RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra
Nathalie Stutzmann conductor

Wagner Parsifal Vorspiel und Karfreitagszauber
(Prelude and Good Friday music) / 26’
Bruckner Symphony No. 7 / 64’

The guru and his disciple – Wagner and Bruckner – come together in two towering works that exalt in music’s transcendental power to transport us into the sublime.

Principal Guest Conductor Nathalie Stutzmann returns to lead the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in music that glows and blazes with poetry and passion.

The Prelude and Good Friday music from Richard Wagner’s last opera Parsifal bookends the epic tale of the knight who goes in search of the Holy Grail to conjure Arthurian romance and religious awe in music of elusive mystery and overwhelming magnificence.

Bruckner had already paid tribute to Wagner in his Third Symphony, quoting two of the elder composer’s operas and dedicating the work to him. The Seventh Symphony pays more sophisticated homage, at its heart a soulful passage, heart-wrenching in its bleak, beautiful sincerity, described by Bruckner as ‘funeral music for the Master’.

One of the truly great symphonies, Bruckner’s Seventh is a work to surrender to and submerge yourself in for a journey into a world of the imagination and the heart unlike any other.

Presented by RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra