"Happy birthday, Anton!" - Concert for Bruckner's 200th birthday in Ansfelden

Since 2018, the International Bruckner Festival Linz has begun annually on September 4, the birthday of its namesake. The birthday concert to kick off the festival always takes place in Ansfelden, the place where it all began for Anton Bruckner, where he was born in the servants' quarters of the school building and baptized on the same day in the nearby parish church.

In 2024, the well-wishers for the milestone birthday could hardly be more prominent: The Cleveland Orchestra, known as the most "European" of the US American orchestras, and its chief conductor Franz Welser-Möst, who hails from Linz, will do the honors and pay tribute to the jubilarian with an open-air performance in the open space between the parish church and courtyard.

After the prelude and "Isolde's Liebestod" from Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, the night piece par excellence, Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 in E flat major, his first in a major key, is one of the composer's most comprehensible and therefore most popular works, to which the title Romantic , which he himself gave, and the associations associated with it have contributed significantly. This applies in particular to the "1878/80 version", whose depictions of nature clothed in tones in the newly composed third movement, which became famous under the nickname "Jagd-Scherzo" , is one of numerous highlights. Its premiere on 20 February 1881 by the Vienna Philharmonic under Hans Richter was a great success and represented an important 'stage victory' for Bruckner on his way to becoming a recognized symphonist.

7:00 p.m.
Ceremony

8:15 pm
Birthday concert

Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

Prelude and "Isolde's Liebestod" from the opera Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90 (1857-59)

- Pause -

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)

Symphony No. 4(Romantic) in E flat major, WAB 104 (1874, 1876-78, 1880-81) "1878/80 version"

The Cleveland Orchestra

Franz Welser-Möst | Conductor