Epic and monumental The Octave of Bruckner
Even before being a Symphony, Anton Bruckner’s Octave is a monument: for its duration (about an hour and twenty of music) and for the gigantic orchestral ensemble it requires. Bruckner worked on this composition from 1884 to 1890, and the first performance took place at the Vienna Musikverein in 1892. The Eighth Symphony is considered the spiritual testament not only of the Austrian composer (who died in 1896) but also of an entire European cultural world arrived at the threshold of the 1900s. Performing this masterpiece is a challenging undertaking: praise therefore to the Gioventù Musicale which has decided to make it a ‘pearl’ of its season, and will present it on Saturday at 5.30 pm in the baroque embrace of the church of Sant’Agostino, with the Symphony Orchestra of the Conservatory of Italian-speaking Switzerland directed by Francesco Angelico (tickets at 12 euros, reduced at 5). To prepare for the concert, a ‘listening guide’ meeting is also offered, today at 6 pm in the Ex Oratorio room at the Palazzo dei Musei, with free admission: it will be conducted by Alessandro Solbiati, composer and music popularizer. It is “the creation of a giant, the complete victory of light against darkness”, said Hugo Wolf after witnessing the first performance of Bruckner’s Octave. The composition was truly tormented: the first version of the score (worked out between 1884 and 1887) was 2080 bars and the conductor Hermann Levi considered it impossible to perform, so Bruckner worked on a revision in the following years, with some reworking also in the orchestration. The score was dedicated by Bruckner to Emperor Franz Joseph who bore the expenses for the publication and awarded the musician an annuity and a degree. “The work – the musicologists recall – well represents the composer’s temperament, his artistic peak before physical decline, and his search for transcendence”.
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