Reading the many abysmal reviews that Anton Bruckner had to endure following the first performances of his symphonies, you have to wonder where he found the perseverance and the inner confidence to carry on. To Bruckner, composing meant not just creating something new: it also meant revising works that had already been performed and savaged by the critics. Bruckner must have been enormously satisfied when the premiere of his Seventh symphony finally achieved the breakthrough success that he had been hoping for all his life. Even the audiences in Vienna were delighted, and Bruckner wrote: "Even after the first movement there were five or six tempestuous curtain calls, and so it went on: after the finale there was endless frenzied applause and more curtain calls, a laurel wreath from the Wagner Society and a banquet." So it’s no wonder that the Seventh was spared the otherwise inevitable "suggestions for improvement" from friends: the first version remained the only one. The + in this concert stands for Béla Bartók’s concerto for viola, an instrument that generally fades into the background and is often underrated – but this work’s virtuoso solo part places it at the centre of attention. We are very much looking forward to the Basel debut of French viola player Antoine Tamestit, and to the return of conductor Marek Janowski.