Conductor Lü Jia on Recording the Entire Bruckner Cycle

We caught up with Lü Jia to discuss him becoming the first Chinese conductor to record the entire symphonic Bruckner cycle

Lü Jia is the Artistic Director of Music at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) and Music Director of the China NCPA Orchestra.

Prior to that, he served as Music Director of the Verona Opera House, Artistic Director of the Santa Cruz De Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, and the Music Director & Chief Conductor at the Macao Orchestra and Trieste Opera.

Lü Jia and the China NCPA Orchestra have recorded all of Anton Bruckner's symphonies. As of today, Symphonies No. 1-3 and 6-9 are out and available digitally on Apple Music and Spotify.

Symphony No.5 was recently released on November 22, while No.4 is scheduled to be released on Dec 14. The complete box set is scheduled to be released on Dec 22.

We had a chance to chat with Lü Jia to discuss this exciting feat!

Tell us about yourself. What was your inspiration to first become a conductor?

It has to do with my family. My father was a conductor, and my mother was a soprano, so I grew up with their influence. I started learning music relatively late. One day, my father suggested testing my musicality by trying sight-reading, and from that moment on, I began studying music. After entering the conservatory, I studied composition and conducting with the renowned Chinese conductor, Ms. Zheng Xiaoying. Subsequently, I went to study in Germany, and worked at the Teatro Verdi Trieste in Italy since 1991, when I was about 26. After that, I served as the music director at opera houses in Sweden, Florence, Verona, and other places. In 2012, after returning to China, I began my tenure as the music director of the China National Center for the Performing Arts Orchestra (NCPAO).

You've recently recorded the entire Bruckner cycle with the China National Center for the Performing Arts Orchestra (NCPAO). Can you tell us about this project and how it came to you?

We had the idea around 2016 when we were recording Bruckner’s Symphony No. 2, but it wasn't certainly confirmed at the time. In 2017, we recorded Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, followed by Egmont in 2021 and three of Beethoven’s overtures. After that, the overall level of the orchestra significantly improved, and we decided to make this idea a reality. It just so happened that 2024 is the 200th Anniversary of Bruckner's birth, so we started this project. In March 2021, we began recording Bruckner's Symphony No. 9, followed by the No. 7, No. 8 and then successively recorded the No. 3, No. 1, No. 6, and No. 5, ultimately completing the recording of the complete Bruckner cycle with No. 4 in September 2024.

What's personally special about Bruckner?

Personally, I consider Bruckner to be an extraordinary composer of the Romantic era. We can see the magnificent structures in his music. Bruckner was an extremely perceptive composer, pouring all his thoughts, experiences, techniques, and his understanding of people, his faith in religion, his love for the land, his passion for nature, and his own extremely rich emotions into his music. Unlike Mahler, who expressed himself directly, Bruckner followed his unique compositional methods, such as themes, sub-themes, even secondary sub-themes, including organ themes, classical fugues, and a large number of chorales. Despite the commonness of these forms, he used them to express his most complex and stirring inner emotions.

What makes Bruckner's music difficult to understand is the need to go through the ordinary notes to gain insights into his particularly complex inner world and his approach to folk music. Almost all of his third movements embody elements of folk dances, which is a tribute to the most simple and pure musical forms. Although he often expressed doubt about life and his own confusion, his music always maintained a positive attitude. Many of his compositions include the rhythm of a funeral march, yet never felt decadent or sad, which is remarkable about him. He also applied his compositional theories and his experience as an organist to enrich his uniquely characteristic works with harmony. Therefore, it can be said that Bruckner's musical connotations, the depth of understanding of the world, and the spiritual height they contain reached the pinnacle in classical Romantic works.

This officially makes you the first Chinese conductor to lead such a feat. How does that make you feel?

Records are always meant to be broken. The key is the quality of the recordings.  I have incorporated my understanding and sincere respect for Bruckner into the performances and recordings through my conducting, and that is what truly matters. Everyone's understanding of the same composer is unique. The handling of structure, the transition of tempo, the control of dynamics, and the overall understanding of harmony and timbre are all part of your personal understanding of the musical work. Therefore, expressing your own understanding as much as possible without deviating from the original intent of the composer is how you interpret the work. You might have new insights into the music in the future, and this is why a conductor will record the same piece multiple times in different versions.

How do you think the development of Western classical music is in China now?

There are both encouraging aspects and areas that need further improvement. What is encouraging is that China has become an emerging market for Western classical music. Since the 1980s, the public has had increasing opportunities to come into contact with Western classical music. With the advancement of technology, we can quickly and directly learn about the latest developments in the international music world. In recent decades, China has cultivated a group of audiences in many cities, especially in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Guangzhou, who can actively respond to classical music. Raising musical enthusiasm requires the impetus of education. Through frequent participation in concerts, people gradually become familiar with classical musical expressions and works. Why is the Chinese work "Butterfly Lovers" so popular? Because it is a work that we have been exposed to since childhood. The same is true for foreign audiences.

With the increase in audience enthusiasm, China has reached the world's leading level in the construction of concert halls and opera houses in the past few decades, at least in terms of quantity. This also brings a series of challenges: First, how to manage these theaters so that they can keep pace with international artistic standards. Second, how do we produce high-quality programs, and how can we produce diversified programs that cater to the characteristics of different cities. This is a difficult problem because the educational levels and cultural literacy of residents in different regions vary greatly. There is another aspect that needs to be improved, and it is a challenge shared by the whole world: how to minimize the tendency of art to become entertainment as much as possible. I do not oppose entertainment because entertainment is business, and it is difficult to sustain artistic activities without commercial support. However, it would be a big mistake to measure art by money alone.

At present, the investment of capital has spawned many celebrities who have a certain level but are obviously not the best. We should not be deceived by this superficial phenomenon. Many foreign artists, especially those from Europe and the United States, have expressed to me their hope that Western classical music tradition can take root, sprout, and grow in China without being influenced by the trend of entertainment.