New York Philharmonic. Semyon Bychkov, conductor. June 5, 2026.

David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center, NY.  Orchestra (Seat Y119, $74).

Bychkov shaking hands with Staples, the associate concertmaster.

Program

Symphony No. 8 in C minor (1887, rev. 1889-90; ed. Nowak, 1955) by Bruckner (1824-96).

Over the years I have listened to quite a few Bruckner symphonies.  Not all of them.  Some several times. I heard tonight's symphony a couple of times before, once conducted by Alan Gilbert, and once by Zubin Mehta.  Of course I don't recall how the two performances sounded, but I was quite sure I had a lot of great words to say about the one conducted by Mehta.  To my surprise, I was relatively neutral about that performance, if the blog entry is any indication.  (I made a similarly wrong recollection earlier; misconceptions are difficult to purge.)

A specific blog entry (for a 10/24/2014 concert) also explained why the symphony sounded so familiar to us.  It was one of the few CDs we had in our car, and was therefore played very often.  (And I thought my memory was so good.)

The Program Notes are probably the same used on prior occasions.  It talks how late Bruckner started as a composer, a bit of his background, and how his compositions often get altered, by himself or by others with his consent.  There is no insight into the specific symphony whatsoever, except it had its supporters and detractors when it first came out, and that Bruckner uses bold statements to slowly make his points.  One can add to the musicologist's insight with how his themes tie together, how he manages a grand sound with minimal percussion instruments (unlike Mahler, for instance), that the cymbals and triangle appeared only briefly (in the slow third movement, curiously), and that the timpani gets a starring role in the piece.  I can add to that the rich brass sounds, and the three harps often played in unison.

These are my observations, and a search of the web returns a lot more "insight" into what to listen for in the symphony.  Some interesting points raised are: the Bruckner sound is influenced by his church music background; the harps are not in such unison in some editions; and that Bruckner later privately described the program for the symphony.

Speaking of loud, I recorded a 90 dB at my seat in Row Y.  I wonder how many musicians had earplugs.

It's a testimony to the music, and the musicians, that I was enjoying the concert very much.  Without consciously thinking about it, I was trying to decipher the structure, the themes, and the orchestration of the work.

Bychkov is a hard working fellow.  We saw him last week in Berlin conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, so I wonder if there was much rehearsal time for this NY Phil series.

We left soon after the conclusion of the concert.  NJ Transit now has a train departing 9:23 pm (used to be 9:38 pm), and we barely made it.