Symphony No. 9 (Bruckner)

Dedication#

Bruckner is said to have dedicated his Ninth Symphony to “the beloved God”. August Göllerich and Max Auer, in their biography of Bruckner, Ein Lebens- und Schaffensbild, claim he expressed to his doctor, Richard Heller, this dedication of his work saying: You see, I have already dedicated two earthly majesty symphonies to poor King Ludwig as the royal patron of the arts VII. Symphony, note d. Ed. To our illustrious, dear Emperor as the highest earthly majesty, whom I acknowledge VIII. Symphony, note d. Ed. And now I dedicate my last work to the majesty of all the majesties, the beloved God, and hope that he will give me so much time to complete the same.

Genesis#

Immediately after completing the first version of his Eighth Symphony on 10 August 1887, Bruckner began work on his Ninth. First draft sketches, which are stored in the Jagiellońska Library, Kraków, are dated 12–18 August 1887. Additionally, the first score of the first movement is dated 21 September 1887. Work on the first movement was soon interrupted. The conductor Hermann Levi, to whom Bruckner had just sent the score of his Eighth, found the orchestration impossible and the working-out of the themes “dubious”, suggesting that Bruckner rework it. Bruckner set to revising it in 1888. During the revision of his Eighth, he also revised his Third Symphony from March 1888 to March 1889. In the midst of revising his Eighth and Third, on 12 February 1889, Bruckner began to prepare his Second Symphony for publication. On 10 March 1890, he completed his Eighth before making further revisions of his First and Fourth Symphonies and his F minor Mass. Bruckner announced in a letter dated 18 February 1891 to the reviewer Theodor Helm, “Loud secrets today. H. Doctor! … 3rd secret. The Ninth Symphony (D minor) has begun,” concealing the fact that his first sketches of the Ninth had been written nearly four years earlier. Bruckner composed three successive versions of the Trio: * The first version (1889), in F major, in Ländler style with a viola solo, recalls some ideas from the Eighth Symphony. The quarter-note pizzicato accompaniment at the outset recalls the opening of the Te Deum, which was also repeated in the sketches of the Finale. * The second version (1893), in the remote key of F major, also in Ländler style with a viola solo, has a somewhat ethereal sound. The mid-part contains a reminiscence to the Hallelujah from Händel’s Messiah. * The final version (1894), also in F major, is unusually fast in tempo for a trio. The slower mid-part contains, as in the previous version, a reminiscence of the Hallelujah from Händel’s Messiah. The Adagio (third movement) was completed on 30 November 1894. With regard to the final movement, the following entry can be found in Bruckner’s calendar: “24. Mai 1 895 1.mal Finale neue Scitze” (“24th May 1895 first new sketch of finale”). Overall, the work on the Ninth stretched over the long period from 1887 to 1896 and had to be interrupted repeatedly due to revisions to other works and Bruckner’s deteriorating health. Bruckner died during the work on the fourth movement, before completing the symphony.

First performance#

The first three movements of the Ninth were premiered in Vienna, in the Musikvereinssaal on 11 February 1903 by the Vienna Concertvereinsorchester, the precursor of the Vienna Symphony, under the conductor Ferdinand Löwe in his own arrangement. Löwe profoundly changed Bruckner’s original score by adapting Bruckner’s orchestration in the sense of a rapprochement with Wagner’s ideal of sound, and made changes to Bruckner’s harmony in certain passages (most notably in the climax of the Adagio). He published his altered version without comment, and this edition was long regarded as Bruckner’s original. In 1931, the musicologist Robert Haas pointed out the differences between Löwe’s edition and Bruckner’s original manuscripts. The following year, conductor Siegmund von Hausegger performed both the Löwe-edited and the original Bruckner score, so that the actual premiere of the first three movements of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony took place on 2 April 1932 in Munich. The first recording (issued on LP in the 1950s) was made by Hausegger with the Munich Philharmonic in the original version (edited by ) in April 1938.

