CANCELLED: Symphoniker Hamburg / Lucas Debargue / Sylvain Cambreling

Camille Saint-Saëns brought lasting, vivid impressions of the Egyptian town of Luxor back to France with him, and these prompted him to write his »Egyptian Concerto«, full of exotic Oriental details, for piano and orchestra. The monumental symphonies of Anton Bruckner could not be more different: Bruckner was not fond of travelling, and preferred to spend his nights improvising and composing on the cold organ benches of his native Austria.

Bruckner wrote the first version of his Fourth Symphony, the »Romantic«, in 1874. Three years later he decided to subject the score to a thorough revision, writing to the music journalist Wilhelm Tappert: »I have arrived at the full conviction that my 4th symphony urgently needs a complete reworking. In the adagio, for example, there are unplayably difficult violin figures, while the instrumentation is too ornate and busy in some passages.« The first complete public performance was given in Vienna on 20 February 1881 by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and was a resounding success. Seven years later, Bruckner wrote in a mood of unusual euphoria to the conductor and composer Hermann Levi: »I shall never forget the success I had in Vienna!«.