Celebration of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Brucknerhaus Linz
Exactly 50 years to the day after its opening, the Brucknerhaus Linz is celebrating its milestone birthday with a new combination of ceremony and concert based on the festivities of 1974. After the speeches and congratulatory addresses by prominent well-wishers from the worlds of culture, politics and society, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by star conductor Zubin Mehta, will intonate the equally fitting and monumental 'birthday serenade' in the form of Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 in E major, which he completed in St. Florian on 5 September 1883, one day after his 59th birthday, and which was premiered in Leipzig on 30 December 1884, 140 years ago. As his ninth symphonic work, it finally brought Bruckner the long-awaited breakthrough as an internationally recognised composer, something that not even the fact that the almost omnipotent critic Eduard Hanslick spoke disparagingly of a "giant symphonic snake" on the occasion of the first performance in the imperial city by the Vienna Philharmonic under Hans Richter on 21 March 1886 could change.
This symphony, which is still Bruckner's most frequently performed work, also brought good fortune to the Konzerthaus on the Danube named after him: it was performed, at that time also by the Vienna Philharmonic and conducted by Herbert von Karajan, on 23 March 19 74 as part of the festive concert celebrating the opening of the Brucknerhaus Linz and has since been on the programme more than thirty other times.
Anton Bruckner (1824–1896)
Symphony No. 7 E major WAB 107 (1881–83)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Zubin Mehta | conductor
