Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, Schubert’s “Great” C major Symphony, Schumann’s “Spring” Symphony, and the Brahms Violin Concerto: What seems like a recital of the classical canon is actually just a sampling of works that were first premiered by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, an ensemble whose tradition is exceptionally rich. And the Leipzigers also played a significant role in promoting Anton Bruckner’s music.

It was Arthur Nikisch (1855–1922) who brought Bruckner to Leipzig. The conductor first arrived in the city in 1878 and began working at the Leipzig Opera. During the previous decade he had been a bright young violinist in the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra, as a member of which he performed in the world premiere of Bruckner’s Second Symphony, with the composer conducting:  “The symphony immediately aroused my enthusiasm as I played along,” he later recalled. The enthusiasm persisted: At the end of March 1884, Josef Schalk, a pianist and pupil of Bruckner, showed him a four-hand piano arrangement of Bruckner’s latest symphony, the Seventh. Nikisch was determined to unveil the work in Leipzig and did just that a half-year later, on 30 December 1884, conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra with the composer in the audience. The premiere became an enormous success: “At the end, there was a quarter hour of applause,” Bruckner proudly reported to Vienna.

During his lengthy tenure as principal conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, from 1895 to 1922, Nikisch consistently championed the Austrian composer’s work. And a few years before Nikisch’s death, during the 1919-20 season, Leipzig hosted the first-ever complete cycle of Bruckner’s symphonies. Nikisch’s successors continued this unique Bruckner tradition: not only Wilhelm Furtwängler and Bruno Walter, who were the next to helm the Gewandhaus Orchestra, but also more recent conductors. Herbert Blomstedt, who led the Leipzigers until 2005, and Riccardo Chailly are regarded as renowned Bruckner conductors.

So expectations are running high for the Lucerne program of 15 September, when Chailly and the Gewandhaus Orchestra will devote themselves to Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony. Another treat: The concert will begin with excerpts from an earlier work which indirectly helped make the Sixth Symphony possible – namely, Wagner’s “Tannhäuser.” For it was a performance of this opera in 1863 which inspired the almost 40-year-old organ virtuoso and counterpoint teacher Bruckner to commit himself seriously to composition.