Stylistic classification#

Bruckner expanded the symphonic form extremely using the negative sound of silence, sequencing phases, widened peaks and decay processes. Bruckner was rooted in the music of Palestrina, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert and also an innovator of late 19th-century harmony (alongside Franz Liszt). Bruckner continues his symphonic path by adhering to the sonata form in the Ninth Symphony. He also expands the form, enhancing it to the monumental. This expansion of the orchestra apparatus is also an expression of this mass increase. According to Ekkehard Kreft, “the phases of improvement in the Ninth Symphony take on a new significance, as they serve to shape the character from the starting point of the thematic complex (first theme) to its final destination (main theme).” Both in the first sentence and in the final movement this is expressed in a hitherto unknown dimension. The entry of the main theme is preceded by a harmoniously complicated increase phase. The use of this increasingly complex harmony makes Bruckner the pioneer of later developments. The musicologist Albrecht von Mossow summarizes this with regard to the Ninth as follows: “To the material developments of modernity must be attributed to Bruckner as with other composers of the 19th century, the increasing emancipation of dissonance, the chromatisation of harmony, the weakening of tonality, the touch of the Triadic harmonics through the increased inclusion of four- and five-tone sounds, the formal breaks within his symphonic movements, and the revaluation of timbre to an almost independent parameter.” The Ninth Symphony has great waves of development, climax and decay, which music psychologist Ernst Kurth describes as a “contrast of sound-specific breadth and emptiness compared to the previous compression and summit position.” Kurth compares this with Stockhausen’s 1957 composition ‘Gruppen’, where structure is also shown in the dismemberment of the individual apparatus instead of the linear genesis, saying Bruckner transfers a wealth of sounds, colors, and characters, and not just spatial sound conceptions on instrumental apparatus. The fugue is unusual because of its prominent position in the final movement of the Ninth Symphony, although the inclusion of a fugue in the symphonic context of Bruckner is not uncommon. As Rainer Bloss writes (as translated from German): “The main theme of the finale of the 9th Symphony has a peculiarity, because its form is changed, transformed in its last two bars … Bruckner’s ‘unusual’ two-bar extension demonstrates this modular regression exceptionally”. Bruckner increasingly refines his technique of citation in the Ninth Symphony. Paul Thissen sums it up in his analysis (translated from German): “Undoubtedly, the form of integration of quotations used by Bruckner in the Adagio of the Ninth Symphony shows the most differentiated appearance. It ranges from mere montage technique (as in Miserere) to the penetration of the sequence with transformations similar to Kyrie”.

Description#

The symphony has four movements, although the finale is incomplete and fragmentary: Much material for the finale in full score may have been lost very soon after the composer’s death; some of the lost sections in full score survived only in two-to-four-stave sketch format. The placement of the Scherzo second, and the key, D minor, are only two of the elements this work has in common with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The symphony is so often performed without any sort of finale that some authors describe “the form of this symphony as … a massive arch, two slow movements straddling an energetic Scherzo.”

Scoring#

The score calls for three flutes, three oboes, three clarinets in B and A, three bassoons, three trumpets in F, three trombones, eight horns (5th to 8th doubling Wagner tubas), one contrabass tuba, timpani and strings.

Performing time#

• Movements 1–3: ca. 55–65 min. (1: 535 bars, 2: 512 bars, 3: 243 bars)
• Movement 4 (completions by others):
• William Carragan: ca. 22 minutes (717 bars)
• Nors S. Josephson (1992): ca. 20 minutes (644 bars)
• Sébastien Letocart (2008): ca. 24 minutes (717 / 725 bars)
• Samale-Mazzuca-Phillips-Cohrs (1992, 2008, 2010, 2012): ca. 25 minutes (665 bars)
• John A. Phillips (2021–2022, based on SPCM version): ca. 23 minutes (649 bars)
• Gerd Schaller: ca. 25 minutes (736 bars)
• Free compositions incorporating material from the Finale sketches:
• Ernst Märzendorfer (1969): ca. 25 minutes
• P. J. Marthé (2006): ca. 30 minutes
• Replacement of the 4th movement by Bruckner’s Te Deum: ca. 23 minutes

