Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester

‘Symphony of Faith’, “Catholic Symphony”, “Tragic Symphony”, “Pizzicato Symphony” - posterity has come up with an astonishing number of epithets for Anton Bruckner's Fifth Symphony, and there may be good reasons for each of these epithets. The work is full of riddles and at the same time marks a turning point in Bruckner's oeuvre. In terms of duration alone, it goes beyond the scope of all earlier symphonies, including Bruckner's own Third and Fourth. A performance lasts 75 minutes, unless one adopts the merciless cuts that Bruckner's contemporaries made for the first performances.
Bruckner himself is said to have described the symphony as his ‘contrapuntal masterpiece’ - and the final movement does indeed culminate in a gigantic double fugue that impressively brings together the symphonic masses of sound in the most skilful contrapuntal overlays.
Bruckner is juxtaposed with Johann Sebastian Bach, the undisputed master of the contrapuntal movement, with one of his most playful works: the first Brandenburg Concerto. Although the popular title was not coined until 150 years after the cycle was composed, Bach did in fact dedicate these Six Concerts Avec plusieurs Instruments to the Margrave of Brandenburg. The first concerto is entirely in the Baroque concerto grosso tradition and repeatedly allows individual orchestral instruments to emerge as soloists from the tutti.
(Frankfurter Museums-Gesellschaft e.V.)