Kirill Petrenko describes Anton Bruckner’s Fifth as ‘absolutely outstanding’

When the Berlin Philharmonic comes to Symphony Center on Nov. 26 as part of an eight-concert American tour, it will mark the 200th anniversary of Anton Bruckner’s birth with a performance of his Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major. 

“It is an absolutely outstanding piece,” said Chief Conductor Kirill Petrenko during an online press conference earlier this month. “Bruckner wrote in his notebook that it is actually his contrapuntal masterpiece. But for me, this is much more than that.”

The orchestra has been rehearsing and performing this 1875-76 work since August, including a season-opening presentation in Berlin and performances in Salzburg, Lucerne and London. “And now we are coming to the end of the journey with this symphony, and it will very exciting for American audiences, I’m quite sure,” he said.

Bruckner (1824-1896) is best known for his sacred music and his nine numbered symphonies, the last of which was left unfinished at his death. The Austrian composer’s symphonies faced resistance early on, but they have come to be seen as important and emotionally powerful extensions of the musical form.

Bruckner wrote the Symphony No. 5 during a trying time in his life, when he was not earning the kind of money he thought he deserved. He told his friends that it had been a mistake to come to Vienna, where he moved in 1868, and that he was close to suicide.

“Through his work on this symphony, he re-created himself,“ Petrenko said. ”He won back his self-confidence, and he made a triumph for himself with this work. The symphony was a huge success.”

Petrenko considers it one of the most important of Bruckner’s symphonies, because it was the first in which all the elements worked — every transition, tempo and instrumentation. It is possible to study it for an “eternity,” he said, and still not master everything it has to offer.

With this symphony, and indeed, all the music he performs, Petrenko tries to not just understand the notes in a score but a work’s deeper meaning. “I absolutely believe,” he said, “that each piece has its own message, not just that it’s nice music. All great masterpieces have a deep human message for us, to make us better people.”

The Berlin Philharmonic, which has regularly programmed Bruckner’s music since the ensemble was founded in 1882, is marking the bicentennial of the composer’s birth by performing a selection of his symphonies across two seasons. In 2023-24, it presented his Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major (Romantic) and the rarely heard Symphony in D Minor (Die Nullte), a work sometimes known as the Symphony No. 0.

The Berlin Phil’s 2024-25 season features six of Bruckner’s numbered symphonies, a series that started, as noted, with the season-opening Symphony No. 5 — the composer’s first such work that Petrenko has performed with the ensemble.

Growing up in Russia, Petrenko said, he had little contact with the music of Bruckner. It was only after he moved with his family to Austria when he was 18 and continued his studies in that country that he began to learn more about the composer and how he rose to greatness from a surprisingly humble background.

Earlier in his life, Petrenko said, he was only aware of Bruckner’s contributions to sacred music. “But no,” he said, “Bruckner is much more than that. Bruckner is a genuine symphonic composer. He wrote dramatic symphonic music.”