Bernard Haitink conducts Bruckner

The opening theme of Bruckner’s Symphony no. 8 is announced in the depths of the orchestra; with the precise rhythm of the main theme of the first movement of Beethoven’s 9th and something of the character of the Siegfried motive from Götterdämmerung, it contains energy and heroic aspiration, but also a harmonic instability that gives it a searching and unsettled quality.