Prom 65: Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony

BBC Proms 2023 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Semyon Bychkov - performed in the Royal Albert Hall where the composer once improvised on the organ.

Presented by Sara Mohr-Pietsch from the Royal Albert Hall, London

Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 in C minor (1890 version, ed. Nowak)

BBC Symphony Orchestra
Semyon Bychkov (conductor)

Semyon Bychkov conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony. The composer described the finale of his symphony – the last he would ever complete – as ‘the most significant movement of my life’. It’s the culmination of a career, perhaps even of an era: music of ‘blazing calm’ and impossible grandeur in which the shattering terror of the opening finally finds not just resolution but transcendence.