Vienna Philharmonic | Franz Welser-Möst

Vienna Philharmonic
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Alban Berg: Symphonic pieces from the opera "Lulu"
Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, WAB 109

The chaste and deeply religious composer Anton Bruckner dedicated his Ninth Symphony to God. Alban Berg, on the other hand, created an apparently "amoral" opera about the femme fatale Lulu, even glorifying his heroine as an "angel" after her death – in what would seem to be a rather blasphemous interpretation of the Catholic veneration of saints! Musically, too, these two masters are worlds apart: one composed in a late-Romantic style, the other according to the rules of twelve-tone theory. So there seems to be little to connect the works that Franz Welser-Möst has selected for this concert with the Vienna Philharmonic. Yet there are surprising overlaps in what is perhaps the most daring and revealing program pairing of the summer. Neither Bruckner nor Berg was able to complete their scores. But what Bruckner's Ninth and Berg's Lulu share above all is an Expressionist approach to musical language. In both, expression is taken to the extreme. Melodic lines are stretched to the breaking point, building on huge leaps between notes. At the end, we are left to wonder: who in fact is the Modernist here and who is the Romantic?

Photo © Priska Ketterer / Lucerne Festival

UBS – Main Sponsor

You may also like the following events from Lucerne Festival:

• This August, 13th August, 10:30 am, Mozart y Mambo: Warm-up in Lucerne
• This August, 13th August, 07:30 pm, Havana Lyceum Orchestra | José Antonio Méndez Padrón | Sarah Willis in Lucerne
• This August, 15th August, 06:30 pm, Opening Night: Lucerne Festival Orchestra | Riccardo Chailly | Elīna Garanča in Lucerne

Also check out other Concerts in Lucerne, Festivals in Lucerne, Music events in Lucerne.