Bruckner's symphonies in their original sound
Liberate
Just three weeks after completing his 'Sixth Symphony', Anton Bruckner began composing No. 7 in E major on 23 September 1881 going on to complete it in St. Florian on 5 September 1883, just like his first work. Although the influential critic ,Eduard Hanslick, later desribed it disparagingly as a"giant symphonic snake", the work soon began its triumphal march. It earned the 60-year-old the recognition he had long coveted as a symphonic composer. He described his most famous movement, the Adagio, in which Bruckner uses so-called Wagner tubas for the first time and which has audible references to "Siegfried's Funeral March" from Götterdämmerung - Bruckner had become acquainted with the entire Ring of the Nibelung during his visit to the Bayreuth Festival in 1876 - as "funeral music (in memory of the master's passing)"as a result of the impression Richard Wagner's death on 13 February 1883 had on him.
In many respects, Ernest Chausson's three-movement Symphony (No. 1) in B flat major, composed in 1889 and 1890, is a comparable document of the composer's self-emancipation and ultimate detachment from his previously overpowering role model, Wagner. The slow middle movement has the character of a confessional lament, while the finale echoes the music of Parsifal which was intended for Klingsor.
In this concert, the outstanding original sound orchestra "Le Cercle de l'Harmonie", directed expertly and in an electrifying manner by its founder, Jérémie Rhorer, continues its now internationally acclaimed exploration of Bruckner's work which began at the International Brucknerfest Linz in 2020. It also draws attention to this milestone in the history of French symphonic music since it is being performed at the Brucknerhaus Linz for the first time.
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Ernest Chausson (1855-1899)
Symphony (No. 1) in B flat major, op. 20 (1889-90)
- Intermission -
Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)
Symphony No. 7 in E major, WAB 107 (1881-83)
Le Cercle de l'Harmonie
Jérémie Rhorer | Conductor