One of Anton Bruckner’s most audacious orchestral essays, the Eighth Symphony is an expansive, powerful and maximalist work. Frank Hammarin, horn player with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, talks about experiencing the piece from the inside and the piece’s frequent use of horns and Wagner tubas.
Can you introduce yourself, and talk about your current musical role and responsibilities?
I grew up in California – I was born and studied there, later moving to Iceland, to work with the Iceland Symphony for about seven years from 2016. Then I moved to Sweden to work with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra from 2023. After playing low horn with the orchestra, in May I won an audition for principal horn.
I’ve played Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony several times, but never on first horn – I’m looking forward to doing that!
Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony is quite an enormous piece of music. Alongside a prominent and active brass section are eight horns – with four doubling on Wagner tubas. For those who haven’t heard it before, can you describe what this symphony is like?
It’s such a big piece, so grand in scope! It’s very operatic, in the sense that it has four gigantic movements, which each have a life of their own, in terms of the emotions they portray. For instance, the unbelievably deep and very emotionally dense third movement, the Adagio.
Bruckner uses many repetitive, rhythmic and thematic elements – he kind of hits you over the head a little bit, so to say. But you get a huge reward at the end, when you’ve heard the whole work, and all of the themes come back in the coda, where Bruckner combines everything together for this unbelievable finale. After almost an hour and a half, the last two minutes are a huge release.
While the horns are frequently used by Bruckner throughout the symphony, there are several passages where the whole group of eight is used – almost like a team. Can you talk about how you approach Bruckner’s horn writing as a section?
Something that we think about a lot is balance. With eight players, you can achieve a really nice, round sound. Not everyone needs to play as loudly as possible. I wouldn’t want necessarily to compare it with that ‘Hollywood’ horn sound, of many players. But when you have more on stage, you can achieve a great horn colour without forcing things.
In this piece Bruckner often splits the section, between four horns and four Wagner tubas, which he uses in a solemn, poetic way. Wagner, when he first was writing for this instrument he helped create, used it as something between a horn and a trombone – for instance the tuba’s hunting themes in Die Walküre. But Bruckner uses the Wagner tuba in a different way. The colour is rounder and more solemn in the way he writes for it, particularly in the chorale passages.
Bruckner also writes significant solos for the Wagner tuba – an unusual instrument combining elements of the horn and tuba. Can you talk about what the instrument like to play and the challenges it poses?
It’s tricky to play! Unfortunately, the intonation is famously bad on most Wagner tubas. We use a horn mouthpiece, and use the same fingerings as we do on the horn. But from there, the similarities start to disappear. The nice thing about the horn is we have our hand in the bell, meaning that we can fine-tune the intonation. But we don’t have that luxury on the Wagner tuba. The particular challenge in this piece are the chorale sections. We have to often find alternate fingerings, and figure out what works best on each instrument, to play these passages in tune and with the right colour.
But there is something special and different about the sound, because the bell faces up and out, as opposed to back and down as the horn’s does. It always sounds a little bit brighter than I’m used to. You have to trust that it’s going to be a really interesting, unique sound that isn’t a horn and isn’t a trombone, that works well with the rest of the orchestra.
There are many solos for individual players, and not only for the first chair. Are there any that you’re particularly drawn to in this symphony?
One of my favourite solos is towards the end, as the coda begins in the last movement – just before this epic finale. It’s for the sixth horn, the second Wagner tuba, who plays this little solo in C minor. There’s something magical about the colour of the tuba, playing together with all the strings, setting up this epic finale.
There’s also a solo for the first horn in the first movement that is special. It’s the opening theme, but in a major key – I think that moment is really beautiful. The horn is sitting above tremolo strings, almost out of time, like it’s floating. It’s away from the realm of the rhythmic structure that Bruckner is building elsewhere.
Can you talk a bit about the practicalities of rehearsing and performing a long work like this? What do different conductors bring to the piece?
The blessing in disguise is that Bruckner’s musical language frequently uses repetition. Often there are long sections where things are not completely different! For example, the Scherzo, I think is the longest in all of his symphonies, but this is due to repetition. You don’t necessarily need to rehearse every single bar, as if it was all new, because much of it comes back.
But from a physical standpoint, as a horn player, you have to pace yourself carefully so that you have something left for the whole piece. You can’t blow your face off and bust your lip before you get to the finale! And while there’s plenty of loud playing, there are also delicate spots that you have to be careful with.
What impression did the symphony make on you when you first heard it? Is there a recording or a memory of a performance that is particularly special to you?
It’s just an absolutely epic piece. It’s like watching Lawrence of Arabia. And as a horn player, to hear the way he writes for the horn, it’s so satisfying to listen to.
The piece isn’t played so often, but there’s a recording of Celibidache conducting the Munich Philharmonic that I love – they’re playing in Suntory Hall in Tokyo, in around 1990. Everything about it is just great – these extra slow tempi that he does. And the horn playing is fantastic. It’s a wonderful recording.
Do you have a personal favourite passage in this symphony?
I love the last two minutes of the slow movement, the third movement. Bruckner quotes a part of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy. It’s really slow and really satisfying. The tubas are playing a low chord towards the end of the movement, and it’s beautiful and ethereal. The ending of the symphony is also brilliant and satisfying, and he brings all the themes together that he's used throughout the piece.
Why should one come to hear a performance of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony?
I think in this day and age, when things are getting faster and faster, I think sitting down with something lengthy is worth protecting – that there can be a slow art, where a lot of people are on stage working really hard to make this big musical experience happen! In the late 19th century and early 20th century, when orchestras reached their peak in terms of size – that is something to be celebrated too. This kind of maximalist orchestral sound and colour. When so much music people ordinarily hear is amplified, it’s such a human experience to be inside 80 minutes of non-electronic, acoustic sonic power.
Ryan Bancroft conducts the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony at Stockholm Konserthuset on 25th–26th November.
See upcoming performances by Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.
See more on the Stockholm Konserthuset.
This article was sponsored by Stockholm Konserthuset.
