The Münchner Philharmoniker and Valery Gergiev will be performing works by Anton Bruckner at music festivals in Germany and Austria

On the eve of the opening of the 2019–20 season Valery Gergiev and the Münchner Philharmoniker will be appearing at the Berliner Musikfestspiele (Germany) and at the International Bruckner Festival at Sankt Florian (Austria). Marking 195 years since the birth of Anton Bruckner, the Munich ensemble is undertaking a grandiose project – performing and producing live recordings of all of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies at one of Austria’s oldest and most important monasteries – the Sankt Florian Monastery where the composer is buried.

On 10 September the Münchner Philharmoniker will be performing at the Berliner Musikfestspiele. At Berlin’s Philharmonie they will perform Anton Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony and Alfred Schnittke’s First Symphony.
Valery Gergiev will then depart for Rotterdam where he will conduct the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Mariinsky Orchestra as part of the XXIV Gergiev Festival, while on 16 September he will again conduct the Münchner Philharmoniker at the International Bruckner Festival at Sankt Florian. There will be concerts on 16, 23, 24 and 25 September at the Monastery of Sankt Florian and which will conclude with a performance of a cycle of all of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies.

The composer’s six symphonic opuses have already been performed and recorded there during previous visits by the Munich orchestra at festivals in September 2017 and 2018. There recordings were later released on the Münchner Philharmoniker’s own label. This year features Symphony No 5 (16 September), Symphony No 6 (24 September) and Symphony No 7 (25 September). The programme for the concert on 24 September will also feature Symphony No 36 (Linz) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and on 25 September by Richard Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll. On 23 September Valery Gergiev and the Münchner Philharmoniker will host a free concert at the festival, again featuring Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No 5.

The first concerts of the 2019 20 season at the Münchner Philharmoniker’s home venue, the Philharmonie am Gasteig (Munich) will be conducted by Valery Gergiev on 18, 19 and 20 September.