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BRUCKNER SYMPHONY NO. 5
7.00pm, Sunday 13 October, Queen Elizabeth Hall
5 No.
Tonight we welcome back Adam Fischer to open our season with one of the masterworks of the late 19th Century. Adam is one of today’s outstanding interpreters of the symphonies of Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler, both in concert and through his recordings of their complete symphonies. He brings wonderful warmth, experience, trust and confidence to our music-making. With these immense pieces there needs to be a sense that you’re in safe hands, especially structurally, and Adam is tremendously good at that. Exploring the Romantic repertoire brings with it similar issues of performance practice to those which arise with any period: context, linguistic norms, clarity, aesthetic priorities. From a practical point of view the most immediate, striking aspect is to do with sonority and ensemble. How do these instruments work
together, complement each other, what is revealed about texture, scoring, instrumentation, balance, by playing on instruments closer to those which would have been used in Bruckner’s day and in trying to adopt similar attitudes to contemporary orchestral musicians?
For an audience there is the opportunity to feel the excitement of experiencing the pieces as if they are new music – fresh creations that are pushing the boundaries of orchestral sound. You can watch videos on our YouTube channel by Lisa Beznosiuk, Roger Montgomery and Philip Dale about performing Bruckner and Mahler on period instruments.