner wrote into the bucolic horn calls of the scherzo, propelling them instead with exhilarating directness.

So, are they playing the Fourth or the Seventh? I suppose there's an off chance they're performing the Third? I guess it doesn't really matter.

The rest of the article is perfectly cromulent. The performance was recounted with descriptors such as "crisp" and "sonorous". There were "stretches of gorgeously saturated string tone" -- tones? -- and "high artistry". Clearly he must have been speaking about the Bruckner Fourth, for the Seventh just doesn't feature any of these things.

However, reading further I did stumble across one of my favorite features of music criticism, the random and mostly pointless quotation. After lengthy gushing over the performance of the Bruckner, Jacobson went on to add the following:

As a member of the Chicago Symphony commented years ago after we had both heard a Mahler symphony played by Masur with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, "It just went to prove that you don't always have to play everything as loudly as possible."

Okay. I disagree, because loud equals awesome! But, regardless, I have an issue here.

There are six major subjects of importance in this sentence:
Member of Chicago Symphony
Mahler Symphony
Kurt Masur
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Point of Contention That Needs Proving to the Contrary
Don't Have to Play Loudly

Now based on the article that has preceded so far we have established subjects like:
Bruckner Third Symphony, Good Times
Bruckner Fourth not the Seventh
Kurt Masur
Kurt Masur is German
Something About Nature
Horn Calls
Masur Doesn't Have a Truck

figure bigfoot: Kurt Masur apparently doesn't own this truck either, and it's all Bruckner's fault.

Using my awesome powers of compare and contrast, it would seem that there are only...(counts on fingers)... is only 1 subject in common. Fuck. That would make your random quotation, well...random. Don't do that.

Okay. Still not a bad article. Let's see how it ends. Tie it all together for us, Jacobson.

Perhaps the most spectacular thing about this Fourth was that there was nothing spectacular about it.

I love sentences that say nothing. Well done, sir. Plus, way to continue not being specific about the composition titles. Love it.

Paced without a trace of affectation, it was simply human and warmly spiritual.

Ah, there you go again using the definition of the word "natural"...that's nice the way you brought it back for us, for a bit of symmetry.

These are qualities that almost define Bruckner,...

You might say the Bruckner was Brucknerian? Yes?

...and it was no surprise to find them in the work of a conductor...

Composer. Bruckner was a composer.

...whose moral authority...

Moral authority?

...helped materially to prevent the collapse of the East German regime in 1989 from turning violent.

Masur did what now?

figure anti-riot: Masur's elite force of anti-riot police, directly preceding the bloodless coup and beginning of his fascist regime.

He was widely regarded at the time as a potential first president for the reunited Germany,...

Being the history buff that I am, I would elaborate that this was because of the immense popularity of Masur's proletarian policies that he was able to facilitate a peaceful dismantling of the East German government. Little did everyone know that Masur secretly planned not to return the executive power to the people, but instead to seize control and use his position to build a Utopian society where Austro-German composers are valued above all else. It all seemed so promising and harmless at the time.

...but decided he wanted a more challenging job, and became music director of the New York Philharmonic instead.

Oh, right. That never happened.

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So, to recap:

Bernard Jacobson likes Bruckner 3, but Bruckner 4 is not Bruckner 7. Bruckner 4 is based on "nature" which inspires "natural" performances of which Masur is a master (because he's German), despite not having a truck. The orchestra played Bruckner with "saturated string tone" which goes to show you that you don't have to play loudly. Also, the Bruckner wasn't spectacular (in a good way), but it was "natural" (because Masur made it natural, because, Bruckner wrote it "naturally", because, as I can only assume, that they're both German) and that's why East Germany collapsed non-violently.

* Yes, I realize that truck also means "dealings" in informal conversation. It's a joke people.

Tuesday Trivia

I’m going to skip around, so bear with me. But first, some trivia!

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We know what harmony is. We know what a harmonic progression is. We know what harmonic reduction is. We even know what harmonic rhythm is. But what in the world is “true harmonic pulse”?

Answer here: paragraph three.

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Truth be told, I don’t mind Bernard’s assessment of Thomas Ades’ Violin Concerto’s complication. After all, Bernard used the magic words, “to my ears,” which absolves him of overprecise commitment. That doesn’t mean I agree with him; it just means that I can’t refute him, despite not knowing what “true harmonic pulse” actually is.

