Watch Simon Rattle with Bruckner’s Seventh in Taipei Online

“We are probably the luckiest musicians on the planet,” Sir Simon Rattle shouted to the enthusiastic crowd who cheered the Berliner Philharmoniker and its chief conductor on the square in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. The overwhelming reception followed a concert with performances of Boulez’ Notations and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 in E major in which the conductor and his orchestra succeeded in an exemplary manner in maintaining the work’s powerful lines of tension and bringing many often suppressed details to light. After previous guest appearances in 2005 and 2011, the Berliner Philharmoniker and Simon Rattle had just played for the third time in Taipei.