Lucerne Festival Orchestra | Yannick Nézet-séguin by Boulanger, Bruckner, S 19 aug 2023, No (2023/2023), Diriģents Yannick Nézet-Séguin, KKL Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland

The Canadian Yannick Nézet-Séguin is the great feminist among the podium stars. At the last Lucerne Summer Festival he presented the Afro-American composer Florence Price with her rousing First Symphony, this time he put a work on the program by the Frenchwoman Lili Boulanger, who died in 1918 at the age of only 24. It marks her farewell to the world: a delicate tone painting that, despite all its beauty, harbors a deep sadness. Anton Bruckner's works also aim at the hereafter, at union with God, although they traverse completely different dimensions and soundscapes than Boulanger's miniatures. Bruckner himself described his Eighth as a “mystery”, without revealing its secret. "In all Bruckner symphonies there is a religious aspect — a mystical, spiritual element," says Nézet-Séguin.