Orchestra: Munich Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor: Thielemann, Christian

Composer: Pfitzner, Hans

Composer: Bruckner, Anton

Venue: Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

Date of Concert: 14-11-2006

Playing Time: 01:40:25

Television Director: Meth, Agnes

Producer: Fleischer, Bernhard

Catalogue Number: A05512085

"Grandiose, unaffected, expansive, majestic, immovable..." – Christian Thielemann's description of Anton Bruckner's music vividly captures its essence and uniqueness. And he himself captures the soul of the great romantic composer in his interpretation of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony with the Munich Philharmonic. Recorded live at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden on 14 November 2006, the concert also features three orchestral preludes from the opera Palestrina by another late-romantic composer, Hans Pfitzner.

The preludes from Pfitzner's Palestrina, the composer's most well-known work, evoke the events about to transpire in the acts that follow them. While the subtle, refined nuances of the first prelude suggests the creative crisis of the opera's hero, the Renaissance composer Palestrina, the second reflects the turbulent atmosphere of the Council of Trent and the third the inner peace found at long last by Palestrina beneath the cupola of St. Peter's. Completed in September 1883, several months after the death of Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 in E major is a stunning homage to the composer of the Ring. A passionate admirer of Wagner, Bruckner claimed that he had the master's death in mind while writing the "Adagio" of this symphony. With its particularly soaring and melodious themes, the Seventh is Bruckner's most popular and accessible symphony.

It would be difficult to find a better team to interpret Bruckner's music today than Christian Thielemann and the Munich Philharmonic. Thielemann, the General Music Director of the Munich ensemble, is a universally recognized Bruckner and Wagner expert, who inaugurated his tenure at the head of the Philharmonic by conducting Bruckner's Fifth. The Munich orchestra has a long-standing tradition of performing Bruckner's music and boasts a particular attachment to the Seventh: it was the second orchestra to play the work, and the success it obtained with it in 1885 helped establish Bruckner as a major contemporary composer. Thielemann also led the Munich Philharmonic and the Regensburg Boys' Choir in the first concert given in honor of Pope Benedict XVI in Vatican City in October 2005.