The Ceremonial Opening of the International Bruckner Festival Linz 2021

Throughout his life the themes of learning and teaching played a central role in the artistic work of Anton Bruckner. On the one hand he was always on the search for improvement, and even when he was already a prominent organist and church composer he took on the role of a student again, starting a course of study with the Linz theatre conductor Otto Kitzler at the age of 37; on the other hand, as the son of a schoolmaster from Ansfelden he decided early on to pursue a career as a teacher, a decision which took him from the post of assistant in a school in Windhaag near Freistadt to one as a conservatory professor in Vienna.

At the heart of this year's International Brucknerfest Linz is the work of his most important students and followers, and this theme is illustrated by the programme for the opening ceremony, which displays the extraordinary variety and complexity of this „school of composition“. Alongside the familiar names of Gustav Mahler and Hugo Wolf, the Upper Austrian Youth Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Finnegan Downie Dear, winner of the renowned Mahler Competition 2020, presents music by Mathilde Kralik von Meyrswalden, Hans Rott and Friedrich Klose, three of the most fascinating and unjustly neglected of Bruckner's students.

Hans Rott (1858–1884)

Pastoral  Prelude in F major for Orchestra (1877–80)

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)

Blumine. Symphonic  Movement in C major for Orchestra  (1884)

Hugo Wolf (1860–1903)

Italian Serenade in G major for Small Orchestra (1887, 1892)

Friedrich Klose (1862–1942)

Elfen Dance  in D major for Orchestra (1892)

Mathilde Kralik von Meyrswalden (1857–1944)

Festival Overture in G major for Choir and Symphony Orchestra (1897)

voestalpine Choir Linz

Upper Austrian Youth Symphony Orchestra  

Finnegan Downie Dear | Conductor