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Among the ten psalm settings by Charles Ives, the setting of Psalm 90 stands out as the highlight and, according to Ives' wife, was the only composition that completely satisfied him. Ives was a master at combining hymn-like elements with the modern sound effects of the choir and creating a fascinating sense of familiarity through the instrumentation with four church bells. Bruckner's F minor Mass follows, a masterpiece of symphonic choral music whose premiere was called off because the conductor considered the work "too long and unsingable." A hasty judgment that Bruckner himself was able to refute with a celebrated premiere under his direction. To mark the Bruckner year, this concert program with Thomas Hengelbrock at the podium can be heard not only in the Isarphilharmonie, but also in the St. Florian Monastery in Upper Austria. In Bruckner's long-standing place of work, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra has been putting on benchmark Bruckner performances since the Celibidache era. Then as now, the Munich Philharmonic Choir takes on the demanding choral parts.

With the opening program on the theme of "America", Santtu-Matias Rouvali shows the musical diversity of the continent. Jazz great Duke Ellington is an example of African-American composers. His orchestral triptych "Three Black Kings" is a musical tribute to three mythological and historical black personalities. As a contemporary composer, Julia Wolfe reflects historical and current events in her music. The German cellist Alban Gerhardt presents Wolfe's energetic cello concerto "Wind in My Hair" as a German premiere. Charles Ives is considered the central figure of new music in America and the first American symphonist to emancipate himself from the European musical tradition. In his Symphony No. 2, Ives quotes traditional American melodies and weaves them with references to European Romanticism to create a complex and expressive sound fabric.

"The history of American composition at the beginning of the 20th century revolves around an absent center," states Alex Ross, music critic for the New Yorker, and even titles the corresponding chapter in his bestseller "The Rest is Noise" "The Invisibles." This refers to composers such as Charles Ives, Wallingford Riegger, Carl Ruggles and others who had to work hard to establish an identity as American composers. Barbara Hannigan has made it her mission to bring these "invisibles" back to light. After intensive research in the Library of Congress, she presents a program that is probably unique in its form. It shows American music between 1900 and 1945 as if through a magnifying glass: from radical simplicity to radical dissonance to the fusion of classical and popular music, which reached its peak on Broadway. A picture of musical diversity that must necessarily remain incomplete, but even in this form allows fascinating and surprising insights. Hannigan's particular focus is on the individual, edgy, rebellious voices that sought their own expression and broke new ground.