First and second parts#

The first movement in D minor (alla breve) is a freely designed sonata movement with three thematic groups. At the beginning, the strings in the tremolo intone the root note D, which is solidified in the third bar by the woodwinds. A first thematic nucleus sounds in the horns as a “(fundamental) tone repetition in the triple-dotted rhythm, from which the interval of the third, then the fifth dissolves, fits into the underlying metric order structure by caesurating strokes of the timpani and trumpets. A symphony can hardly begin more primitive, elemental, archetypal.” The typical phenomenon of sound splitting for Bruckner occurs in bar 19: the root note D is dissociated into its neighboring notes E and D. A bold E major upswing of the horns announces something auspicious. As a result, an extended development phase prepares the entry of the main theme. Bruckner’s music is specific, and this underlies his principle of development and the exploration of sound. Bruckner’s path to this theme creation is getting longer; it takes more and more time for the main idea to break out. The powerful main theme in the first movement impresses as the D minor sound space is first confirmed by the rhythmically striking octave transposition of the notes D and A, with a sudden deviation of the sound to C major, reinterpreted as a dominant to E minor. The theme follows a multiple cadence over C major and G minor to A major, and finally to D major, seeming to enter its decay phase, yet simultaneously transitioning to the lyrically cantabile side theme – the so-called singing period. This interval of falling in succession, which also plays a role in the unfinished fourth movement, forms an integral part of the lead motif of the singing period. Subsequently, Bruckner composes a pristine transitional phase, which is closely repeated between the second and third theme groups. The second theme group shifts the music to A major and begins quietly. This section is played more slowly than the first and the violins carry the initial theme: The third theme group returns to D minor and prominently features the horns. At the end of the transition, there is a pause on the note F, implemented seamlessly. In terms of form, Bruckner extends his symphonic path by merging the development and the subsequent reprise, instead of separating them.

Third part#

Bruckner’s tendency to telescope sonata form development and recapitulation finds its fullest realisation in this movement, the form of which Robert Simpson describes as “Statement, Counterstatement and Coda”. An unusually large number of motifs are given in the first subject group, and these are substantially and richly developed on restatement and in the coda. The main theme of the movement, which is given by the full orchestra, contains an octave fall that is effectively in a quadruple-dotted rhythm (a whole note tied to triple-dotted half note). Bruckner also cites material from his earlier works: at a point near the coda, Bruckner quotes a passage from the first movement of his Seventh Symphony. The concluding page of the movement, in addition to the usual tonic (I) and dominant (V) chords, given out in a blaze of open fifths, uses a Neapolitan flat (II; the rising E figure from bar 19) in grinding dissonance with both I and V.

Second movement#

The Scherzo in D minor () unusually begins with an empty bar. After this pause, the woodwinds intone a distinctive rhythmic dissonance chord with the sounds E, G, B and C. This chord can be analyzed in several ways. The musicologist Wolfram Steineck gives the following explanation: “If undoubtedly the turn to C sharp minor can be heard, it is from the beginning also dominantly related to D minor, so at least ambiguous. … It is the dominant root A, which is split into its two surrounding halftones (and leading tones) and gives the sound its characteristic subdominant character, without taking away the dominant one from it.” The phenomenon of tone splitting is thus significant here too. While the tone dissociation in the first movement concerns the root of the tonic and occurs relatively late, in the Scherzo the note A, located in the center of a dominant A major sixth chord, is split into its neighbor tones G and B at the beginning already. The frame interval of this chord is the sixth, which is thematically and structurally immanent to the Ninth Symphony. Bruckner wrote “E Fund ament Vorhalt auf Dom” in his sketch on 4 January 1889; thus, according to Steinbeck, the chord has also theoretically E as its root, but is a suspension on the dominant (the chord of A major) at a distance of a fifth. Bruckner has composed three successive versions of the Trio: * A first version of the Scherzo and Trio was already fully available on 4 January 1889. The first version of the trio in F major, with Ländler-allure and using a solo viola, recalls somewhat that of the Eighth. One notes the accompaniment in pizzicato with the motif of the Te Deum, that the composer will recall in the sketches of the Finale. Its look, key and date of composition suggest that it might have been conceived as alternative Trio for the Eighth. * In early 1893 that Bruckner resumed his work and composed a new trio. In the second version (27 February 1893) in F major, also with solo viola, the quiet Ländler tone is preserved. It looks somewhat ethereal and its central part, a reminiscence of the Hallelujah from Händel’s Messiah, prefigures already that of the final version. * The final three-part Trio (15 February 1894), also in F major, and fast bar, misleads the listener with its ambiguity and its metrically and rhythmically unexpected shifts. The repeated F major triads are alienated by the lead tones F and C; overall, the Trio has a ghostly effect. While the two earlier Trio drafts of 1889 and 1893 are still more folksy in tone, the final F major trio places the bizarre, the bold, and the fantastical in the foreground, which is why “not a few believe that the scherzo of the Ninth is the most ingenious thing that Bruckner ever wrote.” The discarded Trios 1 & 2 have been premiered by the Strub Quartet (1940). A recording of this performance is stored in the Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv. A symphonic version of Trios No. 1 and No. 2, in an edition by William Carragan, was performed by Hubert Soudant with the Hiversum Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and by Manfred Mayrhofer with the Bruckner Orchestra Linz. Recordings of these live performances are available in the Bruckner Archive The three versions of the Trio have been published by Cohrs. The edition by Cohrs was performed by Vasilly Sinaisky with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. A recording of this live performance is available in the Bruckner Archive. Ricardo Luna has also recorded the three successive versions of the trio in an own arrangement for chamber orchestra in 2013 and in 2022 in symphonic version with the Bolton Symphony Orchestra.

