The music of Anton Bruckner has been a regular part of the programmes of the Berliner Philharmoniker ever since the orchestra was founded in 1882. 4 September, 2024 marks the bicentenary of his birth; so it should come as no surprise that we are marking the occasion with a cycle of his symphonies. These performances are spread over two seasons. In the 2023/24 season, the orchestra presented the famous “Romantic”, as well as the rarely-performed “Nullte” [0th] Symphony. The 2024/25 season will be the first time that chief conductor Kirill Petrenko has performed a Bruckner symphony with the Berliner Philharmoniker. A total of six of Bruckner's nine symphonies will be on the programme, featuring numerous illustrious guest conductors.
You don't have to be a “believer” in the religious sense in order to play or hear Bruckner’s music. And yet there is something about these monolithic works that encourages us to view the world with a sense of the transcendent. Bruckner’s symphonies could be described as a form of extreme sport; they demand great powers of endurance, resolve and concentration from performers and public alike. But the effort can be rewarded with an immense feeling of happiness. His music brings with it a profound insight into the beauty and fragility of our lives, as well as a glimpse of the numinous glinting beneath the surface of the quotidian.
For Bruckner, composing was a divine mission
In the context of today’s ultra-networked age, it is hard to imagine that these towering works were created by a loner. Although Bruckner was no hermit, he failed to form any kind of relationship with women, and his ties with other people were invariably subordinated to his mission. He clung to this mission with remarkable tenacity, no matter how often his music was rejected: “They want me to write differently,” he once confessed. “I could do so, but I’m not allowed to. Among the many thousands of people, God has favoured me, and given this talent to me, and to me alone. I need to be accountable for this.”
Bruckner was a devout Catholic, and this statement sums up his artistic creed. Although he had trained as a teacher, he never saw himself as an intellectual – even his friends described him as parochial, with “the obstinacy of a native of Upper Austria”. But thanks to recent scholarship, we have moved beyond the one-sided image of Bruckner as a musical "holy fool" plagued by well-meaning colleagues begging him to rework his symphonies. Bruckner was a thoughtful composer with a heightened concern for structural subtleties. He did not write for his own private satisfaction; he was constantly seeking recognition and opportunities to have his works performed.
Bruckner’s bouts of depression, his obsessive-compulsive disorders, and what he himself called his occasional “complete enervation” appear to have found no counterpart in his music. A late developer, he remained impressively consistent in maintaining his personal style. He described his “Nullte” as “merely an experiment”, using all his symphonies after his First to explore the possibilities of an alternative symphonic concept, but the qualities that had distinguished his handwriting from the outset continued to assert their all-powerful sway.
Bruckner’s crises seem barely to be reflected in his works
Bruckner’s experiences as an organist influenced the structure, tone-colours and polyphonic complexity of his symphonies. Time and again his music builds to monumental climaxes, like majestic mountain peaks of sound. But there are also moments of tranquillity, of meditation, and of poetic humour. There is a note of the longing that we associate with the Romantic period from which Bruckner emerged, most intensely in his popular Fourth Symphony. His musical language veers between individuality and the style of the period as a whole, while his own human emotions interact with a rapt spirituality, all of it combining in ever-new ways, creating an oeuvre that can be approached from an infinite number of angles.
Chamber Music Hall
Philharmonic chamber music
Philharmonisches Streichquartett:
Dorian Xhoxhi violin
Helena Madoka Berg violin
Tobias Reifland viola
Christoph Heesch cello
Amihai Grosz viola
Works by
Wolfgang Rihm, Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Anton Bruckner
Wolfgang Rihm
Grave for string quartet
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
String Quartet No. 2 in E flat major, op. 26
Interval
Anton Bruckner
String Quintet in F major
Amihai Grosz viola
Main Auditorium
Berliner Philharmoniker
Simone Young conductor
Vida Miknevičiūtė soprano
Works by
Wolfgang Rihm and Anton Bruckner
Wolfgang Rihm
Das Gehege. A nocturnal scene for soprano and orchestra
Vida Miknevičiūtė soprano
Interval
Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 2 in C minor (1st version from 1872)
Main Auditorium
Berliner Philharmoniker
Simone Young conductor
Vida Miknevičiūtė soprano
Works by
Wolfgang Rihm and Anton Bruckner
Wolfgang Rihm
Das Gehege. A nocturnal scene for soprano and orchestra
Vida Miknevičiūtė soprano
Interval
Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 2 in C minor (1st version from 1872)
Main Auditorium
Berliner Philharmoniker
Simone Young conductor
Vida Miknevičiūtė soprano
Works by
Wolfgang Rihm and Anton Bruckner
Wolfgang Rihm
Das Gehege. A nocturnal scene for soprano and orchestra
Vida Miknevičiūtė soprano
Interval
Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 2 in C minor (1st version from 1872)
Main Auditorium
Berliner Philharmoniker
Andris Nelsons conductor
Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 8 in C minor (2nd Version from 1890)
Main Auditorium
Berliner Philharmoniker
Andris Nelsons conductor
Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 8 in C minor (2nd Version from 1890)
Main Auditorium
Berliner Philharmoniker
Herbert Blomstedt conductor
Leif Ove Andsnes piano
Works by
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Anton Bruckner
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 20 in D minor, K. 466
Leif Ove Andsnes piano
Interval
Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 9 in D minor
Main Auditorium
Berliner Philharmoniker
Herbert Blomstedt conductor
Leif Ove Andsnes piano
Works by
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Anton Bruckner
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 20 in D minor, K. 466
Leif Ove Andsnes piano
Interval
Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 9 in D minor
Main Auditorium
Berliner Philharmoniker
Herbert Blomstedt conductor
Leif Ove Andsnes piano
Works by
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Anton Bruckner
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 20 in D minor, K. 466
Leif Ove Andsnes piano
Interval
Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 9 in D minor