What a birthday serenade to remember! To mark the 200th anniversary of Anton Bruckner’s birth, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and Alan Gilbert bring the Austrian Romantic composer’s monumental Symphony No. 8 to the stage. Featuring a large throng of musicians and lasting some 80 minutes, Bruckner’s Eighth is not only one of the longest, but also one of the most powerful symphonic works of its time – bursting with drama and wielding the full force of orchestral sound.
Peformers
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester
conductor Alan Gilbert
Programme
Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 8 in C minor (Robert Haas’ version)
About the programme
Anton Bruckner’s symphonies have become part of the »vernacular« of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in a way, ever since Günter Wand’s time as principal conductor. They will form a special focus during the 2024/25 season though, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Austrian composer’s birth. After his acclaimed recent interpretations of the Seventh and Fourth in Hamburg, Principal Conductor Alan Gilbert now conducts Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8.
It is »the creation of a giant«, declared the reviewer Hugo Wolf, usually anything but generous with his praise, after the extremely successful premiere in Vienna in 1892. He went on: »And it surpasses all of the maestro’s other symphonies in terms of spiritual dimension, richness and grandeur.« The many scruples and revisions in the process of the work’s creation had paid off. In fact, the premiere of the Eighth was not only the pinnacle moment of success in Bruckner’s life. It was also a victory over his otherwise resolute opponents in Vienna. Even his arch-enemy Johannes Brahms is said to have reluctantly admitted: »Bruckner is a great genius after all.«
The symphony not only gave fans of vividly poetic, overwhelming, emotionally intense soundscapes plenty to rave about (especially in the Adagio!). Lovers of compositional devices also got their money’s worth. The motif at the beginning of the first movement, for instance, can be interpreted as the starting point for all the themes throughout the work – simultaneously layered on top of one another during the intense closing bars of the finale!
