Photo credit to Lili Emery
The Oxford Festival Orchestra is performing Bruckner’s Symphony No. 5 at the Sheldonian on the 27th November. This is the first ever Oxbridge student performance of a Bruckner symphony.
I chatted with Felix, a third year undergrad at Christchurch, who founded and conducts the Oxford Festival Orchestra (OFO) about the upcoming performance.
Could you tell me about the process of founding an orchestra?
So it started as just a little ensemble between friends this Hilary. I realised that we were able to do something a little more ambitious and decided to perform really big at the end of Michaelmas this year. We selected Bruckner’s symphony No.5, which to me is not only one of the most incredible pieces to play, but something that carries with it a very powerful and relevant narrative. We now have about eighty students involved in the orchestra. After five or six months of busy preparation, we finally got the show on the road!
Why were you drawn to this particular symphony?
It’s partially because of the very curious character of the person who wrote it: Anton Bruckner was a quiet professor in the 1860s, who devoted his life to music. He wrote some of the most glorious symphonies that have ever been written for orchestras. There is just something, especially after years of isolation from the pandemic, about hearing eighty players blazing the finale you have been waiting for for ninety minutes that you really just can’t find anywhere else.
All proceeds of the concert go to the DYMA charity, could you tell me how you got involved with them?
Yes that is right, I got involved with this charity about two years ago as a performer first and foremost. I decided I wanted to get involved in charitable work because I myself am at Oxford owing to a similar scheme. In order to continue fundraising we need as much support from the community. We decided in the end the best way to help the charity was to have all proceeds from the concert go directly to the DYMA. It is a cause very close to my own heart, it has been one of the most wonderful experiences.
What would you say to someone who has never listened to Bruckner before? What draws you to classical music?
Well for a start, it will only be about sixty minutes and tickets will only be £6 for students. So it is fairly a short-form way to try something new – and all proceeds go to charity! More broadly, there is a feeling you get when you listen to classical music in particular, especially when playing it. It is unlike any other feeling. I was lucky enough to give a series of lectures over the course of last year, and in a sense what you are doing when you are lecturing and conducting are exactly the same thing: you are the interpreter that takes the piece or idea and figures out how to explain it and explore it. You are letting the idea and the music speak through you. The symphony starts in the depths of darkness and insecurity and gradually transforms into this white-hot triumph. I strongly encourage you to turn up on Sunday and give it a go!
Favourite part of the symphony?
End of the last movement. Definitely. All of the parts lead into the final movement. There is something powerful about listening to a man bear forth his soul for an hour until then, and only then, coming in with the solution. Which is a theme from a German hymn that interlocks with every single melody that has come before it over the course of the past hour. It is like It is there, but it’s implicit, and then he brings it out into the open. It is the most incredible feeling of comfort and safety- I don’t think there is any other piece like it.