The “Bruckner+” Cycle in the Basel Minster is drawing to a close. Anton Bruckner’s 7th Symphony finally gained him his long-desired breakthrough as a symphonic composer, but his new symphony initially caused him to fall into a deep depression. Bruckner’s contemporaries were dismissive of the Eighth (Achte); his music was not appreciated. It took numerous suggestions for improvement and three further years of work before the new version of the full-length work was a success.

The ‹+› in this concert stands for Bruno Maderna's arrangement of Giovanni Gabrielis’ In ecclesiis. Maderna’s estate is in the custody of the Paul Sacher Foundation. Maderna founded the “Studio Fonologica Musicale”
for electronic music with Luciano Berio in Milan in 1955. However, their compositional creativity drew just as much from existing soundscapes as well. With their arrangements,
they wanted to present the originals of the old masters in the new light of modern orchestral sounds. In ecclesiis refers to the original sound space of the Basilica di San Marco and its acoustic conditions, for which Gabrieli wrote the work in Venice.