Berliner Philharmoniker II

Music that remains conscious of space so that it can ultimately leave all restrictions behind: it is no coincidence that the symphonies of Anton Bruckner are often compared with the architecture of Gothic cathedrals, reaching for the sky. This is also true of his Fifth Symphony, whose building blocks of sound spaced out at intervals and multiple block-like changes of timbre and dynamics are reminiscent of a massive sound sculpture. Of course, as an organist, in this work Bruckner once again integrated the length of the echoes he was used to finding in churches into his composition: pauses that become an event in every performance and provide remarkable spatial effects. Under the direction of Chief Conductor Kirill Petrenko, the Berliner Philharmoniker tackle Bruckner’s monumental Fifth. In the programme it follows Wolfgang Rihm’s spatial composition “IN-SCHRIFT,” which interprets “sonic signs like written signs: speech-like lines written into the sound,” as the composer describes them. In keeping with ancient tradition, Rihm composed “IN-SCHRIFT” for a specific church space – St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, with its glittering, golden mosaics – whose echo he attempted to outwit with harmonics: “All spaces ought to be written into the music.” The result? A fascinating interplay between actual distant sounds and sonic effects that convey a sense of space, staged in extremely subtle ways.