Opening Ceremony: Opening of the International Brucknerfest Linz 2025

Ceremonial opening of the International Brucknerfest Linz 2025.

Open your eyes, music!" The International Brucknerfest Linz 2025 looks at itself from different angles in the ceremony, reflecting the diversity of the festival programme. For example, Richard Strauss' So Spoke Zarathustra and the Adagietto from Gustav Mahler's 5th Symphony are works for the concert hall that were only 'transformed' into film music through their use in films such as Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey or Luchino Visconti's Death in Venice . Arnold Schönberg's accompanying music to a light show scene is again film music, but curiously without an accompanying film. Rachel Portman's Endangered is then on the programme, a work by the composer who was the first woman to win an Oscar for best film music in 1997; an award that Anton Bruckner would also have found worthwhile? The 'Hunt' scherzo from his 4th Symphony, which radiates with almost cinematic imagery, explores this question and thus weaves the common thread that runs through Bruckner's music throughout the festival.