Schubert 9

Our brand-new music director, Stephan Zilias, welcomes the audience in style with an atmospheric symphonic concert. The centrepiece of the programme is Schubert’s Ninth Symphony from 1825, nicknamed ‘Die Große’ (‘the Great’): the composer’s largest and longest symphony, which he himself considered to be his only truly successful one. Schubert’s romantic lyricism and sense of introspection had a profound impact on Johannes Brahms. Like Schubert, in his Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny) he manages to contrast divine timelessness with the suffering of earthly existence. The text sung by the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen chorus in the 1871 composition reinforces that idea.

Speaking of fate: the concert’s opener, the late-Romantic Musik für Orchester from 1912, is an unknown gem by Rudi Stephan. The promising composer died at the age of 28 on the front lines during the First World War, but his music continues to resonate long after his death.