The Manchester Guardian Nr. 19217 weist mit einem Inserat auf S. 1 auf das heutige Konzert hin: [... Kartenverkauf ...]." (*).

 

Eine ausführliche Werkbesprechung, signiert "S. L.", folgt auf Seite 7:

"                 THE HALLÉ CONCERTS.

     The music chosen for the final concert of the Hallé Concerts jubilee season–Bruckner's "Te Deum," one of the greatest of Bach's Motets, and Beethovens Choral Symphony–is vast enough in scope to be adequate for the greatest occasion. Milton revelled in imagining vast orgies of choral and instrumental sound, and it is in one of these rhapsodies–the great passage in the Fifth Book of "Paradise Lost" which owes so much in structure to the reiterations in the "Te Deum" and the "Benedicite"–that the phrase "choral symphonies" was probably used for the first time.

     Bruckner's "Te Deum," though written 23 years ago and given at the Birmingham Festival of 1903 [16.10.1903], has never yet been heard in Manchester. Its principal characteristic is sublime harmony. Running almost right  through the work and beginning with the first bar is an extended quaver figure in the accompaniment which is evidently suggested by the opening quavers of the Choral Symphony. It gives a sense of height, and its effect is enhanced by the extended slope of majestic unison passages which stretch at times through the whole length of the diapason. The entrance of the voices, too, is generally contrived to give the same impression of height as they come answering one another in rising sequences, tone above tone, until they fall again at last in dark declivity, where the words are mysterious or pathetic. In the section beginning "Te ergo quæsumus" ("We therefore pray Thee"), which is set principally for tenor solo, a lovely consoling effect is procured at the cadence of every eight bars by letting the accompanying instruments suddenly cease and the other solo voices enter with a most unexpected major close on the fifth of the key. Exquisite obbligati for solo instruments accompany this section. In "Aeterna fac cum Sanctis tuis" ("Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints") the chorus enters in loud notes, rising higher and higher against a strong falling figure in the accompaniment; and then follows a great descending unison passage to "in gloria numerari." Out of these depths they rise gradually to the same words, taking over at length the accompaniment figure, and finally giving out the words alone in triumphant harmony. In "Salvum fac" ("O Lord, save Thy people") the musical material of the preseding solo section is further developed. At "Per singulos dies" ("Day by day") the great unison is heard once more, now against massive chromatic harmonies; then in softer ascent and descent comes "Dignare Domine" ("Vouchsafe, O Lord"). The solo voices enter in strenuous notes to "In Te Domine" (In Thee, O Lord"), and the same words are then treated in chorus in a so-called fugue which is not a fugue but provides material which is broken up in gigantic boulders, which are wedged in great harmonies working on to the climax. For its majestic style, the music is wonderfully soft and expressive throughout but the outstanding character of the music is the Miltonic imagination which gives distance.

                                                             S. L." (**).

 

Aufführung des »Te deum« durch das Hallé-Orchestra unter Hans Richter in Manchester (***) im 20. und letzten Konzert der Jubiläumssaison. Mitwirkende sind der von R. H. Wilson einstudierte Chor, der Organist C. H. Bogg und als Solist*innen Perceval Allen, Edna Thornton, Webster Millar und William Higley (°).