First part#

The three-part Adagio in E major () “has experienced innumerable interpretations seeking to describe its mood and will undoubtedly experience these in the future.” For example, Göllerich and Auer see the beginning “in the bleak mood of the erring Parsifal (the prelude to Richard Wagner’s Third Act of the Dedication Festival)”. In terms of compositional analysis, the phenomenon of tone splitting plays an integral role in this movement’s beginning. Bruckner called this movement his “Farewell to Life”. It begins in tonal ambiguity, and is the most troubled opening to any Bruckner Adagio, although it achieves lyrical serenity and awe. The main theme is a portent for the chromaticism of the movement, starting with an upward leap of a minor ninth and containing all 12 tones of the chromatic scale: The initial tone B is split or differs in its two neighboring notes C and A, whereby the distinctive ninth interval jump gives the beginning of the movement an intensive sound charge. The subsequent chromatic downhill C, B, A leads to a sudden crash of octaves, followed by diatonic upright phrases ending in a plaintive tone. Bruckner did not compose another Adagio that raised a unanimous melodic movement without any accompaniment. Bruckner’s sketches and drafts show this beginning was unplanned. The rest of the strings and the Wagner tubas set themselves in full tone on the third beat of the second bar. The latter are used here for the first time in the Ninth Symphony, a delayed method Bruckner has used in his Seventh Symphony. Here, at the beginning of his mourning song for the death of Wagner, Bruckner calls for these instruments to enter, with their round and dark sound, for the first time. The Adagio of the Seventh begins with a full chord accompaniment, unlike in the Ninth. While in the Seventh, the basic key of C minor is set from the beginning, the basic key of E major in the Ninth is initially completely avoided, only called forth after a lengthy delay. The striking, second part of the motif shows echoes of the so-called Dresden amen. As Clemens Brinkmann states in principle: “Under the influence of Mendelssohn and Wagner, Bruckner used the ‘Dresden amen’ in his church music and symphonic works”. The third, brooding motif in pianissimo is marked by the “tired seconds of the double basses.” In a lament, the first oboe swings up and becomes part of a sequencing phase that spirals steadily, eventually leading to the eruption of the fourth motif: a pentatonic trumpet call repeated in this key E major seven times in each measure without ever being modified " is presented on a tonally aimless chord face resulting from a multiple quintuplet. Michael Adensamer explains this in detail: “One could interpret at least four keys from this layering (E major, B major, C sharp minor and F sharp minor) and still pass the character of this sound. This character lies in the manifold usefulness of the sound. You could extend it up or down until it covered all twelve tones. In this sense it is unlimited, infinite and basically atonal…” Ernst Décsey also highlights this mourning passage, stating: “Bruckner called this passage rehearsal mark B when he played it to the two Helms, returning in 1894 from Berlin.” Near the end of the first theme group, a slowly descending chorale appears. This chorale is cited by Anton Bruckner as the “Farewell to Life”. Played by a horn and the Wagner tubas, it is in B minor (a tritone above the movement’s overall tonic of E): The beginning of the second theme group presents a somewhat more melodic, lamenting theme on the violins: Its second theme, a soft vocal melody, the structure of which is sometimes “compared to the themes of the late Beethoven”, undergoes numerous modifications and variations as it progresses. Immediately before the reentry of the main theme, the solo flute descends in a C major triverse above the pale sound primer of an altered-fifth F major seventh chord from the Wagner tubas, to remain on the sound F after a final tritone fall.

