California Symphony Season Finale Features Unfinished Masterpieces By Schubert And Bruckner

California Symphony and Artistic and Music Director Donato Cabrera conclude the 2024-2025 season, which has showcased the crowning achievements of composers at the peak of their powers, with UNFINISHED BRUCKNER – two concerts featuring a striking pair of unfinished masterpieces by Franz Schubert and Anton Bruckner on Saturday, May 3, 2025 at 7:30pm and Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 4:00pm at Hofmann Theatre at the Lesher Center for the Arts (1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek).

Declining health, hesitation over how to continue the piece, work overload, or even that the pages were completed but ultimately lost – theories abound, but no one really knows why Schubert never finished his hauntingly beautiful Symphony No. 8. The three completed movements of Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 showcase his signature big symphonic sound, iconic themes, and brass fanfares. Featuring one of the largest ensembles to take the stage, Bruckner's unfinished Symphony No. 9 makes a fittingly epic grand finale to California Symphony's concert season.

“It has been a longtime wish of mine to program Schubert's unfinished Symphony No. 8 with Bruckner's unfinished Symphony No. 9,” says Donato Cabrera. “While over 70 years separate them from one another, they share many of the same attributes and are, in this sense, musical contemporaries. In both symphonies, profound mystery and solemnity are frequently interrupted by emotional and dramatic outbursts. Simple, chorale-like melodies are used by both composers to create a complex web of communal experience, while also suggesting that there is a greater force behind it all. It's as if both are trying to depict, in music, what is beyond the great veil. Music such as this gives us a great opportunity to contemplate such matters on our own terms, without words or dogma to muddy the waters. It is my hope that people will leave the concert hall in a deep and thoughtful satisfaction, truly changed by these two powerful symphonies.”     

Schubert began work on his Symphony No. 8 in 1822 but left only two movements completed, even though he lived for another six years. The symphony was never performed during his lifetime, and lay in storage until the 1860s — more than 30 years after Schubert's death — until it was discovered in the study of one of his contemporaries and performed in Vienna in 1865. Scholars have had many theories about why the work remained incomplete, but none have been proven. What is clear is that it is a masterpiece, stamped with the composer's indelible voice. The critic Eduard Hanslick wrote after the premiere, “When, after the few introductory measures, clarinets and oboes in unison begin to sound their sweet song above the peaceful murmur of the violins, then each and every child recognizes the composer, and a half-suppressed outcry 'Schubert' buzzes through the hall. He has hardly entered, but it is as if one knows him by his step, by his manner of lifting the latch."

Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 was left unfinished at the time of his death. A deeply religious man, he dedicated it to “the beloved God.” He began writing the work in 1887 but was frequently interrupted by other work and poor health. By the end of 1894, he had completed three movements. He is quoted as saying, “I have done my duty on earth. I have accomplished what I could, and my final wish is to be allowed to finish my Ninth Symphony. Three movements are almost complete, the Adagio nearly finished. There remains only the finale. I trust that death will not deprive me of my pen.” He worked on the third movement for the next two years, until the morning of the day he died in October 1896, never completing the final movement.

Season tickets are now available for California Symphony's 2025-2026 season. Illustrating California Symphony's signature approach to creating vibrant concerts, rich in storytelling and spanning the breadth of orchestral repertoire, next season explores evocative programmatic music including Maurice Ravel's Boléro, Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, and Valentin Silvestrov's Stille Musik; the fruitful intersection of jazz and classical in music by Jessie Montgomery, Friedrich Gulda, and George Gershwin; the monumental symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Jean Sibelius, and Alexander Borodin; the timelessness of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart including excerpts from Don Giovanni; and world-class soloists in riveting concertos including pianist Robert Thies in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21, Nathan Chan in Friedrich Gulda's Cello Concerto, violinists Jennifer Cho and Sam Weiser in Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa, and pianist Sofya Gulyak in Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3. Read the season announcement here.

Founded in 1986, California Symphony has been led by Donato Cabrera since 2013. Its concert season at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, California serves a growing number of music lovers from across the Bay Area. California Symphony believes that the concert experience should be fun and inviting, and its mission is to create a welcoming, engaging, and inclusive environment for the entire community. Through this commitment to community, imaginative programming, and its support of emerging composers, California Symphony is a leader among orchestras in California and a model for regional orchestras everywhere.