The Bruckner Project

Of Bruckner’s mighty symphonies, the Eighth is the mightiest. Dedicated to Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria (although at one stage the repeatedly lovelorn 63 year old composer sought to dedicate it to a young girl he met at the opera, Marie Demar) Bruckner’s hints at its programme speak of such things as ‘the annunciation of death’ in the first movement and the grand meeting of the three emperor