“Half genius, half simpleton,” is how one of Anton Bruckner’s associates described him. This humble and austere schoolteacher, organist, and mostly self-taught Austrian composer was plagued with indecision throughout his life, and virtually all of his mountainous symphonies are palimpsests of original thoughts plus several layers of accretions from several later editors, some of whom tried to undo the work of the others. Thus, every conscientious conductor makes choices among several versions and sources, and each performance comes out a little different. 

This “blurred vision” of the works, plus their extended running times and nubilous orchestration, makes them an acquired taste both for musicians and listeners. But they offer unique musical experiences when done with enough skill and commitment. The National Symphony Orchestra has more experience in the Bruckner canon than many others, as its former conductor, Christoph Eschenbach was a devotee and programmed him often. This familiarity led to a congenial, satisfying match for this week’s subscription concerts with guest conductor Marek Janowski, a venerable European maestro who has himself recorded the entire cycle of symphonies, and who led last night’s performance of the Seventh Symphony from memory with stolid, implacable control.

Janowski has had a long, distinguished career; though he has never been music director of a top-tier orchestra, he has been a welcome guest conductor with all of them, repeatedly, and helmed several Ring cycles at Bayreuth. He has made all the points he wants to make in Bruckner’s Seventh many times over, and is now in an autumnal phase of trusting the musicians and the composer to a remarkable extent; his were the most minimal gestures I’ve seen from a major conductor, confining hismself mainly to showing the character of whatever music was about to happen. Even the most mawkish passages, like the second theme of the Adagio, flowed gently by without the usual “it’s all about how I feel!” interference orchestras are so used to these days. 

The NSO players clearly appreciated the confidence, and delivered a sustained and polished rendition. This piece was the first use of the “Wagner tubas” outside of the opera house – hybrid instruments created by Wagner, handled here by extra horn players. There was no sense of unfamiliarity, as the famous chorale near the end of the Adagio – which Bruckner wrote upon receiving the news of Wagner’s death – was wonderfully blended and in tune.

The Kennedy Center Concert Hall is not a great venue for Bruckner, who wrote and thought like a cathedral organist. There are often startling effects written into the music where a soft passage is supposed to gradually emanate out of a long, cavernous echo from the previous blasts of sound. In the dry-ish Concert Hall acoustic, the seam between the two sections is not only heard, it impinges. But performance-wise, the only noticeable flaw was the handling of the magnificent first-movement coda, 33 bars of gradual build-up and acceleration in one of Bruckner’s great inspirations. Janowski began neither slow enough nor soft enough to sustain momentum through the entire passage and hit a plateau, somewhat disappointingly.  Otherwise, this was a very fine outing by the NSO, well worth hearing.

Before intermission, violinist Arabella Steinbacher offered the Mozart Concerto No. 4. A seasoned artist with a major international career, Steinbacher sports a free and easy bow-arm, producing a sound with a lot of fizz and ring to it. Although the vibrato could have had more variety, particular between low and high registers, it was a clean, confident performance, aware of small details in the accompaniment, and full of whimsy, particularly in the cadenzas.