Second part#

After a silence, the second part of the Adagio (from bar 77) follows. This is largely based on the components of the main theme. The existing material presented is varied and further developed. The principle of tone splitting is also evident here, above all in the opposite voice of the flute, which as a new element forms a clear counterpoint to the main theme. Only now does the actual implementation work begin, in which the lead motif of the first theme is carried up by proudly walking basses. Afterwards, the milder tone of the varied lyrical theme dominates again. After a brooding intermediate phase, a renewed increasing wave rises, which leads to the climax of the implementation. Once again, trumpets are blaring their already familiar fanfare, which abruptly stop. This is followed by the middle part of the vocal theme, which also ends abruptly. Only the very last end of the phrase is taken up by the oboe and declared in the forte, stemming from the horn in the diminutive form and in the piano. After a general break, the movement quickly pushes open. The crescendo, which has been stretched over a long period, breaks off abruptly, followed by an almost shy-sounding pianissimo part from the woodwinds, which in turn leads to a chorale-like episode of strings and brass. In the opinion of Constantin Floros, there are two passages in the Adagio, each appearing only once and not to “recur in the further course of the composition. This applies once to the tuba departure from life at rehearsal mark B. … This applies to the other for the chorale-like episode, bars 155–162”. This spherically-transfigured passage has its origin set structurally in the tubal chorale, decreasing with the chorale into the finale.

Third part#

The third part of the slow movement (from bar 173) begins with a figuratively animated reproduction of the second theme. Floros emphasizes that the Adagio of the Ninth, as well as the finale, “must be viewed against an autobiographical background.” Bruckner composed his Ninth Symphony in the awareness of his approaching death. Accordingly, the existing self-citations such as the Miserere from the D minor Mass (bar 181 onward) can also be understood in the sense of a religious connotation. In the third part, the two main themes are stacked atop each other and finally merge; all this takes place in the context of an enormous increase in sound. Bruckner creates a climax, “as if he sought their monumental, expressive power and intensity unparalleled in music history”. The enormous accumulation of sound experiences a sharply dissonant discharge in the form of a figuratively extended thirteenth chord in bar 206. Then Bruckner, taking parts of the first theme and the Miserere, weaves a reconciling swan song. Finally, the Adagio of the Ninth ends, fading away; Kurth speaks of this as a “process of dissolution.”: As the organ plays a sustained E note on the pedal, the Wagner tubas announce the secondary motif from the Adagio of the Eighth Symphony as the horns recall the beginning of the Seventh. Throughout its course, the movement goes back to some of the troubled moods of the earlier movements. A call by the oboe – a quote of the Kyrie of Mass No. 3 – introduces the repeat of the first theme, which is underlined by dramatic trombone appeals. Shortly after, Bruckner also quotes, as a kind of supplication, the “Miserere nobis” from the Gloria of his Mass in D minor. The following final climax, given by the full orchestra, concludes on an extremely dissonant chord, a dominant thirteenth: Thereafter, in the most serene coda yet, the music alludes to the coda of the Adagio of Symphony No. 8, and also hints at Symphony No. 7. These bars of music conclude most live performances and recordings of the symphony, although Bruckner had intended for them to be succeeded by a fourth movement.

