Quad City Symphony Orchestra Masterworks IV: “Bruckner 8" -- February 5 and 6.
Saturday, February 5, 7:30 p.m.
Adler Theatre, 136 East Third Street, Davenport IA
Sunday, February 6, 2 p.m.
Augustana College's Centennial Hall, 3703 Seventh Avenue, Rock Island IL
A transcendent musical work that will be performed in two intermission-less concert experiences, Austrian composer Anthon Bruckner's Symphony No. 8 will, on February 5 and 6, be performed in its entirety as the latest presentations in the Quad City Symphony Orchestra's 2021-22 Masterworks series, this thrilling piece credited by BBC Music Magazine as one of “the 20 greatest symphonies of all time.”
Bruckner’s final complete symphony, which premiered under conductor Hans Richter in 1892 at the Musikverein in Vienna, is a sweeping symphonic journey. Dedicated to the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria and sometimes referred to as "The Apocalyptic," this epic and thrilling work begins with a slow introduction that unfolds into a dramatic struggle. The second movement is a radiant Scherzo that is then followed by a rustic yet sumptuous and noble Adagio. And the powerful, suspenseful finale takes listeners through the darkness of death to glorious transfiguration, resulting in a composition that Bruckner's fellow Austrian composer Hugo Philipp Jacob Wolf described as "the work of a giant" that "surpasses the other symphonies of the master in intellectual scope, awesomeness, and greatness."
Beginning composition on his eighth symphony in July of 1884, Bruckner worked mainly during the summer vacations from his duties at the University of Vienna and the Vienna Conservatory, and the composer had all four movements completed in draft form by August of 1885. The orchestration of the work took Bruckner until April 1887 to complete, and during this stage of composition, the order of the inner movements was reversed, leaving the Scherzo second and the Adagio as the third movement. In September of 1887, Bruckner had the score copied and sent to conductor Hermann Levi, one of Bruckner's closest collaborators who had given a performance of the artist's Symphony No. 7 in Munich that was, according to Benjamin M. Korstvedt's exhaustive 2000 book on the subject,"the greatest triumph Bruckner had yet experienced." Levi suggested alterations in the score that Bruckner eventually agreed with, and after the new version was completed, the composer wrote to Emperor Franz Josef I for permission to dedicate the symphony to him. The emperor accepted Bruckner's request and also offered to help pay for the work's publication, and the symphony was eventually published in March of 1892, becoming the only one of Bruckner's symphonies to be published before its first performance.
The Quad City Symphony Orchestra's Masterworks IV: Bruckner 8 performances will be held at Davenport's Adler Theatre on February 5 at 7:30 p.m., and, in Rock Island, at Augustana College's Centennial Hall on February 6 at 2 p.m. Admission to the in-person performances is $10-65, while digital-access admission is also an option at $40 per household, with the recording of the Saturday night performance available to stream on Sunday at 2 p.m. and available for viewing for 30 days following the premiere. For more information and tickets, call (563)322-0931 and visit QCSO.org.
