Bruckner Symphony No. 8
The Sydney Youth Orchestra, under the baton of Alexander Briger AO is preparing to perform Bruckner's last completed symphony, Symphony No. 8 in C Minor. Sweeping and dramatic, contemplative and painful, this grand masterpiece of the orchestral repertoire is an immersive experience for performers and audiences alike.
With a sonority referencing Wagner and a structure referencing Beethoven, this symphony is considered by many to be Bruckner’s crowning achievement. At the time of its premiere in 1892, composer and music critic Hugo Wolf wrote in the fashionable Wiener Salonblatt that this symphony was “the creation of a giant, surpassing in spiritual dimension and magnitude all the other symphonies of the master.”
Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony hasn’t been performed by a youth orchestra in Australia for some time, if ever. In recent memory it has been performed by Australia’s best orchestral performers, the Australian World Orchestra in 2015 under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle.
Bruckner’s Eighth is extraordinary, dark and notoriously difficult, which is why it is seldom tackled by Australian ensembles and occasionally avoided by Australian audiences. Even in its revised form the work is one of the longest symphonies on record, with a performance time of roughly 80 minutes (still only eclipsed by Mahler Symphony No. 3 and Havergal Brian’s Symphony No. 1) . The stern character of the work earned it the nickname “Apocalyptic”.
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Price listed is for a double pass
The orchestra played phenomenally and far surpassed expectations of what a youth orchestra could achieve. An overall excellent experience.