Bruckner and his Damn Cymbals
This post was originally published in the New Orleans Volunteer Orchestra website in September, 2014.
When I was visiting Vienna last summer, one of the things that blew me away was not only the amazing art and music I could see, but just how cheap it could be. Student rush and standing room tickets allowed me to see world class musician for chump change - standing room tickets for the Wiener Staatsoper were 3-4 Euros ($4-5) and 5 Euros ($6.50) for the Vienna Philharmonic at the Musikverein. Needless to say, I took full advantage of this and saw a plethora of concerts while in Austria. Everything from Wagner operas to Scheherezade and Symphonie Fantastique with the Vienna Phil, my peers and I were seeing every concert we could.
While I was in town, it so happened that the Berlin Philharmonic was on tour, and performing a few concerts at the Konzerthaus. Not to miss out, my friend and I found out when they were playing and planned around it. We showed up the first night, purchased student rush tickets, and sat down next to all of the other students, far in the back of the hall. The girl next to me, a foreign exchange student from Stuttgart studying organ, introduced herself in a distinct German accent. After the first half of the program (a set of Boulez Inventions), she scoped out two of the best empty seats in the house in the balcony, and brought me up with her.
The Berlin Phil launched into its second half, but now I could see the faces of every musician, and the sweat dripping off of Simon Rattle’s brow. They performed Bruckner’s 7th Symphony, and it stands out as one of the most amazing performances I’ve ever heard or seen. It was beautiful and powerful and tragic and triumphant, and this was my first time hearing the piece. I noticed something odd though - throughout the first movement there were two percussionists in the back, sitting patiently throughout the lengthy 20-minute first movement (Bruckner is very long winded), and it wasn’t until 20 minutes into the slow second movement that they finally stood up, picked up their cymbals and triangle, and embellished an incredible climax of the piece with a single crash and roll.
They then sat down for the rest of the concert.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_IbwlSXHpQ&t=35m44s (the whole movement is worth listening to, and if you want to get a better sense of the incredible build-up to this, scroll to 34:16)
I found it odd, to say the least, and a bit amusing. At the end of the concert, Simon Rattle shook their hands during the applause, as if to recognize the absurdity of their single note in the over-an-hour long symphony.
When I went home I listened to the adagio repeatedly, and I again found something strange. As I became familiar with the piece, I realized that the infamous cymbal crash was missing in many, if not most of the recordings I found. A little bit of research showed that there are questionable claims about its legitimacy and whether or not it was Bruckner who penned it. I suspect what’s really at play is an economic bias against it - it’s not particularly cost-effective for an orchestra to pay a percussionist for an entire concert if they only play for a single gratuitous note.
Later on I started listening to the other Bruckner symphonies, and fell in love with many of them. And when I listened to the Fourth Symphony, I couldn’t believe what I heard in the last movement. A single cymbal crash in the entire symphony.
I feel a bit bad for the percussionist here - the cymbal crash comes after about 50 minutes of music. Not a job for the impatient, that’s for certain.
I worked my way through the other symphonies - the 5th with its elaborate counterpoint and the 6th with its charming melodies. When I worked my way to the 8th, I could hear Bruckner breaking out of his tonal shell, taking a tentative step with Mahler into the twentieth century. And sure enough, guess what I found in the third movement?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wbf5SVOXI0&t=49m33s
Ah, but this time it’s different! They play twice this time.
I’m not trying to make some big point about all this, I just think it’s fascinating that this one composer showed so much reluctance to use percussion, while his fellow late Romantics were readily welcoming the new colors into their symphonies and orchestral works. Bruckner wrote his 4th symphony with its single cymbal crash in 1874, but Tchaikovsky had already used bass drum and cymbals throughout the finale of his 1st Symphony in 1866. Bruckner’s 7th was first performed in 1884 and written in dedication to Wagner, one of Bruckner’s idols, but Wagner had already been using percussion extensively in his operas - Gotterdammerung with its transcendent Funeral March (complete with cymbals, triangle, and two timpanists) had been performed for the first time 8 years earlier. And Bruckner’s 8th premiered in 1892, 3 years after Mahler’s 1st had premiered with a percussion battery of two timpanists, cymbals, triangle, tam-tam and bass drum. And all this isn’t to mention the orchestrations of Liszt, Rimsky-Korsakov, Smetana, Saint-Saëns, or even Beethoven’s 9th a whole 50 years earlier.
Bruckner is a true late Romantic though, and his music is as or more dramatic as any of his contemporaries I’ve mentioned. But he uses a different approach. By saving the percussion for a single use within a work, he makes the moments they play into spectacular super-climaxes. I wouldn’t say it’s more effective than the way his contemporaries were orchestrating, but it worked for Bruckner. And if I were conducting, I know I would want a couple of percussionists twiddling their thumbs in the back, ready for the single moment they’re needed.
Then again, I’d hate to be the percussionist....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9s2JSQ-pWo (It’s in German, but don’t worry you don’t need to understand the language to get the joke)
-Joseph Cieslak