Aufführung der 7. Symphonie durch das Boston Symphony Orchestra [unter Max Fiedler] in Boston im 12. Konzert (als öffentliche Generalprobe).

Solist in Chopins f-Moll-Klavierkonzert ist Josef Hofmann. Außerdem erklingt die Ouvertüre zu Richard Wagners "Fliegendem Holländer" [Wiederholung vom 6.1.1912] (*).

 

Besprechung des gestrigen Konzerts in The Boston Globe Nr. 6 auf S. 4:

"                   HOFMANN DELIGHTS.

           Plays Chopin Concerto in Admirable Vein.

     The program at the 12th Symphony rehearsal yesterday afternoon was as follows: Bruckner, seventh symphony in E major; Chopin, second concerto in F minor, for pianoforte and Orchestra, Josef Hofmann, soloist; Wagner, overture to "The Flying Dutchman."     [... ausführlich über Chopin, den Solisten und sein Chopin-Spiel ...].

     The pianist's art was not a thing of vital and refreshing imagination merely because it succeeded a mortal hour of Bruckner's symphony. An hour of platitudes, however dressed or delivered, is conducive to heaviness and slumber rather than to nimbleness and flambuoyancy of spirit.

     The venerable schoolmaster knew his trade, and in his meagre and insular experience evolved some imposing musical thoughts. The noble first theme of the slow movement is one of them, as heard in the G strings of the first violins, and as translated to other choirs and at length glorified in the brass. But what of the pedantic sequences, the dry reiteration, the wearisome and futile method of approach to a climax, upon an unending stretch of the final tonality, so that nothing arrives?

     True, Bruckner knew and assimilated his Wagner, introduced the tenor tubas of the "Ring," and even as Mottl, then in his classes at Vienna, worshiped in the name of the projected Bayreuth. Nor was it in vain.

     One morning the professor appeared in the class room dilating and stammering with joy, waving a letter in his hand. It was from the master. It read: "What I am to the music drama, you are to the opera." [sic!] His cup was full; neither God nor man could say more.

     In the light of this, what of the scherzo and its clownish, bumptious theme, italicized in the brass to the apotheosis of boredom? It speaks of the relentless logic of a pedantic, pitiably restricted mind and occluded senses, unquickened by the flame of life, by the spell of such an inspiration as Wagner knew in the days of the composition of "Tristan," days with secrets which Cosima's edition of his life have not fully revealed.

     There will be no symphony concerts next week in the event of the orchestra's absence." [keine Signatur] (**).

 [Von diesem angeblichen Wagner-Brief ist auch (mit ähnlichem, aber glaubwürdigerem Zitat) im Artikel vom 18.8.1912 die Rede.]

 

Der Bruckner-Schüler Julius Stern stirbt in Wien. In seinem Nachlass befindet sich ein ausgeschiedener Partiturbogen (Nr. 11) vom 1. Satz der 4. Symphonie (2. Fassung), den er am 28.7.1877 von Bruckner erhalten hatte und den im November 1937 die ÖNB vom Antiquariat Otto Haas erwirbt (***).