Matt Garson wrote on Saturday:

>This past Wednesday, I attended the LPO's performance of Bruckner's 3rd
>Symphony (1877 version) and Mozart's Piano Concerto #9 (K.271).
>Out of curiosity, did anyone else go to the concert?

I was there too!  Like the long-awaited conclusion to a Bruckner Symphony,
you can read my reactions at the end of this post.

>...  the soloist Francois-Frederic Guy seemed to be playing entirely from
>memory without any sheet music.  I've never seen a performer play from
>memory before under such circumstances and I was wondering if anyone knew
>if this practice is typical of Guy? More generally, is this a practice that
>is common among performers that I've simply never noticed?

Generally speaking, professional classical instrumental soloists perform
core repertory from memory.  Examples of "core repertory" range from Mozart
and Beethoven piano concertos to Tchaikovsky and Brahms violin concertos
to solo piano recitals of Liszt and Chopin.  The exceptions to this rule
usually feature music which is too new or technically complex to memorise
easily, or it is the musician's own preference to play from printed music.

So how can soloists memorise all those notes? By playing and rehearsing
the music so much that their *muscles* remember the music's flow as much
as their minds.  Then the soloist can track the music's terrain just like
an experienced walker on a demanding but familiar route who no longer
requires a map.

Friends who know my musical tastes will wonder how I could submit to a live
symphony by Bruckner, whose music I mock with as much joy as a child teases
a slow, dense farmbeast.  A friend said he had two expensive tickets for
the concert, given freely by a colleague who (for some unspoken reason)
would not attend.  Would I join him for his second-ever classical concert?
He had been engrossed by the first: Mahler's 2nd Symphony at a BBC Proms
concert.

The Mozart Concerto was urbane, elegant and "wonderful to listen to" as
Matt has written - an engaging prelude to the main work.

"What's Bruckner like, then?" my friend asked, as we looked at a portrait
of the composer resembling a concussed sea-lion.  I gave due credit to
Bruckner's cosmic climaxes, glorious fanfares, vast musical structures -
and gave due notice of some uneventful bits.  I remained silent about the
defiantly unmemorable slow movement, the banal brass themes, the
coitus-interruptus of Bruckner's pacing, and suppressed the dismay aroused
by that dreadful subtitle, with all its implications: "(1877 version)".

The 3rd Symphony began, and shared the virtues of Haitink's VPO recording
- lithe tempi, transparent balance and powerful trombones.  I had to look
away from the strings sometimes, sawing comically through Bruckner's
ostinati like galley-slaves at the oars.  Fifteen minutes into the work,
I noticed the thirtysomething man on my left.  During the outbursts, he
bunched his shoulders and shuddered his fists against his knees, going
"Hnng!  Urmk!  Nyrrg!" as the kettledrums thundered.

Evidently a Bruckner fan.

On my right - my friend was fast asleep, his head nodding, his legs
occasionally twitching in slumber.  He blinked awake in the rustle between
movements, but Bruckner's soporific genius knocked him out again within
seconds.  I eventually nudged him awake for the final peroration.

>Posting for the First Time,

Share more of your reactions to London concerts!  Er, what did *you* think
of that Bruckner Symphony..? I notice you didn't mention it.

James Kearney
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