Principal Guest Conductor Sir Mark Elder makes his first appearance of the season with Anton Bruckner’s last completed symphony. ‘When the last sounds had died out, a storm of enthusiasm burst forth with elementary force’ wrote the composer Hugo Wolf of the first performance of Bruckner’s monumental Symphony No. 8 in December 1892, which constituted the greatest triumph of the composer’s life and his career’s final summation.

The eighth is Bruckner’s most existential symphony - a sometimes dark encounter with fate that ends in blazing positivity but whose unanswered questions linger long after its last notes have sounded. A work of magical solemnity and captivating timelessness, it is prefaced here by two of the luminous motets that see the composer weaving the same fluid, lyrical threads through human voices rather than instruments. These profound testaments to the faith that kept Bruckner’s creative flame alight are the most perfect palette-cleansers for the power of the symphony that follows.

Image: Sir Mark Elder, photo: Benjamin Ealovega