Aufführung der d-Moll-Messe durch das Wiener Konzertvereinsorchester und den Wiener Akademischen Gesangverein unter Franz Pawlikowsky im Großen Musikvereinssaal in Wien. Solisten sind Emmy Kaiser, Valentine Müller, Hermann Gallos und Nikolaus Schwarz. An der Orgel Georg Valker (*).

Aufführung der 5. Symphonie durch das Chicago Symphony Orchestra unter Frederick Stock in Chicago. Wiederholung vom 6.3.1914 (**).

Besprechung des gestrigen Konzerts in The Chicago Tribune Nr. 56 auf S. 8:

"Orchestra Patrons Hear New Prelude by Strauss.

RICHARD STRAUSS' "Festival Prelude," [... "conventional composition", "doubtless paid for" ...]. Perhaps the least exciting feature of its performance was the applause which it called forth. As many as twenty people seated on the main floor were seen to clap their hands.

     Somewhat more encouraging was the reception accorded the Bruckner symphony in B flat major. Theodore Thomas made earnest effort to interset Chicago concert goers in the music of Bruckner but without success. Mr. Stock has renewed that effort from time to time and now the patrons of the orchestra showed a capacity to be interested and elevated by this music which could not  have been claimed for them ten years ago. The casual concert goer forgets that the ability to appreciate music must be cultivated; that it frequently is of slow and painful growth. The man who is attracted to the concert hall only by the lure of some famous name does not even begin such a process of development as has led to the appreciation of a Bruckner symphony. His entire musical experience comprises a set of impressions quite unrelated to the facts of the art.

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     Now the music of Bruckner's fifth symphony always has been as worthy and as beautiful as the patrons of yesterday's concert discovered it to be. But even to the most experienced listener among them the serenity and nobility of its several moments of inspiration could be realized only with a certain shock of surprise because all impressions of Bruckner's other symphonies have been concerned with a vast and dreary earnestness. Perhaps the newly discovered beauties were traceable to the art of the conductor as much as to that of the composer. Many of the listeners seemed to think so, for Mr. Stock was recalled and obliged to bow his acknowledgments of the applause at the conclusion of the work. On the main floor as many as twenty-five people were seen to applaud him, but there were hundreds of enthusiasts in the balcony and gallery.

     Bruckner was reproached for a too faithful observance of the artistic creed of Wagner, and justly so. But when he forgot to be Wagnerian he wrote charmingly. Thus the second theme of the first movement has an almost Gallic grace and wistfulness. It suggests César Franck in mood and in manner without having any actual resemblance, wherefore one ventures to describe it as one of the most original moments in German music. The chorale of the introduction also is interpolated in the body of the principal movement with most interesting effect.

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Opposed to these moments of beauty and power were many stretches of barren and uninteresting musical formulæ so commonplace as to be naïve. Bruckner had slight talent for rhythmical variety. He could assemble many contrasted rhythms, but he elaborated them in so many repetitions that the total result was monotony. Such fragments of symbolism as one could untangle from the character of the themes seemed to be concerned with an ecclesiastic subject. The choral established the churchly atmosphere and the Mephistophelean flavor of the last movement's principal theme suggested a belief in well established dogma.

     But these moments of childlike simplicity and helplessness detract but slightly from the appeal of the beautiful passages. The whole scherzo is attractive in dainty, wistful fashion. The slow movement unfolds a song of exquisite refinement and enduring beauty. Even the involved finale, despite its dry as dust fugue, is great in spirit and in impulse. This great spirit of the work went home to the listeners, who, though they have shown slight favor for the other Bruckner symphonies, will surely keep a place in their regard for the fifth.

     Having been dutifully appreciative with Bruckner for fifty-five minutes the matinée patrons were permitted to be genuinely enthusiastic with Wagner after the intermission. [... "Tristan" ... schöner als im Opernhaus ... besser als fast jeder Sänger: Mr. Weisbach [Konzertmeister] und Mr. Steindel [Solocellist] ... in Liebesszene und Liebestod waren Bühnenbild und Sänger[innen] "quite superfluous" ...].

     The program will be repeated this evening." (***).

Noch ausführlicher schreibt The Inter Ocean Nr. 348 auf S. 6:

"                OF BRUCKNER'S SYMPHONY.

