Anton Bruckner - Symphony No. 9 in D Minor (1894)

Conducted by Johannes Wildner with the New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia.

I. Feierlich - Misteriso - 00:00
II. Scherzo - Bewegt - 23:18
III. Adagio - Langsam - 34:16
IV. Finale - Misterioso - Nicht Schnell - 59:19

In 1981, Nicola Samale and Giuseppe Mazzuca published their "Ricostruzione", the first soundly based and properly documented performing version of the Finale. This pioneering achievement provided impetus for long overdue research on all the manuscript sources for the Ninth, which the director of the Bruckner Complete Edition, Leopold Nowak, was no longer able to undertake. Shortly before his death in 1991, he entrusted the task to the Australian musicologist and composer John A. Phillips. This extensive project on the Ninth comprises ten volumes. Phillips painstakingly ordered and systematised the scattered manuscripts. His detailed investigations of paper and handwriting resolved many details of the Finale's genesis. Moreover Phillips was thoroughly acquainted with the theoretical systems on which Bruckner founded his compositional technique. The definitive performing version of the Finale, published in 1991 by Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca owes its validity primarily to his insights.

Bruckner achieved a form in the Finale which took sonata structure as a starting-point, but which, in its great daring and originality, brings the motivic developments of the first three movements to a conclusion; the movement is thus indispensable to an understanding of the whole symphony. The principal theme, with its powerful strides, defies all possibility of development by virtue of its repetitive structure. At the same time it encompasses the entire spectrum of the chromatic scale and so claims for itself an all-embracing status. The second theme, invariably called the "song period" by Bruckner, is derived directly from the principal theme, a feature unique to this movement. The usually lush cantabile quality of the second subject was here renounced by Bruckner in favour of an intentionally barren 'negative image' of the principal theme. All the more unforgettable is the impact of the third theme, a resplendent resurrection of the choral theme of the Adagio, referred to by Bruckner as his "farewell to life", accompanied by the flames of its violin figuration. But for now this vision dies away; the movement is not yet over. The well-known opening figure from the Te Deum appears hesitantly in the flute. Considerable stretches of the development section use this motive - a formal indication that it was probably intended to play a central role in the coda as well. Then, in place of a true recapitulation, a daring fugue ensues based on elements of the principal theme. A further innovation is the emergence of an 'epilogue theme', which is derived from the triplets of the principal theme of the whole symphony. The second group is richer in the recapitulation, towards the end introducing an allusion to the Easter hymn Christ ist erstanden. Following the recapitulation of the chorale, now combined in powerful symbolism with the string figuration of the Te Deum, Bruckner returns to his epilogue theme. It would probably have led into a restatement of the principal theme of the first movement which, as in the Finale of the Eighth, would have completed the circle.

The Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca score was first performed on 3rd December 1991 in Linz, Austria, and published in the same year. The sources for the entire Ninth have been appearing successively in new publications in the Bruckner Complete Edition since 1994. Since then, interest in this score has steadily increased. On the other hand, the music world, invoking a misunderstood notion of "Werktreue", or fidelity to the printed page, often refuses to acknowledge the wishes of a composer, not to speak of the recent findings of serious source scholarship. This by no means applies only to Bruckner: in general, dogmatic and at the same time uninformed adherents of the dubious notion that only a composer's final score has any validity enjoy rejecting completions of fragmentary works. Here, as the conductor and musicologist Peter Gülke once fittingly put it, "intellectual sloth compromises itself with the trappings of humility".

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Anton
• Bruckner
• Symphony
• No
• 9
• in
• D
• Minor
• 1894

[nigelartist1]

A brilliant symphony from the very underrated Bruckner.

One of my all time favourite pieces of classical music...superb!

[BesACB]

Can't get enough of Bruckner's crescendos, alternating with those lulls full of sweet sehnsucht!

[izbef]

Marvellous. Thank you so much.

[lewars1912]

This finale is fascinating.

[lewars1912]

57:31.....Sublime.

[jonathanaconway]

@slothropgr Agreed. I always liked the Mazzuca finale the best. The coda is particularly magnificent.

[drmuller77]

@GoldieG89 where do you get all this art work from which you post to all your video uploads?

[slothropgr]

Oh, and thanx especially for single-filing it.

[slothropgr]

By golly, this works. I've heard several "completions" of the 9th, including one that tried to Beethoven the thing by appending the Te Deum, which was nice even though it's in a very different key. This is easily the best yet, and the playing compares favorably with my other 9th from Haitink and the CSO. Ta!