German conductor Axel Kober visits the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra for the first time as we mark the two-hundredth anniversary of Anton Bruckner's birth.
Linz, the charming Austrian city on the Danube, is a common thread for tonight's concert featuring music by Mozart and Bruckner. In 1783, Mozart hurriedly visited the city and composed his Symphony No. 36 in just four hectic days so that it could be performed in concert while he was in town. Bruckner was born in a suburb of Linz and served as the cathedral organist in the city from 1855 to 1868.
Constanze and Wolfgang Mozart spent three weeks in Linz in 1783, staying with an old family friend, Count Johann Thun-Hohenstein. They were returning from Salzburg to Vienna after visiting Wolfgang's father in an attempt to obtain his acknowledgement of Constanze, without success. Mozart decided to arrange a concert with the Count's own orchestra while in the city, and since he didn't have a symphony with him, he had to write one in hast. It took him four days, and for the first time, he begins one of his symphonies with a slow introduction.
Anton Bruckner worked on his final symphony from 1887 to 1896, when he died in Vienna without completing the work, which premiered in 1903. He dedicated this grand and bold symphony, the composer's musical farewell to life, to God. While it marked the end for Bruckner himself, the symphony opens up new musical horizons.
Tonight's conductor, Axel Kober, is the music director of Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf/Duisburg, as well as the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra. He is a frequent guest at the Bayreuth Festival and the Vienna State Opera.
PROGRAMME CHANGE
The programme for this concert was changed on 14 December 2023. The original programme was:
PELLEAS UND MELISANDE
Axel Kober conductor
Marianne Crebassa mezzo-soprano
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
Richard Wagner Lohengrin, prelude to Act 1
Hector Berlioz Les nuits d’été (Summer Nights)
Arnold Schönberg Pelleas und Melisande