coronation finale

The fifth and final concert of the Bruckner Orchestra’s Friday Special Session at Brucknerhaus Linz had a particularly attractive program for its presentation of two works of the High Romantic period.

It began with the Johannes Brahms Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra Reference 102, an exceptional composition in all respects. Young stars Julia Hagen (cello) and Emmanuel Tjiknavuriyan (violin) act as soloists. The striking orchestral opening of the theme is followed by a long cello solo, where the violin finally joins and leads through the three-step action into a musically excellent dialogue with the partner instrument.

Two radically different temperaments emerged, but they found an exceptional common voice culture. Hagen: grasping, dynamic, tender to wild; Tjeknavorian: Balanced, with a calm supremacy and a velvety violin tone.

Marcus Buechner and the orchestra accompanied the two with sensitivity, without losing sight of the melodic and dynamic material of Brahms’ recent symphonic works.

With Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony “On Top”

With Antonin Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony in the G major, “the intense experience of a double concert, already celebrated with enthusiasm in a house that has completely ran out”, is set, so to speak. The way this “Bohemian” symphony, with its wonderful wealth of motifs from Czech folk music, so meticulously interpreted in terms of sound and style was simply extraordinary and elicited thunderous applause mixed with a standing ovation after the glorious conclusion.

After the meritorious departed conductor Alfred Steindl (percussion) brought “in front of the curtain” to say goodbye, the orchestra played the show on “Gypsy Baron” by Johann Strauss as an apparition.

Written by Paul Stepanek