Subscription series “Anton Bruckner. The St. Petersburg Philharmonic dedicates the great Austrian romantic to the bicentenary of the composer’s birth: the whole world celebrates this date in 2024. At the center of each subscription program is one of Bruckner’s symphonies, and the subscription will definitely have a continuation: it is impossible to perform all of his symphonies in one concert season.
Anton Bruckner, “half genius, half simpleton,” as the conductor Hans von Bülow described him, a deeply religious man who dedicated one of his symphonies to “The Beloved God,” sought to express the greatness of the Universe in his music. What distinguishes Bruckner from most great composers is the recognition that came late: his triumph was the Fourth Symphony, at the time of the premiere of which the composer was 57 years old.
It seems that Bruckner’s path to recognition continues to this day, and his anniversary year is the best occasion to perform all the composer’s symphonies in the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic: ahead of their time, monumental, majestic, seemingly addressed not to an earthly, but to a heavenly listener.
In the second concert of the subscription, Bruckner's Third Symphony, dedicated to Richard Wagner, will be performed along with famous symphonic fragments of his works. On stage - Felix Korobov, Honored Ensemble of Russia and People's Artist of Russia, chief conductor of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theatre.
Acquaintance with Wagner's music became a strong shock for Bruckner, which largely determined his very decision to turn to composing symphonies. The composers met at the premiere of the musical drama “Tristan and Isolde” in Munich: Bruckner admired Wagner, who responded with sincere interest in the admirer’s music.
During the years when Wagner was preoccupied with the construction of his theater in Bayreuth, Bruckner wrote to him with a proposal to dedicate one of his symphonies; Having received no answer, he went to Bayreuth in person. Wagner, having viewed the scores of the Second and Third Symphonies, praised the latter and accepted the dedication.
Initially, the symphony contained quotations from the music of the “master of masters,” as Bruckner called him, but later, during one of the many revisions of the score, the author excluded them, leaving only the leitmotif of the dream from “Die Walküre” in the Adagio code.
The premiere of the symphony was a failure: circumstances forced Bruckner, who did not have outstanding conducting talent, to take the helm of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra himself. As a result, most of the audience left the hall without waiting for the finale, and the musicians, having barely finished their performance, hurried to pack their things. In the midst of this catastrophe, only a few fans remained next to the composer - but what kind! Music publisher Theodor Rettig, through whose efforts and at whose expense the Third Symphony was later published - the first among Bruckner's symphonies! Seventeen-year-old Gustav Mahler was also here, the future great conductor and composer, whose works largely eclipsed the music of his older contemporary for posterity.
