Christian Thielemann, born 1959 in Berlin, is one of the leading conductors of our time. He began his career as Herbert von Karajan's assistant in Berlin and then went on to become Principal Conductor of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein. As Germany's youngest General Music Director, he worked at the Nuremberg Opera House and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In 2004 he was appointed General Music Director of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra; since autumn 2012 he has been the conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden. Thielemann is a guest at major opera houses, festivals and orchestras around the world. His repertoire focuses on works of the German late Romantic period. He appears as a guest at the world's most important opera houses, such as the Vienna State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera New York and the Covent Garden Opera London; he also collaborates closely with the Bayreuth and Salzburg Festivals as well as the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden.

The Subscription Concerts: When Otto Nicolai left Vienna permanently in 1847, the young enterprise of the Vienna Philharmonic almost collapsed, having lost in one person not only its artistic but also its administrative leader. Twelve years of stagnation followed before a new innovation brought about the long-awaited change of fortune. On January 15, 1860, the first of four subscription concerts took place in the Kärntnertortheater under the baton of then opera director Carl Eckert, and since that time, the "Philharmonic Concerts" have been staged without interruption. The only significant change in all those years was to switch from having one conductor for a complete season of subscription concerts to the present system of having various guest conductors within a season.

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PROGRAM:
Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 8 in C minor, WAB 108 (Haas Version)