The incomplete fourth movement#

Although Bruckner is supposed to have suggested using his Te Deum as the finale of the Ninth Symphony, there have been several attempts to complete the symphony with a fourth movement based on Bruckner’s surviving manuscripts for the Finale. Indeed, Bruckner’s suggestion has been used as a justification for completing the fourth movement, since, in addition to the existence of the fragments of the Finale, it shows (according to scholars such as John A. Phillips ), that the composer did not want this work to end with the Adagio. The materials of this 4th movement have preserved various stages of the composition: from simple profile sketches to more or less completely prepared score sheets, the so-called “bifolio”. A bifolio (German: Bogen) consists of a double paper sheet (four pages). Sometimes, there are multiple bifolios, which document Bruckner’s different compositional concepts. The largest part of Bruckner’s manuscripts of the final movement can be found in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Other works are located in the Vienna Library, in the library of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, in the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna and in the Jagiellonska Library, Kraków. Bruckner’s estate administrator Theodor Reisch and the testament witnesses, Ferdinand Löwe and Joseph Schalk, according to the minutes of 18 October 1896 divided the estate; Joseph Schalk was commissioned to investigate the connection between the Finale Fragments. The material came into his brother Franz’s possession in 1900; Ferdinand Löwe received further material. In 1911, Max Auer examined the surviving material of the final movement, which had been in the possession of Bruckner’s former student Joseph Schalk. Referring to a sketch sheet, which is no longer available today, Auer states, “The sketches… reveal a main theme, a fugue theme, a chorale and the fifth theme of the Te Deum”. In addition, Auer writes: “Once these themes even towered over one another as in the finale of the Eighth.” It is not possible to identify which passage of the finale is actually meant. While Bruckner’s score designs and sketches can be arranged harmoniously, so that a logical musical sequence results, there are five gaps in this musical composition. For instance, the coda is missing. The original material was more extensive and some sheets were lost after Bruckner died. Bruckner’s first biographer and secretary, August Göllerich (1859–1923), who was also the secretary of Franz Liszt, began a comprehensive Bruckner biography, which was completed after his death by the Bruckner researcher Max Auer (1880–1962). The authors criticized the disarray in which Bruckner’s papers were kept after his death: It was an unforgivable mistake that an inventory of the estate was not included and an exact list can not be determined. After Dr. Heller’s Bruckner’s attending physician report the sheet music of the Master were laying around and parts of it were taken by qualified and unbidden people. It was even therefore not possible to find the chorale, which the Master had specially composed for Dr. Heller. compiling a selection of the fragments for the Musikwissenschaftlichen Verlag Vienna. In his opinion, the material he obtained is of Bruckner’s carefully numbered “autograph score in the making”. According to his research, in May 1896, the composition, in the primary stage of the score (strings added, sketches for wind instruments too) was written. In his opinion, half of the final bifolios have been lost to the score today. The course of most of the gaps can be restored from earlier versions and extensive Particell sketches. The surviving remains of the score break off shortly before the coda with the 32nd bifolio. According to Phillips, the sketches contain the progress of the coda to the last cadence. The corresponding sketch for the 36th bifolio still contains the first eight bars with a lying tone of D. A facsimile edition of Bruckner’s surviving final material has been published by Musikwissenschaftliche Verlag Vienna. The largest part of the fragments can now also be viewed in the works database “Bruckner online”. Alfred Orel sequenced Bruckner’s drafts and sketches of the Ninth Symphony in 1934, assuming that different versions still existed. The movement, as left by Bruckner, features a “jagged” main theme with a double-dotted rhythm: This insistent double-dotted rhythm pervades the movement. The second theme group begins with a variant of the main theme. The third theme group features a grand chorale, presented by the full brass. This chorale, a “resplendent resurrection” of the “Farewell to Life” of the Adagio, descends in its first half with a similar mood as the Farewell to Life. In the second half the chorale ascends triumphantly: The opening motif of the Te Deum appears before the development begins, played by the flute. A “wild fugue” begins the recapitulation, using a variant of the main theme as a subject: After the recapitulation of the chorale, a new “epilogue theme” is introduced. Harnoncourt suggested that it probably would have led to the coda. After this cuts off, the only remaining extant music in Bruckner’s hand is the previously mentioned initial crescendo and approach to the final cadence.