BETWEEN Richard Strauss and Anton Bruckner the first half of yesterday afternoon's orchestral concert at Orchestra hall was a thundering racket. All the season's noise seemed to have been concentrated in that hour and a few odd minutes. When it was ended the audience applauded vigorously, more, probably, in tribute to the playing than to the matter presented by Mr. Stock. The surprising thing was that any one had any disposition toward applause, for the Bruckner symphony was nearly an hour in length, it was new and it was uncompromisingly Brucknerish. In the comparison, however, the Villager of Vienna came forth justified by his racket and the Bazoo of Berlin did not. Nothing of such second-grade, impotent fashioning has come to ear from from the workshop of the mighty Richard as this Festival Prelude, obviously "festival," obviously "preludiary," obviously twaddle.

     But there was solace in the second half of the program, which was without soloist. That solace was a bouquet of favorite excerpts from Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde." From it came peace and the joy of hearing acceptedly beautiful things, and the gratification of feeling that, after all, "it is real music and not like this stuff written nowadays." The phrase in quotations marks was voiced a dozen times, the voicers being unmindful of the fact that Bruckner was Wagner's contemporary and that everything else Strauss has written, excepting "Guntram" and the Sinfonia Domestica, has been accepted with rejoicing.

     There is no great cause, then, for extended comment upon the Wagnerian love feast. Strauss is interesting, however, and the Bruckner symphony. The symphony is honest music, cursed with its own honesty, and glorious because of that same honesty. Two rather superficial traits are the first to be noted in this fifth symphony–its tough harmonic texture and its fecundity. "Tough harmonic texture" is the phrase written above in a vain attempt to signalize the remorseless logic of Bruckner's progress through and around and above and into the symphony form; secondly, the fecundity with which one theme sprouts whole episodes big enough and solid enough to serve as a complete "development section," and then, its biological function still unfulfilled, sprouts another young univers of elaboration, and another and another. At the end of the work the suspicion persists that Bruckner stopped merely because his conscience smote him, not because his fervor was blighted.

     In the score itself is some hint of why the symphony sounds longer than it really is–the frequent "grand pauses," the complete "stops" at a section's end and the fresh beginnings, and, lastly, the generally hearty scoring. Moreover, the spiritual elan of this symphony, like its fellows, is not of the fantastic, the poetic, or the dramatic sort, but one of solemnity and introspection. These are the several aspects which rather forbid Brahm's [sic] popularity to Bruckner. And now as to the other side of the matter.

     If Bruckner's orchestration be sonorous rather than brilliant, so are his themes, his melodies. If his sense of the picturesque be atrophied, his vigor and his inevitable climax are no vain show. This fifth symphony may not have the epic mood of the second (played two seasons back), but it has a more personal note. Its slow movement, long-winded and lush of melodies of classic pattern, lays a real spell upon its hearers. The scherzo, which is half Viennese waltz in lilt, is a highly vitalized page, not in the vein popularly attributed to the form, but a symphonic movement molded merely into that form.

     It is to the first movement, however, that the greatest virtues must be attributed. The solemn, portentous introduction, with its symphonic "leit-motives" recurring frequently throughout the work, ushers in the beginning of a remarkable example of writing in a definite scheme with all the freedom of improvisation. This latter trait, too, obtrudes itself often. There is more than a hint of mulling over, of reconsidering and exploiting, of toying with and discussing material after the manner of one skilled to virtuosity in extempore musical speech. That general audiences will ever accept this first movement as they do the slow movement and the scherzo is not to be expected. But there is conviction behind the opinion that, were this fifth symphony by Bruckner to be played as frequently as the Brahms first three, its reception would become of nearly as cordial nature.

     As to the finale, not so much can be said. Its brandishing of fugal episodes, its whole scheme along a very general and Gargantuan fugue form–even to the Bachlike inset of a chorale cantus firmus–and its utter severity of a Gothic style reserve it for the holy joy of the erudite and the obstinate. The symphony, as a whole, deepens an already sincere and fathomless respect for this "Villager of Vienna" whose modesty was surpassed only by an everflaming zeal in the cause of "absolute music." Had he been a bit less honest and somewhat of a charlatan in compensation, his fame would be equaled by his popularity, which it is not.

     The Strauss novelty was a woeful disappointment. It was a series of noisy fanfares, threats of climaces and bestial racket. [...]. The whole thing was bathos in tone.

     The orchestra's playing of the day was that of a concert in the lazy, enervating early springtime. Its brief moments of falling from perfect grace were short, and they were nothing very important at any time. The Strauss and Bruckner ordeals were enough, anyway, to "take off the edge" of anticipation. The Wagner excerpts brought out beautiful playing, and the Bruckner symphony was something that commanded deep respect. Mellowed under Mr. Stock's scholarly interpretation, and served by an orchestral virtuosity of superb qualities, the Bruckner symphony won the best point for its composer yet chronicled in his annals of the local concert halls.

                                        ERIC DELAMARTER." (°).