Bruckner's New York debut

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1885, at a public rehearsal at the Old Metropolitan Opera House, the New York Symphony, led by fresh-faced 23-year-old conductor Walter Damrosch, performed 61-year-old Austrian composer Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3 for the first time in America.

The New York Times critic, in fairness to this unfamiliar composer, attended both the rehearsal and concert before venturing an opinion:

“As to form and workmanship, it is a highly commendable achievement,” he wrote. “The composer’s motives are distinct and fluent, the instrumentation is rich, though not cloying … Unfortunately, there is not in the whole composition a measure in which a spark of inspiration, or a grain of inventiveness is discernible.” 

Other New York papers were more blunt: “A dreary waste of sound … formless, weird, flimsy, uncongenial and empty” according to The Sun.

The Post observed, “The first movement is marked ‘misterioso’, but the only mystery about it is how it ever came to be written, printed and performed.”

In fairness to those critics of 1885, it would take many decades before American audiences started to acquire a taste for Bruckner’s particular blend of music and mystery.

Music Played in Today's Program

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896): Symphony No. 3; BBC Scottish Symphony; Osmo Vänskä, conductor; Hyperion 67200

On This Day

Births

• 1660 - Baptism of French composer André Campra, in Aix-en-Provence

• 1667 - Baptism of French composer and theorist Michel Pignolet de Montéclair, in Andelot

• 1879 - Irish composer and conductor Hamilton Harty, in Hillsborough, County Down

Deaths

• 1935 - Norwegian composer Johan Halvorsen, 71, in Oslo

• 1953 - American composer and writer on music Daniel Gregory Mason, 80, Greenwich, Connecticut

• 1976 - British composer Benjamin Britten, 63, in Aldeburgh

• 1993 - American composer and guitarist Frank Zappa, 52, in Los Angeles

Premieres

• 1693 - M. A. Charpentier: opera, Médée, in Paris;

• 1816 - Rossini: opera Otello, in Naples at the Teatro del Fondo;

• 1920 - Korngold: opera Die tote Stadt, simultaneously in Hamburg and Cologne. The Hamburg premiere was conducted by Egon Pollak, the Cologne premiere by Otto Klemperer.

• 1845 - R. Schumann: Piano Concerto, in Dresden, Ferdinand Hiller conducting, with Clara Schumann the soloist;

• 1881 - Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto, in Vienna by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Hans Richter, with Adolf Brodsky as soloist.

• 1885 - American premiere of Bruckner: Symphony No. 3, at the Old Metropolitan Opera House in New York, during an afternoon public rehearsal by the New York Symphony Society, with the 23-year old Walter Damrosch. The official concert occurred the following evening. This was the first time any Bruckner Symphony was performed in America. In his preface to Anton Bruckner: Rustic Genius, a 1942 book by Werner Wolff, Damrosch incorrectly states it was Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony (Romantic) that he performed on Dec. 5, 1885.

• 1895 - Rachmaninoff: Caprice Bohémien (Capriccio on Gypsy Themes), in Moscow, with the composer conducting (Julian date: Nov. 22)

• 1898 - Dvorák: symphonic poem Hero’s Song, in Vienna

• 1909 - Wolf-Ferrari: opera, Il Segreto di Susanna, in Munich, at the Hoftheater;

• 1922 - Bax: Symphony No. 1, in London

• 1949 - Dallapiccola: opera I Prigioniero (The Prisoner), in a broadcast concert performance in Turin by the Italian Radio. The first staged performance of this opera took place on May 20, 1950, in Florence.