While no one could accuse Bruckner of being a lightweight composer, his Eighth Symphony is, even by his standards, a deeply intractable work. Weighing in at 90 minutes, it is an epic journey into the mysterious, often terrifying world of the composer's psyche. Yet the extremes that characterise many of its neighbours - religious ecstasy juxtaposed with abrupt plunges into nightmarish visions - are less acute in the Eighth, and moments of real transcendence are rare.
Stanislaw Skrowaczewski is now a veteran Brucknerian, but this particular troubled masterpiece is enough to tax any conductor. There is a palpable sense of unease about the whole first movement: it seems underpinned by a restless, shifting insecurity that's extremely difficult to judge. Within its many mood swings, however, lie darkly introspective moments, and Skrowaczewski shaped these passages with impressive subtlety. But his overall approach produced mixed results. On the one hand, he pulled back from the symphony's few truly extrovert passages. The climax theme of the scherzo was the starkest example of this: Bruckner's exultant evocation of pealing bells here had an unsatisfyingly clipped, dry quality. On the other hand, he was generous and warm in the adagio. Its glorious moments of redemption - visionary in their beauty, yet tinged with sadness - are both fragile and short-lived, but Skrowaczewski and the Hallé lovingly savoured each one.
Trickiest of all, perhaps, is the long finale. Endless striving for transcendence throughout the preceding movements, thwarted time and time again, demands fulfilment at the journey's end. Bruckner clearly felt he'd achieved it, writing "Halleluja!" on the final page. To bring it off in performance, however, is a considerable feat of pacing and control, and it didn't quite work this time. The climactic return of the opening theme at the very end seemed premature, and the coda too abrupt to be truly satisfying. But an interpretation that fails to resolve convincingly is preferable to one oblivious to doubt, and this was a deeply thought-provoking performance.
