Dark visions and a glimpse of Paradise: the Vienna Philharmonic enthrals at the BBC Proms

The last week of the BBC Proms got off to a flyer with superb performances of works by two composers with more in common than is immediately apparent: Alban Berg and Anton Bruckner. Their music suffered extreme abuse at the hands of others, with the former falling foul of the Nazi regime and the latter being plagued by lesser beings who sought to “improve” his work. Both of them also left works “unfinished”, and it was those two pieces whose exposition by Franz Welser-Möst and the Vienna Philharmonic that so delighted the audience: Berg’s Lulu Suite and Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony.

Given the subject-matter of Lulu – the sexual adventures of the archetypal femme fatale – it might be expected that our self-appointed moral guardians would issue a trigger warning. But since this was only the music to the drama, and not the opera itself, there was nothing to fear; the ears need no protection from what the eyes does not see. But Welser-Möst’s reading of three extracts vividly exposed the steaminess of Frank Wedekind’s expressionist reality which Berg etched with meticulous care into his graphically-detailed score – fingering, plucking, hammering, tight-lipped blowing. With sonorities ranging from the consistency of crepe paper to the crunch of heels on beachline shingle, the performance staggered magically along the fault line of fear and daring.

Bruckner might be thought of as adventurer in form and harmony between the first and second Viennese Schools; he was born while Beethoven was still alive and died in the twilight world of late romanticism that would get its comeuppance from Schoenberg. It is hard to imagine a trigger-warning being issued for his Ninth Symphony, except perhaps to alert first-time listeners not to expect a full-length work; being denied a “proper” ending, particularly a happy one, might be against one’s human rights. If there were any new seekers of guiltless pleasures in the audience they received a great return on their investment.

The composer’s comfort-zone – his organ loft – was far removed from the hothouse of a metropolis inhabited by Berg. The sound Welser-Möst elicited from the orchestra left no room for doubt: in place of crepe paper the outer movements were draped in satin, silk and velvet; and in the central Scherzo and Trio the crunch of shingle was drowned out by the juggernaut sweeping all before it – transformative power, rather than being menacing or destructive, the stirring sound of the cavalry riding to the rescue. Bruckner intended the symphony to be his personal offering to God and it must have grieved him sorely not to have finished it. However, the valedictory nature of the Adagio, so sensitively captured by Welser-Möst and his players, will have secured him a place in Paradise.

In a move rarely seen at the Proms, Welser-Möst had the players turn to face the people behind them, an old-school gesture that is part of his artistic generosity. Of course, he did not single out individuals or sections, the magic of the collective being the orchestra’s hallmark. However, I shall end with a tip of my hat to the four horn players, who, during the interval, had a group-photo standing in front of Sir Henry Wood, arm-in-arm with their Wagner tubas. In the closing bars of the symphony it was those players, this time in a passionate embrace with their instruments, who added the glowing light to the whole work, and to the evening.