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In the Forum: Musical Discussions
In the Thread: Bruckner, me and the Seventh

Post Subject: I did not get why they need to play national anthems in beginning.Posted by Romy the Cat on: 3/20/2014

I think the third movement was the best. Mehta really took his time there and dropped the overly fast tempo of the whole work. Some moment were truly nice during that adagio.

I did not hate the performance in the way how I hated some other Bruckner attempts, BSO for instance. The orchestra was exactly what I expected: here and there, hit and miss… not so fancy tonally and mostly not so able for a complicated or interesting phrasing. The bigger problem to me that this orchestra sounded very much over controlled. Mehta generally did not allow any phases to decay properly and he was shoring the notes tales, in combination with over-disciplined play it was not very pleasant. Perhaps they accustom to play in small and dryer hall. The lower octaves instilments and sections did not sound good at all – they were muddy and not expressive. Even in the third movement, where Mehta settle in the proper Bruckner tempi most the orchestra felt like was scared to play. Everything was over-balanced but in not so natural way – it was in a way too contrived music. I do not know about balance. There were some basic timing problems but that would be very much the subject of our location. From where we sit the second violin were good 25 feet behind the first and it is 1” per millisecond – too auditable. The brass balance was fine for Brahms but too conservative for Bruckner. The brass play in the last movement was very bad, I guess they got tiered. Generally I do not feel that it was disappointing – it was exactly how it was expected. BSO would NOT play better but where else would you listen the life B8 in Boston?

Me.

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