7. Symphonie

Bruckner/Carvalho – SYMPHONY No.7, in E major (arranged for ensemble or chamber orchestra)

Anton Bruckner (Linz, 1824 – Vienna, 1896), one of the most important composers of the Romantic period, became famous mostly for his colossal symphonies and profuse sacred music. If the latter arose in response to his deep religious devotion, the symphonies have become unavoidable milestones of the great late-romantic German symphonic tradition. In these, the composer broadened the structural concept of form, innovated at the tonal plane, and emphasised counterpoint as the preferred means of polyphonic texture. Bruckner’s influence is evident, notably in the following generation in Gustav Mahler and the conception of his own, also monumental, symphonies.

Of the eleven symphonies Bruckner wrote (nine that are numbered, with the last incomplete, plus two preliminary ones, also known as ‘study symphonies’), the most frequently performed on the concert stage nowadays are the Fourth, Seventh and Ninth. The Seventh, composed between 1881 and 1883, was one of the greatest triumphs of the composer’s life when it was premiered in Leipzig, Germany, on 30 December 1884. Written at a time when news arrived of the final illness, and ultimate death, of Richard Wagner (a composer whom Bruckner greatly admired, having even dedicated his Symphony No.3 to him), in the slow second movement of the Seventh (Adagio), Bruckner introduces a quartet of Wagner tubas, in homage to the great master of German opera.

Despite the grandiloquence of form and orchestral concept, the supreme organisation of his creative thinking makes the Brucknerian symphonies perfectly suited to what is called ‘instrumental reduction’. Schoenberg was the first to realise this in relation to not only Bruckner’s music but also that of Mahler and Debussy, among others. Specifically for Bruckner’s Symphony No.7, Schoenberg instructed his students Hanns Eisler, Erwin Stein, and Karl Rankl to prepare an instrumental reduction of the symphony, planned at the time for a very modest ensemble of only two violins, viola, violoncello, double bass, clarinet, French horn, piano four-hands, and harmonium. Intended, like so many other arrangements at that time, for the Society for Private Musical Performances (Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen), which Schoenberg founded in Vienna in the 1920s, it was never performed there, finally being premiered more than 60 years later.

Inspired by Schoenberg’s concept, in 2018-2019 Luís Carvalho created a new version of the Seventh for ensemble (or chamber orchestra). Scored for a group of around fifteen players (expandable, in the chamber orchestra version, to a maximum of 34), unlike the ‘Schoenbergian’ version, Carvalho tries to simulate a miniature orchestra by including all the core instrumental families of the typical Brucknerian symphony orchestra. Thus, a more compact instrumental version of the work is sought while still trying to retain some of its original grandeur. At the same time, a certain refreshment of timbre is desired with the inclusion of less usual instruments such as the euphonium, flugelhorn, and accordion (which can be replaced by a harmonium, an option closer to the Schoenbergian arrangements).

The perspective in this new arrangement is always that the listener’s musical enjoyment will be equally rewarding when compared to the original symphonic version. After all, this is some of the best music the Romantic era has produced!

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«An arrangement that works very well with the bonus of allowing us to better appreciate the textural complexity of Bruckner’s orchestration.»

Andrés Moreno Mengíbar in www.beckmesser.com (August/2019)