Domenica 6 ottobre 2024, ore 17, il maestro Zubin Mehta dirige la sinfonia n. 8 di Bruckner

Conductor emeritus Zubin Mehta returns to the Maggio podium.

Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024, 5 p.m., Great Hall.

On the music stands Anton Bruckner's monumental Symphony No. 8 in C minor.

Florence, 2 October 2024 - He has been missing from the Maggio podium since June 13, 2024, when he conducted in “his” city and in “his” theater at the closing concert of the 86th edition of the Maggio Festival, receiving a very warm reception (later confirmed by the tour to China and Ljubljana in late June and early July). Conductor emeritus Zubin Mehta returns on Sunday, October 6, 2024 at 5 p.m. in the Sala Grande to conduct the Maggio Orchestra in Anton Bruckner's monumental Symphony No. 8 in C minor. The penultimate and among the great Austrian musician's most celebrated compositions, it was written in six years between 1884 and 1890. Throughout his career, maestro Mehta has had the opportunity to engage with the Eighth and more generally with Bruckner's output numerous times: there are many recordings of the symphony, both on disc and on DVD, recorded by the maestro over the years with some of the world's leading orchestras including those with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic.

Symphony No. 8 in C minor - Anton Bruckner

No other artist of his time was as much discussed and criticized as Anton Bruckner. After making his bones as an organist experimenting with various forms of sacred music, at the age of forty Bruckner took the path of symphonism. From 1863 to 1896 he composed eleven symphonies, deciding, however, to number only nine, beginning with the third, as a sign of reverence to Beethoven. The grandiose dimensions and sonic density of his symphonies, so different from those of his colleague Brahms, whom the Viennese considered the only worthy heirs of the Germanic symphonic tradition, as well as his avowed admiration for Wagner earned him the sarcastic appellation of Wagner symphonist, placing him at the center of a diatribe from which he always kept his distance. The Eighth, the most extensive of his symphonic creations, engaged Bruckner for six long years of intense work, from 1884 until revisions in 1887 and 1890. It was first performed in December 1892 when Hans Richter, conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, baptized a work considered hitherto unperformable because of harmonic daring, technical difficulties and disproportionate length. A grandiose and ambitious work in every respect, the Eighth is distinguished by its expansion of form, thematic development and orchestral ensemble (with the woodwinds down to three and the horns doubled from four to eight). In the symphony's four movements-which follow the pattern of Beethoven's Ninth with the Scherzo in second position followed by the Adagio-Bruckner works in sections, breaking up the main themes into sonic blocks dotted with comprimary aggregates that help cement a wide-ranging musical discourse. The result is a compact and massive sonic construction in which desolate moments of lightness and evocative digressions also find their place. Emblematic is then the imposing Finale in which the main themes of the four movements are recapitulated in vertical superimposition, a dizzying apotheosis that reinforces and unifies the monumental symphonic edifice.