This was the seventh and last time that I saw the great, nominatively determined conductor, Günter Wand, perform. It was his last Prom and one of his very last performances.
We heard:
- Franz Schubert – Symphony No. 8 in B minor, ‘Unfinished’
- Anton Bruckner- Symphony No. 9 in D minor
Here is the BBC Prom stub for this concert.
I’m not certain that Janie and/or the Duchess were as awe-struck by this event as I was. We’d actually made one or two failed attempts to see Gunter perform Bruckner in the preceding years, which meant that I was especially delighted that he was well enough to attend and perform the advertised programme that night.
Wand’s touring that summer and autumn with the NDR Symphony Orchestra (now known as the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra) was his last hurrah. This link, and the following embed, is their performance of the Bruckner, a few week’s before our Prom, at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in Lübeck.
Returning to our Prom, it gathered rave reviews.
Here’s a link to the one in Classicalsource.com
Coincidentally, trawling my log, my first encounter with Günter Wand, in November 1986, included the same Bruckner Symphony in the programme. I have a private recording of the 1986 concert, made in rudimentary fashion by setting the 1980s gizmondry to record while I was out!
Now I have found the formal 2001 recording in the public domain, I must make the time to listen to both recordings and see if I can sense Gunter’s journey with that astonishing but unfinished piece.
I was trying to think of something profound to say, to conclude this Ogblog piece. But given the two unfinished symphonies that were performed that evening, surely it is more fitting for me to…