London Philharmonic Orchestra

Johannes Brahms: Tragic Overture
Richard Wagner: Wesendonk-Lieder arr. Henze
Interval
Anton Bruckner: Symphony No.1 in C minor (Linz version)

Jurowski conducts Wagner's romantic songs and an early Bruckner symphony.

Already in Bruckner's First Symphony the influence of 'the master', Richard Wagner, was making itself felt. In 1863 Bruckner heard Wagner's opera 'Tannhauser' in Linz, capturing its desolate yearning in his first movement's third theme.

Two years later Bruckner met Wagner for the first time at a performance of 'Tristan und Isolde' in Munich. The opera's romantic soul seeped into Bruckner's Adagio, as disarming a vision of love as Wagner's own 'Wesendonck Lieder'.

As he slipped into hopeless adoration for the German poet Mathilde Wesendonck, Wagner wrote her these songs, moments of heartfelt stillness in a whirlwind
musical career.

London Philharmonic Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski conductor
Anna Larsson contralto