Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Kirill Petrenko leads the BERLIN PHILHARMONIC in an indisputably masterful reading of Bruckner’s Fifth

• By drediman
• November 19, 2024
• No Comments

On Monday night, I had the great pleasure of catching the mighty Berlin Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. Led by the Philharmonic’s music director — Russian-Austrian conductor Kirill Petrenko — the orchestra arrives in the city this week as part of only its second American tour (the first go-around was in 2022, which also landed at Carnegie). For these performances, the Berlin forces and its maestro have assembled two programs — spread across three consecutive evenings — for New York audiences to savor at the iconic Midtown concert hall. On the night I attended, the bill was comprised solely of Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony. In short, the ensemble lived up to its reputation as one of the very finest orchestras in the world, playing with passionate affirmation and an indisputable mastery of the sprawling Bruckner piece. Suffice to say, the performance was a thrilling master class.

Despite its reputation as one of the most important symphonies in the Western classical music canon, Bruckner’s Fifth is relatively rarely performed. Perhaps this has something to do with its fractured nature, making it tricky to shape the score into a compelling, comprehensive whole. Indeed, Bruckner’s 80-minute symphony — which was composed mostly between 1875 and 1876, but wasn’t played in the concert hall until 1894 — is in more ways than one an atypical symphony. Aside from the scherzo (the third movement), the other three movements curiously possess similar color and cadence — e.g., they each begin with pizzicato strings — and feature episodic “stop-and-start” structuring.

Although the symphony may initially sound downright Wagnerian — e.g., the thick strings and the unabashed use of horns — the spirit of the piece is more akin to Beethoven, which was brilliantly captured by the Berlin Philharmonic’s commanding playing. And despite the potential challenges posed by the piece, the performance on Monday was nuanced and thoughtfully cohesive — there was an inevitable path to the symphony’s satisfying, triumphant conclusion, which produced the awesome “cathedral” of sound for which Bruckner is known. As astutely led by Petrenko, the ensemble performed with impressive commitment and confident pacing — throughout, their playing was vigorous and energetic but never aggressive nor lacking in precision. They played truly as one.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

BERLIN PHILHARMONIC
Classical Music
Carnegie Hall
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through November 19