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We all know that he was devoutly religious. Maybe he wanted to build a great musical cathedral - some unattainable expression of glory, and expressing his own humility in the face of that glory. Who knows? He struggled in the arena of his own Christian faith, armed only with his terminal sense of inadequacy. It's interesting that everything he wrote seems to begin in the same way as Beethoven's ninth - which gives you a big clue as to what he was trying to say. Did he, deep down, want to, or even dare to think that he might try to, write a choral finale for his ninth? ......If so, I'm not surprised his soul (or God) said: "That's enough Anton, quit while you're winning", so he shuffled off his mortal coil. That was his lucky break - and ours, because there's not enough room for two up on the pedestal of Beethoven's ninth. So what did he achieve? Who knows? What he eventually said goes far, far beyond the confines of his local faith and culture. He walked into the mysterious realm of his God, and so he takes us by the hand into the mystery of Creation - that's if you choose to go there with him, because if you do, you cannot avoid walking right up to the abyss of your own death. And I would add, perhaps a little too boldly, that if you aren't prepared to do that, then you are maybe not listening to what the man is saying.

The scenery of his symphonies is always the same. The huge, overwhelming proclamations and unapproachable grandeur. The inexorable building of massive and chillingly unassailable walls of dissonance, followed by retreats into limpid melodies, plangent with our aching humanity. Somehow, here in the third movement of his ninth, he seems to have arrived inside the porch of heaven. I find an awesome, terrifying loneliness in that opening phrase - that one moment, that one stretched out word, which dominates the whole massive symphony. Then there are quiet moments when melodies echo away into far recesses, clashing dissonantly with each other as they bounce back off distant walls. The final crushingly dissonant climax is like a vast closed door - God alone knows what lies on the other side of it - Bruckner didn't, we don't, and no-one ever will. We leave Bruckner, sitting on the step - hopeful. There is no fourth movement - no other side. Whatever he wanted to say, he never got to say it. That was the actual moment of his death, and he takes us there with him.

And the first half of the programme....? Jonathon Harvey's 'Speakings'. Take time to read - it is very important to understand what is actually going on in this piece. (If you missed this concert, then I'm afraid that you have missed one of the most fascinating new compositions I have ever played in; and, incidentally, you will have missed Ilan weaving wondrous spells with the Band, as never before - if I, as a player, can be permitted to make such a comment.) We premiered the Harvey at the Proms last summer, which fired me up to a blog (28.07.08). What on earth would Bruckner have thought of this music? There's an uncanny aptness in the partnering of these two compositions - at several layers. Harvey: tracing the root systems of speech, and charting our journey towards language. Bruckner: desperately yearning to say just that one thing, and say it right. The City Hall allows you to hear far more detail than the Albert Hall - you, yourself, become a piece in the kaleidoscope, being shaken around with the mutterings, and the weirdly fascinating 'speakings' of the players as they are picked out and transmogrified by the computers. (Harvey calls this 'vocoding', a rather clunky Stephen Hawkingish word that doesn't do justice to the fun and fascination of what the players are up to). In particular, some sounds of a baby's voice emerge from the speakings, and these inevitably arrest your attention (like a baby on stage in a play), particularly if you're a parent - there should be a warning to perinatal mothers that they might start lactating! These baby sounds are mostly triggered by the solo oboe......now, if an oboist could trigger lactation, it would be something to boast about. (....."Out of the mouths of babes you have perfected praise".....?) Which brings me to my big question: assuming that speech evolved out of our descriptive gestures, which includes our physical reactions to those gestures - our 'oohs', 'aahs', 'uughs' and grunts - and we have no control over the hormonal changes triggered in those reactions, then how and why does that phrase in the Bruckner evoke such deep feelings of loneliness in me - the very same phrase uttered by Britten's Peter Grimes as he faces his agonising isolation? Sounds have such powerful meaning - words distract.
What's going on here?

Anthony Sayer, ´óÏó´«Ã½ SSO