Markus Poschner and the Bruckner Orchestra Linz kick off the Brahms/Bruckner cycle with the 3rd Symphony of Johannes Brahms and Anton Bruckner's 6th Symphony, both works premiered in 1883 in the midst of the controversy between the supporters of the „New German School“ , who favoured the symphonic poems of Liszt and the stage works of Wagner, and the so-called „traditionalists“ who aspired to the ideal of „absolute music“ as exemplified by Brahms with the support of the influential critic Eduard Hanslick.
In the course of this „musical feud“, which was fought out above all in the press, the 6th Symphony of Bruckner, who by virtue of his status as a symphonic composer was regarded by the New Germans, like it or not, as the prime competitor to Brahms, was criticised as an opulent „reminiscence of Richard Wagner“ after the first performance of the two inner movements – the work was never give a complete public performance in Bruckner's lifetime. In a counter-offensive, so to speak, a „troop of Wagnerian / Brucknerian ecclesia militans“ (as the later Brahms-biographer Max Kalback called them) disturbed the premiere of Brahms' 3rd Symphony with loud, demonstrative hissing.
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 (1883)
– Interval –
Anton Bruckner (1824–1896)
Symphony No. 6 in A major, WAB 106 (1879–81)
Bruckner Orchestra Linz
Markus Poschner | Conductor
