Page 564 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

There is a large orchestra, the Boosey & Hawkes website even specifying ten double
basses each with five strings – six such instruments formed the bass section here. The
"warfare" the composer speaks of can seem unequal when the soloist is on a platform with
so many "opponents", but Gerhardt was quite combative enough to break a string in the
finale. His intonation and tone were impeccable throughout a very busy solo part, perhaps
containing more notes than any other (depending on how many notes you allocate to the
many glissandi). Such playing, if it could not silence the orchestra, did reduce it later to
frustrated violent cross-accents. And as in classical concerti, a superb soloist emerged as
the hero.

Not that long ago, Bruckner conducting seemed a specialism, confined to a few Austro-
German artists from Nikisch to Wand, devoted to overcoming resistance to the composer’s
greatness. Now persuasive Bruckner performances are everywhere, especially in this
anniversary year, as musicians see though the exaggerated reverence once afforded these
works. Ryan Wigglesworth’s direction of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony had even seen
past the notion that profundity in Bruckner requires very slow tempi. This 55-minute
performance took a long view over the whole musical landscape, and always with a sense
of a narrative unfolding at a pace dictated only by the material.

Alban Gerhardt, Ryan Wigglesworth and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
© Angus Cooke

Such naturalness is born of a trust between players and conductor, and Wigglesworth’s
large clear beat inspires such trust, for the players seemed to respond well to it, not least in
such crucial matters as timing the exact moment when a climax bursts forth. In this small
hall some early fortissimi sounded coarse, but this was corrected later, achieving good
balance between powerful affirmations and lyrical relaxations.