Anton Bruckner: Symphonie Nr.9

When Anton Bruckner died in October 1896, the news of his death was no more than a marginal note in the Viennese newspaper Neue Freie Presse. However, everyone could read that the estate contained "sketches for the fourth movement of his ninth symphony," of which only three movements had been completed. The next day, while Bruckner's deathbed had not yet been sealed off, the souvenir hunters arrived, "authorized and unauthorized," and fell upon the sheet music "like vultures," according to Bruckner's horrified physician. In the process, countless manuscripts were probably stolen. When the remainder was sorted out six days later, there are still 75 score pages of the Finale of the 9th Symphony left. And so at the moment of Bruckner's death, only three complete movements remain; a trilogy that as a work possesses an unfathomable perfection. The "last word" of symphonist Bruckner is therefore not a tempestuous Allegro, but an Adagio of more than 20 minutes, unprecedented in its dreadful character and harmony. In this the composer casts a shadow back towards Richard Wagner, whom he so admired - and forward to Arnold Schönberg. And just like Gustav Mahler, who years later also closed his "Ninth" with a powerful adagio, Anton Bruckner did not live to see the premiere of his final symphony and its aftermath. Countless composers and Bruckner scholars have attempted to this day to undo the fragmentation and reconstruct the manuscripts of the fourth movement into a whole "in the spirit of the composer." Francois-Xavier Roth and the Gürzenich Orchester Köln, however, remain true to the original three-movement version in their acclaimed Bruckner cycle, and this album is an important milestone in the discography of the work.