MET Orchestra & Bruckner at Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 24 June 2026 13:44

Written by Jack Angstreich

Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin leading the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on June 11, 2026. Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera

At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Thursday, June 11th, I had the privilege to attend a rewarding concert—the first of two on consecutive weeks presented by Carnegie Hall—featuring the exceptional musicians of the MET Orchestra, under the admirable direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

The event consisted of a memorable reading of the Robert Haas edition of Anton Bruckner’s monumental and awesome Symphony No. 8 in C Minor. In a letter to Emil Kauffmann, the great composer Hugo Wolf commented on the work’s premiere thus:

This Symphony is the creation of a Titan, and in spiritual vastness, fertility of ideas, and grandeur even surpasses his other symphonies. Notwithstanding the usual Cassandra prophecies of woe, even from those in the know, its success was almost without precedent. It was the absolute victory of light over darkness, and the storm of applause at the end of each movement was like some elemental manifestation of Nature. In short, even a Roman Emperor could not have wished for a more superb triumph.

The impressive if unwieldy, initial, Allegro moderato movement begins solemnly, almost ominously, but a more lyrical contrasting theme is soon introduced, as well as passages of near-hysterical intensity and more purely noble statements—indeed, the effect of the movement is somewhat kaleidoscopic and it closes very softly. The repeating main body of the ensuing Scherzo—also marked Allegro moderato—has a playful quality replete with dance-like rhythms and a powerful, forward momentum but also with a more subdued, central section; the slower, exquisite, sunny Trio is graceful and serene with a quasi-bucolic character and at moments sounds almost Mahlerian—it finishes affirmatively.

The most elevated component of the score—and also possibly the most transparently beautiful—is to be found in the expansive Adagio that follows—its ethos is not so much elegiac but celestial rather, but with Wagnerian echoes and it builds to a brief but soaring climax and ends very quietly. The complex Finale opens with dazzling fanfares but these quickly accede to music in a more contemplative, even tentative mode, as well as some more dramatic measures; it concludes exultantly.

The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.