Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 - Wagner: Siegfried's Funeral March (Live)

An organist by training, Bruckner wasn’t compelled to dedicate his life to composition until he heard Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser for the first time at age 38. A humble, religious man from a village that is now a suburb of Linz, Austria, Bruckner was awestruck by the composer. The “Adagio” from his Symphony No. 7 in E Major was composed in tribute to Wagner at the time of his final illness and death. (In it, Bruckner uses Wagner tubas, marking the first time they were ever used in a symphony.) Here, Andris Nelsons and the Gewandhausorchester give a fresh and exciting performance of this hefty work and throw in a bonus track by Bruckner's idol, “Siegfried’s Funeral March”, which occurs during the third act of Götterdämmerung, the concluding, fourth part of Wagner’s epic The Ring cycle. It’s presented by Nelsons and his orchestra in this live recording with lyrical precision and powerful emotion.