Besprechung der gestrigen Aufführung der 9. Symphonie in The Boston Globe Nr. 17 auf S. 2:

"        HAROLD BAUER REDEEMS PROGRAM

           Pianist Plays Brilliantly in Brahms Concerto.

     It is well Bruckner left his ninth symphony "unfinished." There are other ninth symphonies with which it hardly will rank, and an hour is a fair allotment for three movements. One day Anton, honest soul that he was, rushed into his classroom wildly waving a letter in his hand, stammering and inarticulate in the very suffocation of joy. As speech was restored to him, he confided to his eager pupils that the letter was from Wagner and that the master had addressed to him these heavenly words: "What I am to the music drama you are to the symphony." The summit of Walhalla was at hand and the gods robbed of their glory.

     The great Richard had not yet sat through this ninth symphony or he would have inserted a qualifying phrase or a footnote. Yesterday we had the joy of it at the Symphony rehearsal. It is said that Dr Muck considers it a righteous duty to play one of Bruckner's symphonies a year. Even if this austere resolve upon penance be true, it is possible to live nine years before a repetition of yesterday's experience again is necessary, for there are eight others to choose from.

     What strangely antithetical music. Holding out golden promises in one moment and wearisome to extinction for half an hour thereafter. All the pedantic, finical, meticulous, petty and provincial earmarks that thrust themselves into the earlier symphonies occasionally and even often are the chief materials here for a succession of worn and tedious formulas that are the offspring of a brain and inspiration atrophied and dried up by a life of drudgery in the classroom.

     The arresting nobility of thought, the grandeur of expression in a few isolated passages grip the mind and feeling and cause wonder that they should consort with any such a meandering herd of commonplaces. If there is obvious music, mathematical to the last reduction of an equation: fearful lest the hearer may not arrive at the precise conclusion from a given premise, honest, untiring and relentless in its insistence upon sequence when the whole idea as inflated into a column is not worth a paragraph–if there is obvious, laborious and prolix music extant as a warning to those persons not sure that they are called to compose, verily this symphony is it. Even the scouring given the tenor tubas–those traditional badges of Wagnerism–could not lighten this dreary hour. May Dr Muck tie up the score securely and lay it reverently upon the highest shelf.

     Johannes Brahms, the darling of the arch foes of Wagner, the one against whose symphonies those of Bruckner were pitted in competition by the Wagner camp, followed hard upon, separated by a bare 15 minutes of intermission to ease their souls. The great Johannes has written music deeply grievous to the spirits of the Wagnerites and the Brucknerian satellites, among it his D minor concerto for piano, a grave and austere piece, in the first movement of which the solo instrument should have been some terrible engine of war, emitting solemn thunder.

     In short the afternoon was a solemn occasion. Had it been the anniversary of the death both of Bruckner and Brahms–two of the three B s–rolled into one, it would have been a fitting celebration. Mr Bauer, however, is not without resources in such a catastrophe. [...]. The pianist was warmly rewarded." [keine Signatur] (*).

 

The Dayton Herald (Dayton, Ohio) beschreibt auf S. 7 die Publikumsresonanz im Konzert vom 2./3.1.1914 mit der 3. Symphonie:

"     Had Dr. Ernst Kunwald deliberately arranged a program which should measure the progress of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra he could not have succeeded better than he did with the offerings of the past week, played Friday afternoon and Saturday evening at Emery auditorium.

     With one exception, the Bruckner Symphony in D Minor, every number on the program had been played many times by the Cincinnati organization, and in consequence was thoroughly familiar to the public. These were the Vorspiel to "Lohengrin," Debussy's Prelude, "L'Apres Midi d'un Faune," and the Overture to Smetana's "Bartered Bride." So unmistakably did the audience realize the excellence of the performance that it showered Dr. Kunwald and the orchestra with applause so long and insistent that the conductor was compelled to return to the stage again and again and to insist upon the men rising several times to receive their share of the plaudits." (**).