Last Saturday, Anima Eterna Brugge, under the direction of Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado, performed the Seventh Symphony by Anton Bruckner. The concert took place at the Concertgebouw Brugge, the orchestra's loyal home venue. Prior to this event, it had managed to capture quite a bit of media attention; afterwards it turned out that this was justified, as the concert was an event, not only because of the performance itself, but especially because of the promise it holds for the future.
First, the performance itself: Bruckner symphonies are not performed that frequently in our region anyway. When they are, it usually happens through 'contemporary symphonic orchestras' that tend to emphasize the monumental character of Bruckner's symphonies: Bruckner is then often played slowly, loudly and solemnly. That disappearance into a grand sound can sometimes feel wonderful, but such an approach nevertheless tends to obscure the wealth of nuance that is indeed present in Bruckner's symphonies.
Precisely because Bruckner's symphonies are so often portrayed one-dimensionally, it could hardly have been otherwise than Anima Eterna would sink its teeth into this repertoire sooner or later. For years, the mission of this orchestra has been to row against the current, not necessarily to be contrary, but rather to get as close to the source as possible. In concrete terms, this means that contemporary (and 'authentic') instruments are consistently deployed, that the original performance conditions are carefully explored and that the score is reread as if there had never been a performance history. One consequence of this is that the sonorities change; they become softer, warmer, more delicate and have more nuance. Furthermore, the balance between the different instruments and instrument groups shifts drastically. In particular, the reduction of the string section consistently brings about a shift in perspective. So for the barely eight woodwinds that Bruckner prescribes in his Seventh Symphony, it must literally and figuratively have been a relief to be able to play this work without having to blow themselves to death in the hope of being heard.
Besides tone color and balance, there is also a third fixed element of change: the textural rendering, that is: the extent to which the different musical layers that are simultaneously active in a piece of music are made audible. Bruckner's music is often described as 'massive', but actually it usually is not. It harbors an inexpressible polyphonic (multi-voice) richness, which is inevitably lost if the desire for loudness is not sufficiently tempered. The more transparent the performance, the better that layering can reveal itself, of course – a motto that Anima Eterna has always held high, and that also made a world of difference in this Bruckner performance.
On the one hand, this was an enormous achievement of the Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado, with whom Anima Eterna entered into this project. Heras-Casado's focus in his younger years was particularly on Renaissance music and Baroque, which allowed him to develop a razor-sharp sense of counterpoint and texture. Later, he immersed himself more and more in the Romantic repertoire, including the operas of Richard Wagner, Bruckner's great idol. These two worlds, which in traditional musical culture usually stand miles apart, thus merge in Heras-Casado in a wonderful way. In any case, it was rare, certainly in a Bruckner symphony, to hear transparency and pathos merge so peacefully and naturally with each other.
On the other hand, the contribution of the musicians should also not be overlooked; one forgets all too easily that historical instruments are more difficult to play than modern ones: they are less stable in pitch, less precise in their attacks and they were often challenged by the composers of the time to their limits (or just beyond). Playing on historical instruments is thus a challenge, but one that is particularly valuable because it serves a deeper aesthetic and a higher ideal of beauty. (Mistakes are thus by definition beautiful mistakes.) The musicians of Anima Eterna Brugge threw themselves once again undeterred into this ideal, driven by a conductor who was emotionally and conceptually completely on the same wavelength. Only thereby was it possible for something special to happen: Bruckner was freed from his reputation, which in itself is an even greater achievement than the excellent performance of his music.
The lasting impression from last Saturday was all the more meaningful because the concert also seems to hold a promise for the future. After all, the performance of the Seventh was only the beginning of a broader Bruckner exploration in collaboration with Heras-Casado in the coming years. In the meantime, Bruckner's Third and Fourth Symphonies are also scheduled. What Saturday's concert has made clear is that this project will be able to develop in the spirit of curiosity and lucidity that Jos van Immerseel instilled in his ensemble many years ago and which has led to a complete rediscovery (or at least a re-experience) of many great orchestral works. The fact that this is happening precisely with a repertoire to which Van Immerseel himself never felt particularly strongly drawn makes the symbolism of this project all the stronger. With the old soul in new hands, Anima Eterna is now truly ready to develop further with new energy on the path on which it has excelled over the past decades: the thorough rediscovery of (mostly) known orchestral repertoire. Only when the old can become new can the soul be eternal. Thus, the Bruckner rediscovery is also a rediscovery of the ensemble itself.
What Anima Eterna Brugge above all still needs is the cultural insight that their historically informed and inspired approach offers unmistakable added value to our musical culture. Flanders has played an incredibly important international role over the past fifty years in the exploration of historical performance practices. In doing so, it has helped completely rediscover some repertoires and gradually gained an audience for them. That work is far from complete. As soon as there are signs, as now, that this exploration can be further developed under high-quality artistic conditions, it is our cultural duty to support it. EVEN if one prefers one's Bruckner to sound rather murky.
Pieter Bergé
Pieter Bergé (°1967) is professor of musicology at KU Leuven. He has published, among other things, on the operas of Arnold Schönberg and the analysis of instrumental music from the late 18th and 19th centuries. For a broader audience, he has written in recent years about Mozart's Requiem (Wie schreef het requiem van Mozart?), the alleged inaccessibility of new music (Wat valt er eigenlijk te begrijpen? Een essay voor Beethovenliefhebbers en Schönberghaters), a music history for the young at heart (Hoe groen klinkt een gitaar? En 99 ander dingen die je moet weten over klassieke muziek), and Shostakovich's complex relationship with the Soviets (De leugens en de schaterlach). A book on Kurt Weill's opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny has just appeared from his hand. Both his scholarly work and his publications for a broader audience have been repeatedly awarded. Since 2015, Pieter Bergé has also been artistic director of the Leuven Festival 20・21.