Adagio "In memoriam Anton Bruckner" for large orchestra (op. 91b, 1989)
3.3.3.3 - 4.3.3.1 - timpani, percussion <3> harp, strings
Duration: 10 minutes
Bruckner Orchestra Linz | Ingo Ingensand
Title: Adagio f. gr. orchestra in memoriam Anton Bruckner op. 91b - Length: 29 pages - Date: Großgmain August / September 92 - Location: Bavarian State Library, Munich
Schott Music
Bertold Hummel's Adagio "in memoriam Anton Bruckner" for large orchestra opus 91b set the mood for the symphony that was to follow. It is striking that Hummel is an excellent orchestration artist and also has a clear command of Bruckner's tonal language. Brucknerian idioms can be heard, mixed with Hummel's very own style of writing, making it a small masterpiece that need not stand in Bruckner's shadow. Symphonic music in any case, infused with subtle subtleties. Hummel even hints at a kind of Tristan melody (for Bruckner, Wagner was the love of God on earth), conducted in unison, of course, and typical eruptions in Hummel's Adagio also neutralise themselves into a calmly flowing tranquillo.
Hummel's Adagio in Memoriam Bruckner is a dense interweaving and processing of Bruckner motifs with an emotionally independent rethinking of his musical statement.
Erwin Horn gave me the idea of orchestrating the 2nd movement of my Organ Fantasy op. 91a. Naturally, changes and additions were made during the work, which led to the orchestral version now available.
The first 4 notes of the Adagio of Bruckner's 9th Symphony play a favoured role both linearly and harmonically in the course of the movement. A four-bar, chorale-like chord sequence, which I wrote down as an 8-year-old boy after listening to a Bruckner symphony, forms the contrast both in the pp and at the climax of a 20-bar passacaglia, whose bass note sequence was derived from a 3rd theme. The syntax situated in the "golden section" of the movement(bar 93 of 142 bars) is abruptly interrupted. A 10-bar piano phase follows. The chorale line is abruptly resumed in tutti and cancelled again. A return to the 3rd theme, which is modelled on Bruckner's gestures, and the last restrained quotation of the"chorale" form the bridge to the coda. Various building blocks of the movement are heard once again above the sustained note e' . This adagio fades away in the outermost pp.
The work was composed in September 1992.
Bertold Hummel
The chorale idea in the Adagio "in memoriam Anton Bruckner" deserves special attention. It sounds as if Bruckner had invented it - ppp misterioso - and yet it comes from the pen of the eight-year-old boy Bertold, who went home under the impression of Bruckner's Third Symphony and decided to become a composer. The first thing he put down on paper was this bold choral idea, which now finds its fulfilment in his Bruckner fantasy.
The homage to the Master of St Florian culminates with this chorale after a large-scale build-up in the full power of the orchestra.
Erwin Horn