Bruckner in Boston

Synopsis

Three of the symphonies of the Austrian composer Anton Bruckner were introduced to American audiences in the 1880s, when Bruckner was still alive and still composing new works. Walter Damrosch introduced Bruckner’s Third to New York audiences in 1885, Theodore Thomas conducted the American premiere of the Seventh in Chicago in 1886, and Anton Seidl led the first New York performance of the Fourth in 1888.

Bruckner, then in his 60s, was thrilled that Americans were performing his music. He would have been less thrilled had he seen the devastating reviews they received. “Formless, weird, fragmentary, flimsy, uncongenial, and empty,” were just a few of the adjectives that greeted this new music at the time.

After Bruckner’s death in 1896, it was the Boston Symphony’s turn to take up his cause: On today’s date in 1901, Wilhelm Gericke led the American premiere of Bruckner’s Fifth. The Boston critics’ estimation was mixed: “Interesting, scholarly and very skillfully orchestrated,” were among the more positive comments—“not very coherent or systematic,” among the negative.

Bruckner’s mammoth Eighth Symphony had its American debut at a matinee concert of the Boston Symphony conducted by Max Fiedler in March of 1909. One reviewer wrote: “The work is, of course, massive, but it is massive like a business building, not like a mountain; it impresses one, but it does not move the emotions. The Bruckner work is by no means easy to listen to... Altogether it made a trying afternoon.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Anton Bruckner (1824–1896) Symphony No. 5 Saarbrucken Radio Symphony; Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, cond. Arte Nova 43305

On This Day

Births

• 1906 - American composer, pianist and entertainer Oscar Levant, in Pittsburgh, Pa.;

Deaths

• 1944 - American composer and pianist Amy Marcey Cheney (Mrs. H.H.A.) Beach, age 77, in New York;

• 1992 - American composer Stephen Albert, age 51, in a car accident in Truro, Mass.;

Premieres

• 1723 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 64 ("Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater erzeiget") performed on the 3rd Day of Christmas as part of Bach's first annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1723/24);

• 1724 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 133 ("Ich freue mich in dir") performed on the 3rd Day of Christmas as part of Bach's second annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1724/25);

• 1725 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 151 ("Süsser Trost, mein Jesus kömmt"") performed on the 3rd Day of Christmas as part of Bach's third annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1725/27);

• 1734 - Bach: Part 3 ("Herrscher der Himmels, erhöre das Lallen") of the 6-part "Christmas Oratorio," S. 248, in Leipzig;

• 1896 - Chausson: "Poéme," Op. 25, in Nancy, with Guy Ropartz conducting and Eugène Ysayë as soloist;

• 1901 - American premiere of Bruckner: Symphony No. 5, by the Boston Symphony, Wilhelm Gericke conducting;

• 1906 - Florent Schmitt: "Psalm XLVII," in Paris;

• 1954 - Menotti: "The Saint of Bleecker Street," in New York City; This work won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1955;

Others

• 1841 - Franz Liszt performs at the Singakademie in Berlin; Women swooned and the general audience reacts with such uncontrolled enthusiasm that Heinrich Heine coins the term "Lisztomania" to describe their fanatical devotion to the performer, which soon swept through most of Europe;