Performances and recordings of the manuscripts of the Finale#

In 1934, parts of the final composition fragments in the piano version were edited by Else Krüger and performed by her and Kurt Bohnen, in Munich. In 1940, Fritz Oeser created an orchestral installation for the Finale’s exposition. This was performed on 12 October 1940 at the Leipzig Bruckner Festival in a concert of the Great Orchestra of the Reichssenders Leipzig with the conductor Hans Weisbach and transmitted by the radio. In 1974, Conductor Hans-Hubert Schönzeler played major parts of the Finale for BBC with the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra. In his essay, “Approaching a Torso” in 1976, the composer Peter Ruzicka published his research findings regarding the unfinished final movement of the Ninth Symphony. Previously, he recorded parts of the finale with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 1986 Yoav Talmi with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra performed and recorded the whole symphony, including the finale fragments (Orel edition) as well as a movement completion by William Carragan using Bruckner’s fragments. The set of 2 discs appeared on Chandos Records (CHAN 8468/9) and received the Grande Prix du Disque in Paris. In 2002 Peter Hirsch recorded the finale fragments (Phillips edition) with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. In the same year during the Salzburger Festspiele, Nikolaus Harnoncourt made a workshop on the finale, during which he performed the retrieved fragments with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2012, Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker published a recording of a four-movement version of the symphony, edited by a team led by Nicola Samale. In 2025, Kahchun Wong and the Hallé orchestra published a recording of a four-movement version of the symphony, edited by a team led by John A. Phillips.

The Te Deum as the finale#

Many (alleged) utterances by Bruckner concerning his Ninth Symphony have only survived indirectly. Bruckner, fearing that he would not be able to complete his composition, was supposed to have envisioned his Te Deum as the possible end of the symphony. When the conductor Hans Richter (1843–1916) visited Bruckner, he told him (translated from German): Auer continued, about a possible transition to the Te Deum, in the biography (translated from German): Bruckner, therefore, certainly had tonal misgivings about ending the D minor symphony in C major. Nevertheless, he conceded to the variant with the Te Deum as a final replacement, at least according to the testimony of various eyewitnesses. Biographer Göllerich knew Bruckner and his environment personally. Subsequent biographers drew on Göllerich’s work, so later generations’ explanations and assumptions are sometimes considered less accurate than contemporary statements. Contemporary biography suggests Bruckner improvised the end of the symphony at the piano, without fixing the coda in definitive form and in writing. According to the physician’s report Bruckner was unwilling to write the symphony in the main thoughts, because he was weak. Bruckner died while working on an instrumental finale and powerful fugue. In the fugue the last almost completely orchestrated score pages are traceable. Subsequent pages are not fully instrumented.

Carragan’s completion (1983; revised 2003, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2017)#

The first attempt of a performing version of the Finale available on disc was by William Carragan, who has also done arguably important work editing Bruckner’s Second Symphony. According to Carragan, to create a completion of the Finale, one should have three goals in mind: a faithful presentation of the fragments, an appropriate filling-out both horizontally and vertically, and a positive and triumphant ending. * The initial completion of 1983 has been premiered by Moshe Atzmon, conducting the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in January 1984. The European premiere by the Utrecht Symfonie Orkest conducted by Hubert Soudant (Utrecht, April 1985), has been the first to be recorded (on LP). Shortly afterwards, this version has been recorded for CD release by Yoav Talmi and the Oslo Philharmonic. Talmi’s recording also included the retrieved fragments Bruckner left (Orel edition), so that the listener may determine for himself how much of the realisation was speculation by the editor. *The revision of 2003 has been recorded by Jason Klein with the Saratoga Symphony Orchestra. *The revision of 2006 has been recorded by with the Tokyo New City Orchestra. This recording included the Trio No. 2 of 1893 (Ed. Carragan, 2006). *A variant of 2007 has been performed by Warren Cohen and the Musica Nova Orchestra in November 2009. *The revision of 2010 has been recorded by Gerd Schaller and the Philharmonie Festiva. *Carragan has made some additional adjustments in 2017. A recording by Mladen Tarbuk with Croatian Radio Symphony Orchestra can be heard on John Berky’s site. In a critical review Richard Osborne reports that Carragan uses both earlier and later bifolios. He bridges the gaps more freely by using sound formations and harmonic connections that are less typical for Bruckner than for later musical history (Mahler). He extends the coda by remaining at a constant fortissimo level for long periods and incorporating a variety of themes and allusions, including the chorale theme and the Te Deum.