2016.03.12

かまくらプレミアム・オーケストラ・シリーズVol.26　井上道義×鎌倉芸術館　NHK交響楽団「いざ、鎌倉への道」Vol.5

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ブルックナー : 交響曲 第8番 ハ短調（1890年稿　ノヴァーク版） NHK交響楽団 公演フライヤー[PDF]

【Message】

Finished! – We have completed the Bruckner cycle that I gave the title “Here’s the road to Kamakura” to five years ago in a slightly borrowed way. This series done in Don Quixote-Michiyoshi’s own way includes Bruckner’s popular 1st, 4th, 7th, 8th and 9th symphonies. And today, we performed with confidence the 8th, as the last concert.

I wonder what it really is to play music?

The director of the hall told me: “That was the strongest applause that I’ve ever heard.” I myself had experienced louder, more eruptive clapping before, but today’s one was really “heartfelt”, which made me joyful. That’s how Kamakura’s audience reacted.

Besides the appreciation from outside, I myself am sure that today’s concert was great. The NHK Symphony Orchestra’s performance went beyond that of the Staatskapelle Berlin rendition the other day. Please allow me to say that our 8th symphony also soared higher than my teacher Celibidache’s version I listened to in Munich and Kubelík’s Japanese premiere and Günter Wand’s premiere with a Japanese orchestra (that I heard from the rehearsals forty years ago). (We shouldn’t talk about musical interpretation with such comparison… but I want you to forgive me for doing so a few times in my all life!) You know, each man has his own history.

The NHK Symphony Orchestra has played Bruckner under numerous excellent conductors. When listening to their Bruckner, I had been wondering, sometimes with doubt, if this “tradition” is took over to new young members constantly joining the orchestra. Today, however, I witnessed they have in fact inherited it and are keeping it fresh.

After the dress rehearsal, I saw from the stage wing many principal players gathering to resolve some artistic problems, reducing time to have lunch. Their discussion was heart-felt.

Nobody gave his opinion condescendingly though. Fully motivated, they all considered the problems as their own, and they tried to make the day brighter even just a little. The ensemble’s joy resides in such attitudes of devotion, where musicians seek to enrich each precious moment as much as possible and to grasp each present which seems to want to escape.
Actually, Bruckner wrote music which could draw such efforts out of players naturally. Also, what an amazing architectural sense! His music is truly romantic, like a castle above the clouds that men can only dream of.

As for the 8th symphony, at the beginning of the fourth and last movement, Bruckner has the theme from the 1st movement momentarily reappear, like a Shogun’s triumphal entry. However, Bruckner doesn’t end the symphony with a clichéd way saying “Things were better in the good old days!” He, instead, closes the piece while evoking the themes of the second, third and fourth movements as if he accepted life, in a positive way, as it is, juxtaposing those beautiful early days, that one-time period and that moment…

Five years ago, the string players fought against the 1st symphony’s complicated motives. We felt literally as if we were aboard a great ship with the 7th symphony near the Ofuna (Big-Ship) station. With the 4th symphony, we had Makoto Ozone for a Mozart concerto. When I conducted the 9th symphony right after my recovery from serious cancer, we had Teiko Maehashi as a guest, still beautiful even after becoming seventy years old. Each concert was a wonderful moment.

My piano teacher Yuko Yamaoka improved my technic every week in Kamakura when I was fourteen years old. As a ballet lover, I used to walk in Shichirigahama (Kamakura) glancing at the fading studio of the Japanese ballet pioneer Eliana Pavlova. As for the NHK Symphony Orchestra, they kindly allowed me to assist at their rehearsal many times when I was young. So I am satisfied with the great and definite success I could have with this orchestra. Now that I am the same generation as Don Quixote, I intend to live a little longer as precariously as I might, in the same way that I did sixty years ago. Please watch over me warmly!