Though I’d sleep better if I knew why it was qualified with “true” or why

Complexity is a matter of content; complication is a different and less praiseworthy quality.

Guess I’m doomed to a life with insomnia.

On the other hand, judgments beginning with “clearly,” “obviously,” or the like, should have some degree of objectivity, like, “Surely, according to the pie chart, party clowns are better because they own a greater percentage of stock in...”, or “By far, there are more bananas in the jungle than walruses,” or “Certainly, the conductor was becoming irritated by the percussionist’s refusal to stop texting his BFF.”

Without a certain amount of objectivity the argument, in my opinion, becomes weakened, like using the passive voice and the phrase, “in my opinion.”

By far the most successful passage comes about halfway through the long central slow movement.

See? After the “by far the most successful,” we need some qualification, some objectivity. We know where it was successful. But why was it so successful?

Here Adès, abandoning for a while the intricate rhythms that have made much of the solo music a trial for any soloist, allows the violin to sing its heart out in a sequence of sustained, easefully diatonic phrases.

In essence, what Bernard is saying (I think) is that the passage was successful because it was easy, uncomplicated, that the rhythms were no longer intricate.

Which totally negates a previous statement.

A listener coming unprepared to the work, 20 minutes long and subtitled "Concentric Paths," could be forgiven for thinking it relatively easy to play, for the prevailing effect of the solo part is simple and songful [...]

If the entire piece seemed easy, then why would that particular passage be “by far the most successful”? Because it was diatonic? I’m pretty sure that’s, by far, subjective.

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More Trivia:

What do Ades’ Violin Concerto, Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain, and Stravinsky’s Firebird have in common?

Answer here: paragraph five.
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Wha? Wha? What?

Part I

This week's performances of the biggest symphony Mahler ever wrote are being "dedicated to the many thousands of people who contributed to both the creation of Benaroya Hall and its monumental impact on our great city," according to the program.

They’re clever up there in Seattle, you know. Mahler’s Eighth Symphony is known as the “Symphony of a Thousand.” Tee-hee.

Thursday's subscription season opener was, in those terms, a triumph.

Wha? “In those terms?” What terms? From what I remember about the word “triumph,” it means, roughly, this: a great victory or achievement. So then, the season opener achieved...a big symphony? A dedication? Or was it more of a victory, instead? The season opener was victorious over...not having a season opener? Wha?

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Part II

It was hard to know which to admire more: Mahler's skill in creating an edifice of sound at once massive and lucid, or music director Gerard Schwarz's in realizing both the massiveness and the lucidity.

I once had this question in the quantitative section of the GREs, so I know how hard it is, too.

But either way, the result was a ringing endorsement of the hall's acoustic excellence.

Wha? So let me get this right: The resultant performance, one which was a combination of Mahler’s compositional skill and Schwarz’s conducting skill, endorsed (????) the awesome acoustics of the hall? The performance endorsed the acoustics. Wha?

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Part III

Schwarz has recently been bringing Mahler's bigger symphonies before the public at the rate of one a season — since 2006, the Third, the Seventh and the Sixth.

And now the Eighth. That’s forty percent of the total number of Mahler’s symphonies, that is if you want to count the Tenth, too. But really, how many more “bigger” ones does he have? I can’t wait ‘till Schwarz starts doing the smaller ones.

The vividness of the composer's inspiration has benefitted, on each occasion, from the conductor's equally vivid sympathy for the expressive fervor of the music and his ability to shape its often wildly varied elements into a coherent whole.

Wha? Huh? (plucks eyebrows, draws new ones with magenta Sharpie to suggest confusion) I think we’ve got it already—Schwarz did a good job with his baton. But...”the vividness of the composer’s inspiration benefited?” As I see it (and I could be wrong, of course), Bernard Jacobson of the Seattle Times is equating “inspiration” with the “score,” however convoluted that may be. In that sense, Schwarz, being able to read and perform the score, made the score “coherent,” which, in turn, benefited the score’s vivdness, which isn’t inherently coherent (maybe). Wha?

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Part IV

The Eighth — known as the "Symphony of a Thousand" — poses a different structural problem.

...aside from not being inherently coherent, which befogged the vividness of the composer’s “inspiration.”

Its two movements are settings respectively of the ninth-century Latin hymn "Veni, Creator Spiritus" and the final scene of Goethe's "Faust." Mahler succeeded brilliantly in unifying his treatment of these two vastly different texts, but at the cost of variety. The seven-note figure that dominates the hourlong second movement is exploited far more repetitively than its potential justifies.

