Bruckner in the autumn of 2024: both instead of either-or

Sep 11, 2024

Conductor Pablo Heras-Casado has just stepped out of the pit of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus and is now looking up again to Bruckner’s cathedrals of sound. For Heras-Casado, the autumn of 2024 is all about the Austrian composer.

As usual with him, Pablo Heras-Casado is not an either-or, but an as-well-as: on the one hand, he conducts the original sound ensemble Anima Eterna with its sound researchers on historical instruments. They recently played Bruckner’s Fourth in Cologne. It sounded new, like a different Bruckner. The Bonner Generalanzeiger newspaper wrote of ‘surprising modernity’ and a ‘convincing alternative to other interpretations’ – the orchestra played with ‘technical brilliance and gripping passion’. According to Van, it was ‘more than the perfect realisation of a musical text,’ namely ‘a kind of personal message’. Fittingly, the first joint recording by Pablo Heras-Casado and Anima Eterna will be released on 13 September by harmonia mundi: Bruckner’s Fourth.

On the other hand, the conductor does not limit himself to working on Bruckner with an original sound ensemble, but also plays him with major cultural orchestras. From 12 September, Bruckner’s Sixth and the Te Deum can be heard on his tour of Germany with the SWR Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra, and on 27 October he will conduct the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in the Fifth. Before and after this, he will be travelling through Europe with Anima Eterna with Bruckner’s Third, which is also the next Original Sound recording project.

For Pablo Heras-Casado, it is not the how that matters, but the what. “For me, it’s always about getting to the roots of the works and starting from them. I explore these. It doesn’t matter whether this is done with an original ensemble or a large orchestra.” He uses their respective characteristics and possibilities in the spirit of the composition, which he always reads as part of music history – with a before and after.