On the occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of Anton Bruckner’s birth, the Symphony Season of Teatro La Fenice celebrates his genius with various international conductors called upon for the occasion. In the two concerts scheduled for Saturday, February 17, and Sunday, February 18, Hartmut Haenchen, one of the most celebrated figures in today’s panorama – in 2017 he was named Director of the Year by the prestigious magazine “Opernwelt,” and in 2018 he received the prestigious Richard Wagner Prize in Leipzig – conducts Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major WAB 104, known as the Romantic Symphony. Anton Bruckner (1824–1896) began composing the Fourth Symphony in January 1874, and by November of the same year, he had already completed it. The seemingly brief genesis, however, was destined to be only the first stage of a long process of revision, which would extend almost to his final years. The romantic trait, expressly emphasized by the author, resides in the magical evocation of pristine nature, with the call of the horn – the quintessential woodland instrument – the animation of the hunt, the voices of birds; as well as in the evocation of suggestions from the ancient medieval world, both central themes in the romantic culture of the nineteenth century.
