Berliner Philharmoniker II

Music is usually understood as a time-based art form. However, in no small part it is also spatial. This programme by the Berliner Philharmoniker brings together two works that think of music in spatial terms and create space through music: Wolfgang Rihm’s »In-Schrift«, composed for St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, and Anton Bruckner’s monumental Fifth Symphony.

Music that remains conscious of space so that it can ultimately leave all restrictions behind: it is no coincidence that the symphonies of Anton Bruckner are often compared with the architecture of Gothic cathedrals, reaching for the sky. This is also true of his Fifth Symphony, whose building blocks of sound spaced out at intervals and multiple block-like changes of timbre and dynamics are reminiscent of a massive sound sculpture.