Here’s my best Bernard Jacobson impersonation: “Mahler had no idea what he was doing. He should have done it this way, instead, because I know better.”

And the method by which Mahler stretches relatively few motifs over his vast canvas is not development so much as permutation:

I’ve got a sinking feeling about this. (Hint: “permutation” sounds cold and mathematicky)

...the first movement's obsessive juggling with a handful of melodic ideas, in particular, reveals where Schoenberg's ultimately mechanistic 12-tone serial technique had its origins.

Wha? Give me fucking break! The one thing that Bernard “Totem Shoes” Jacobson would urge Mahler, himself, to change about the Symphony would be how much it reminded him of Schoenberg’s not-yet-invented technique, which is supposedly “ultimately mechanistic.”

Here’s my second best impersonation ol’ Totem Shoes Jacobson: “Hey Mahler, you shouldn’t have written it that way, because, one, I know better and, two, you might sound like Schoenberg, who I don’t like, because he is all mathematicky and stuff. You want to go get some coffee and type things on some Microsoft software then go hiking for vivid inspiration and not learn anything about modernism or Mahler or Schoenberg or serialism or music? Me, too!”

What?
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Truth Be Told, There's Truth to Tell

Sniff. Sniff. I smell fresh meat.

Amid all the hoopla of cocktail parties and pre-concert dinners, the opening night of the season celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Seattle Symphony's splendid Benaroya Hall, while taking note of the recent announcement that its music director will step down at the end of the 2010-11 season.

Here, we have two options, Bernard Jacobson’s: the opening night of the season celebrated the tenth anniversary of the hall. Meanwhile, the opening night took note of some recent news concerning its music director.

Or...

Mine: The opening night was a celebration of the tenth anniversary of the hall. Those who were present took note of the recent news.

I'll let you decide: the one that personifies an "opening night" or the rational one.

Gerard Schwarz, holder of that post since 1985, has been an inspirational leader.

I like to slowly stalk my prey.

Like any inspirational leader, he has had not only admirers, like this critic, but detractors too.

...detractors in what sense?

Readers of this newspaper will not be unaware of the controversies that have shadowed his relations with some orchestra members in recent seasons.

Oh. I get it. He’s talking about the detractors who...what? Pointed out how bad he was working with the musicians? So...his detractors were what? Oh. Just telling the truth! Silly me. Ms. Iron Tongue has a few complimentary words on this fiasco.

By the way, double-negatives, like “will not be unaware,” really irk me, especially when I presume you’re working with a fairly strict word count; they waste valuable space.

Happily there were no signs of tension at Saturday's concert.

There was a concert, too? How was that?

Besides an ovation of unmistakable affection from the audience...

The opposite: Besides an ovation of unmistakable derision from the audience...Ha! It’s only a guess, but my guess is that ovations are always of a positive nature (someone might want to consult a dictionary. Wait, no. There’s no point. I’m right). Therefore, “unmistakable affection” is totally superfluous. More wasted space.

Truth to tell...

Correction: “Truth be told.”

Truth to tell [sic], despite the "Symphony" in the name, there was nothing symphonic about this program.

Weird. They didn’t play together? They didn’t syn- “together” + phone “voice, sound?” Ever eaten an etymology with blood pudding? Yum.

Besides (and please help me out on this one, people), isn’t “Symphony” in the name merely a reference to the type of organization or instrumentation, not the specific kind of repertoire? There is no contractual obligation to play only symphonies, is there? If there is, I’m not aware of it.

Aside from three short orchestral pieces, the evening was given over to vocal music...

Yeah, Mr. Literal-head, accompanied by a symphony orchestra. Whatever.

Among the purely orchestral pieces [...] "An Outdoor Overture," handsomely as it was done, is a relatively banal chip from Aaron Copland's workbench...

Slowly stalking...

...but we were also treated to the waltz from the ballet "Billy the Kid," which is a different matter entirely.

Still stalking... Fill in the blanks:

The ballet, a potent and affecting blend of downhome ______ and streetwise ______, [...]

Any guesses?

You’re all wrong! The correct answer is:

The ballet, a potent and affecting blend of downhome and streetwise, [...]

The Seattle Times is generally pretty good, with witty and spectacular. But not this time.

Pounce!
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