Ken-David Masur Comes Alive in Bruckner’s Fourth

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Image via Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

Dashon Burton - MSO Bruckner's Fourth Symphony

Dashon Burton

I attended this Milwaukee Symphony concert the day after the Brewers lost their wildcard series to the Mets, dropping out of the playoffs early yet again. This team has such heart, despite one of the lowest payrolls in the league, and routinely dominates in the regular season before collapsing on the big stage. It’s easy to project this onto a view of Milwaukee itself: a city with promise and exciting new developments that still often doesn’t feel ready for primetime.

The quality of music institutions like the Milwaukee Symphony is rarely in doubt. I take more issue with the audience. This was a program built around Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, a big, important piece. An opportunity to see this orchestra make music on a grand scale. But I saw quite a few empty seats, and during the performance of the Bruckner I heard large swaths of the audience applaud after both the first and third (not final) movement. In a way this is a reflection on the flaws of the piece, which I’ll get to later. But I think part of developing a city to playoff level is to foster an arts culture where people are both genuinely interested in the music and understand some basics of classical form. Hopefully some arts education programs are helping with this. Then again, maybe some people stayed home because they were too gutted from the Brewers’ loss.

The opening piece of the night came from Clarice Assad, who I had heard in a pretty neat collaborative concert at the Wilson Center in 2022 (shepherdexpress.com/culture/classical-music/third-coast-percussions-archetypes-at-wilson-center). Nice to see more exposure for her. In Nhanderú, she aimed to evoke the raindance rituals of the Tupi-Guarani tribes of South America. This music made use of both percussion instruments and body percussion and vocalizations from the musicians. Sweeping cinematic melodies flew us over the jungle to plunge into the ceremonies. With its direct expression and excitement, the piece was a winning opener.

Singing Mahler

Baritone Dashon Burton sang Mahler’s wonderful song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer). He found a great tender sound in gentler moments, like in the second song, capturing the dreamy tone. The fourth featured his most lovely singing, set in the sweet spot of his high range. He also delivered power where needed, though a few times the orchestra threatened to overwhelm him. I wish he had sung from memory; his glances down to the score prevented a full freedom of expression and movement in delivering this archetypally romantic text, penned by Mahler himself. The orchestra’s contribution in the first two songs was a little too straightforward. I would have liked more spontaneity in the second song’s pastoral blooms. But the third song had a nice coda, slinking away.

The reason for programming Bruckner’s “Romantic” Fourth was to commemorate the 200th anniversary of his birth year. Great. Always love a composer anniversary. This is a tricky piece to sell, though. It’s 70 minutes long, not quite long enough to merit its own program, like a Mahler symphony. But in this concert, it formed a long second half. Thinking more about the Brewers, I saw some kinship with Bruckner as one of the underdogs of classical music. He grew up in rural Austria, arrived in Vienna fairly late to integrate himself into the music scene, and struggled his whole career with a lack of confidence and perception as a naïve country bumpkin. His low self-esteem led him to allow friends and students to revise his music; this symphony alone has three different versions. But there’s an elemental power in the music, a celebration of orchestral sonorities, that can still be compelling.

The first movement was well-executed, with the horns in fine form for the opening material and their other featured moments. The cello section, maybe my favorite subset of this orchestra, brought juicy tone to the second theme. The viola feature with brass and tremolo strings, a classic Bruckner texture, sounded great live. Conductor Ken-David Masur always seems to come to life in Austro-German Romantic music, and in this performance, he was exceptionally fun to watch. Even in boring transitional parts, his poise and intensity suggested that something vital was happening. The second movement was given a sincere interpretation with well-shaped viola melodies. The strings were expressive throughout.

Joy to Hear

The third movement, a “hunt” scherzo with all sorts of idiomatic brass gestures, is not my favorite. The MSO players did fine, but it was the least memorable movement in this performance. A highlight was oboist Katie Young Steele, always a joy to hear, in one of Bruckner’s rare woodwind solos in this piece. By the end of this overlong movement, I could understand some of the audience’s applause. Something fast and loud had ended, and the piece was already reaching the 50-minute mark. I sympathized with the poor souls who didn’t know there were still 20 minutes to go.

At the beginning of the finale, Masur really brought down the hammer on the big, blunt unisons. I reacted with the same kind of stankface I’d feel at a metal show. I was also impressed with his engineering of dynamics, somehow finding a new level of volume after three movements of high dynamic range. There was some beautiful playing in this movement, from the lyrical melodies to the heroic brass chorales. But I sensed restlessness in the audience. Bruckner’s approach to form, of stating a chunk of music and then pausing and starting something new, sometimes seems designed to elicit maximum frustration and a feeling of no end in sight. But finally the end came, and during the final climax I thought about Milwaukee again, and its hopes and dreams for greatness and creating Cultural Moments.

Yes, the concert was too long, and Bruckner is a lot to take. But everyone who attended got to experience a solid performance of this guy’s art and see why he was worth celebrating 200 years after his birth. It’s the eternal problem of classical music; long symphonies require intense concentration and immersion in a world that is moving faster and faster. If we take the time to hear these pieces to the end, we go on a journey through beautiful landscapes, angst, occasional tedium, and then burst through to victory. You can feel like you’ve lived a whole life. It’s something special that’s always worth seeking out.