Michael Sanderling conducts Bruckner’s Sixth

It is well known that Bruckner was very self-critical and liked to fine-tunehis symphonies long after their completion, so that some exist in several versions. Not so the Sixth, which was a single stroke of genius. Bruckner obviously felt the same way, and so the Sixth has survived in only one version. What an incomparable musical cosmos! After the first partial performance of the work in Vienna in 1883, the critics also reacted enthusiastically, “The composer was called out several times, especially after the Adagio … a piece of the most solemn feeling and the most touching intimacy”. Indeed, this slow movement is the heart of the Sixth and is among Bruckner’s most magnificent inspirations. Only six years earlier, Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo Variations” were heard for the first time in Moscow. The piece was well received, also abroad, for example in Wiesbaden, where it was performed two years later. An elderly Franz Liszt was sitting in the audience and said, “Now that’s music again at last.” The Rococo elegance of this music, the simple melody of the theme and the virtuosic playfulness of the variations have lost none of their original splendour to this day, and remain an artistic challenge that the very finestcellists are only too happy to accept.