Page 565 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

The great slow movement was a cortège of moving solemnity. This symphony is not one of
those with textual matters to solve, except once. The slow movement’s climax might, or
might not, require a cymbal clash. I confess to personal disappointment when none came,
being an unrepentant cymbal-basher here. Even perusing the percussion section, I hoped
those brazen implements might have been lying just out of sight. But no, here we had the
purist option, and a peak of such power as to need no such vulgar adornment. In the
ensuing lament, the golden, grieving tone of the Wagner tubas sounded as if the Master of
Bayreuth had only just left
us.

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

The Scherzo featured joyful playing from the first trumpet, alert and bright-toned. From the
insistent driving strings at the start, the orchestra built up an impressive corporate rhythm,
with a consoling trio. The Finale, as is common in Bruckner outside the Fifth and Eighth
Symphonies, operates (until its coda) at a lower emotional temperature than much of the
preceding music. Yet Wigglesworth made a virtue of this, with no attempt to force the music
to sound more apocalyptic than it is, but rather treated it as a satisfying homecoming after a
very exciting journey.

Roy’s accommodation was funded by Britten Pears Arts.