If it’s a commonplace to compare a Bruckner symphony to a “cathedral of sound”, it’s worth bearing in mind that there are many ways to assess a cathedral. You can look at the work of an individual stonemason. You can consider a feature created by some workgroup: an individual arch or buttress, perhaps. Or you can step away and cast your gaze on the whole cathedral. For last night’s performance of the Symphony no. 7 in E major at Stockholm’s Berwaldhallen, Manfred Honeck and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra were strongest when viewed from the middle of those three viewpoints.
Ensemble was excellent for the whole symphony, with a tangible sense that the players were very comfortable with playing with each other and their conductor. The big climaxes had plenty of strength, the more so from being amplified by Berwaldhallen’s lively acoustic – despite which Honeck kept everything accurate enough to ensure that things never degenerated into mush. Ostinato strings were hushed and gentle at the beginning of the first and fourth movements, the string sound then thickening to become full and rich. Passages of woodwind ensemble and the deep solidity of Wagner tuba passages were adeptly handled, Ländler dances had the lilt that you would hope for from an Austrian conductor. However, moments of individual virtuosity were relatively few in number, given that Bruckner gives the woodwind players many chances to shine: too often, solo phrases and interjections were played straight without a great deal of shaping. And there were individual errors, most notably some trumpet hesitations at critical moments.
And the view of the whole cathedral was somewhat misty, not least because of slow tempi, which made it too easy to relax into the lushness of the moment and lose the thread of the overall symphony. A case in point was the third movement: the initial Scherzo was the most exciting playing of the evening, powerfully accented and with a strong rhythmic impulse, but then the Trio was taken down so far as to release the tension completely, whereas Bruckner only marks it “etwas langsamer” (somewhat slower). A similar pattern recurred in the fourth movement: after each of Bruckner’s typical false summits, I want the tension to start building immediately for the next climb, whereas I felt I was being allowed too much time to enjoy the view.