London Philharmonic Orchestra | Triumph and Majesty

Schumann Violin Concerto
Bruckner Symphony No. 8 (Haas edition)

Jukka-Pekka Saraste conductor
Renaud Capuçon violin

In December 1892, Anton Bruckner was in Vienna for the premiere of his Eighth Symphony. After numerous problems with the piece, Bruckner was nervous. But he needn’t have been. ‘When the last sounds had died out, a storm of enthusiasm burst forth with elementary force’, wrote the composer Hugo Wolf who was in the audience. For Wolf, Bruckner’s colossal display of orchestral strength represented the total victory of light over darkness. Robert Schumann expressed no such doubts about his majestic Violin Concerto, whose back-story of criticism and suppression is at last fading in the face of genuine fascination. Renaud Capuçon makes the case for one of Schumann’s most rich and unusual works.