Skrowaczewski strides boldly into Bruckner

Stanislaw Skrowaczewski's all-too-rare appearances at the podium of the Minnesota Orchestra have become occasions, events to be savored and perhaps, in years to come, performances that will be recalled and shared among music lovers.

The orchestra's conductor laureate, Skrowaczewski is, after all, 93, which makes him the oldest major conductor working today. He is frail, to be sure, and yet he continues traveling the globe, maintaining positions with orchestras in Germany and Japan, where he is revered as much as he is here.

Skrowaczewski's concerts at Orchestra Hall this past weekend, which were devoted to Bruckner's massive Symphony No. 8, offered special resonance. Bruckner's music has long been a specialty of Skrowaczewski's. ("My beloved Bruckner," he has said in conversations.) And the Symphony No. 8 was the work he chose in 1979 to conclude his 19 years as music director of this orchestra.

The performance Skrowaczewski led at Orchestra Hall Friday night, though deeply considered, seemed hardly the work of a man in his twilight years. It was bold, vigorous and dramatic, a prime example of what might be called this conductor's later style, a reading with a strong sense of direction, of inevitability and flow. Skrowaczewski never has been a stickler for wide contrasts in dynamics, as is Osmo Vänskä. Instead he seeks to build organic structures with relatively flexible tempos and long developing lines that reach a summit of intensity.

The orchestra, with which Skrowaczewski has been affiliated for 56 years, played magnificently. Perhaps chiefly through Skrowaczewski's influence, this has become a first-rate Bruckner ensemble: brasses that sound burnished and full, woodwinds that deliver tints in every shade and strings that are warm, dark and sensual.

The first movement of this knotty, exhilarating 90-minute score sounded forth in all its grandeur and mystery. The Scherzo was robust but unrushed, and the ensuing Adagio was suitably calm and inward with a glowing climax. (Skrowaczewski conducted the entire work from memory. The score sat in front of him at the podium, but he never opened it.)

As far as the thorny problem of the various editions that exist of this symphony, Skrowaczewski drew from several of them, using the first edition of 1887 for the finale of the first movement, what might be called the "quiet" ending.

In keeping with the theme of these concerts, "Celebrating Skrowaczewski," a documentary about the conductor, "Seeking the Infinite" drawing on the title of Fred Harris Jr.'s excellent biography, was shown in the lobby before the concert.

Before the concert started, principal trumpet Manny Laureano read from the stage a brief tribute to Neville Marriner, who died Oct. 2 at his home in London. Marriner succeeded Skrowaczewski as the orchestra's music director.

Michael Anthony is a music writer and critic.