9. Philharmonisches Konzert: Geheimtipp

In the organizer's words:

Béla Bartók Music for string instruments, percussion and celesta
Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 6 in A major

Can an insider tip be a milestone? The works in this concert prove it. Bela Bartók is one of those composers who are performed far too rarely in our region - not even such solitary creative highlights as the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. Folklorism and avant-garde, construction and expressivity, excited motoric movement and shattering emotional climaxes - all this is brought into a unique balance in this work. At the same time, Bartók also reinvented the string sound, which is reflected in the unusual title. The half-hour work, which won over even despisers of 20th century music, was already an unprecedented triumph for Bartók at its premiere and was performed around fifty times in ten different countries within a year. Since then, it has been regarded as a cult piece of modern music.

Bruckner's 6th Symphony leads a peculiar shadowy existence. Paradoxically, the outstanding success of the Seventh, which Bruckner began immediately after completing the Sixth, may have contributed to the work's low profile, as may the somewhat isolated position of the Sixth between the groups of the Third to Fifth and the Seventh to Ninth. Although it is a mature symphony from a period in which Bruckner had acquired undisputed mastery, it has the advantage of being relatively concise and it has one of those beginnings of works that one never forgets, the Sixth has remained something of a rarity to this day: an unknown masterpiece.

9th Philharmonic Concert: Insider tip