Besprechung der Pariser Aufführung der 7. Symphonie [5.12.1909] durch Joseph Jemain im Ménestrel (*).

 

Artikel "Johann Strauß über das Bummeln" in "Die Zeit" [mit Bezug auf Bruckner?] (**).

 

The Minneapolis Tribune Nr. 194 (Star Tribune, Minnesota) bringt auf S. 4 eine Besprechung des gestrigen Konzerts mit der 7. Symphonie:

"                AUDITORIUM

     It was a menu of solid food that Mr. Oberhoffer served last evening at the third evening concert of the season by the Minneapolis Symphony orchestra. There were only three numbers on the program; an overture that occupied 15 minutes, a violin concerto of 34 minutes and a symphony of 46 minutes. Even with the usual intermission of 15 minutes prolonged to 20, the concert ended 20 minutes earlier than usual.

     But the ledger-like column of figures has nothing whatever to do with the quality of the concert. Despite its few numbers and their unusual length, the orchestra has never given better account of itself or furnished the lovers of music greater satisfaction and those really interested in entering the door into this region of beauty and mystery a better opportunity. While there was no Schumann-Heink or Sembrich to spread allurement of a name in the advance notices, and there were, therefore, more unoccupied seats than usual; and though there was a noticeable exodus during the intermission and between the movements of the symphony, Mr. Overhoffer will be thanked by all devotees of music who want to think as well as listen, for last evening's program.

     For the first time the orchestra played a work by Anton Bruckner; his most popular symphony, the seventh in E major, having been judiciously selected. Music, to the Austrian peasant composer, was both a science and a ceremonial ritual, and beauty for beauty's own sake hardly entered into what was his life's devotion. Bruckner was to music what the monk is to religion; beauty and sublimity were necessarily a part of his cult, but not its essence. This brings his compositions into a classification almost peculiar to themselves, and not easy to reflect in writing, which depends so much upon the ready expedient of comparison. The Seventh symphony is, perhaps, his greatest work, and while the solecisms mentioned in Weingartner's appreciation are plainly apparent, so is the "wonderful magic" of which the same writer speaks. One cannot but listen, respect and marvel. The symphony is filled with big thoughts, which center in the profoundly beautiful Adagio, over-long perhaps, but sublimely clear and simple in its conception, utterance and structure. Bruckner's constant and dominating use of the brasses enabled Mr. Oberhoffer to demonstrate again the orchestra's improvement in this important quarter, while the Adagio movement showed the excellent quality of the second violin section, which in so few compositions are set apart from the general mass of tone.

     In Joachim's Concerto in the Hungarian Style, also given for the first time in Minneapolis, the rare value of the orchestra's recent acquisition Richard Czerwonky, was proven more than satisfactorily. [...] and he was greeted cordially again by the audience when he appeared, after the intermission, to take his place at the concert-meister's desk to p lay the symphony.

     The concert opened with [... kurz zur Berlioz-Ouvertüre ...]. The brasses again distinguished themselves in the final chord of startlingly sudden scarlet.

                                                   CARYL B. STORRS." (***).