Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 9 in D minor

This symphony was “a highly significant, but very peculiar work”, wrote the Vossische Zeitung’s music critic on 28 October 1903. “With luck, we will now encounter this ninth symphony of Bruckner’s more often in concert halls.” Two days earlier, the Berliner Philharmoniker had given the “eagerly-awaited” German premiere of Bruckner’s final, “unfinished” symphony. Arthur Nikisch, who had been the orchestra’s chief conductor since 1895, was on the podium. Unlike his predecessor Hans von Bülow, the Hungarian-born conductor was a passionate advocate of the controversial composer. He had ensured that Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony was heard in Berlin just a few months after its premiere in Vienna, conducted the work in the following season and, during his 27 years as chief conductor, laid the foundations for the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Bruckner tradition, which continues to this day.

The fact that the Symphony No. 9 only found its way into concert programmes six and a half years after Bruckner’s death is tied up with its special genesis and form. The scrupulous composer spent almost a decade on his last symphonic work - an unusually long time even for Bruckner. He began the first sketches in the late summer of 1887, but shortly afterwards a letter from Hermann Levi plunged him into a deep crisis. The conductor, who was generally well-disposed towards Bruckner, wrote that he was not in a position to premiere the Symphony No. 8, which the composer had just completed: “I sat over the score for hours, even days, but I have not come any closer to the work. ... perhaps much can be achieved through a reworking.” Bruckner followed Levi’s request. In the following years, he revised several other symphonies in addition to the Eighth, and wrote several occasional works. He probably only resumed work on the Ninth at the beginning of 1892. Although his health continued to deteriorate, he managed to complete the first three movements by the end of 1894. In spring 1894, he began composing the final movement, which remained a fragment; only the exposition is scored, while the rest of the movement remains in the form of sketches, which he did not abandon until shortly before his death in autumn 1896.

The symphony was published and premièred by the conductor Ferdinand Löwe, one of Bruckner’s students. In the years following the death of his former teacher, Löwe further revised the score, making far-reaching changes to the orchestration based on his own ideas, toning down the bold harmonies in places, and publishing the completed movements of the symphony in 1903 without labelling his revisions as such. The Ninth was performed in this heavily-edited version for almost three decades. It was not until April 1932 that the work was presented in its “original” form in Munich, and again two years later, using a new edition of the score.

In his thought-provoking book on Music and Farewell, the musician and writer Peter Gülke states that it was a “privilege of the elderly” to be able to detach themselves from the world around them and no longer have to feel themselves in compeititon with anybody else.

“Bruckner composed the Ninth Symphony in the certainty that he would no longer have to take the risks associated with publicity,” wrote Gülke “and would be spared the compromises suggested by well-meaning friends.” Bruckner’s Ninth is indeed an extreme work. The three completed movements continue the formal and dramaturgical concepts developed in his previous symphonies, but simultaneously radicalise them, opening up new worlds of sound and expression. This is apparent right from the start of each movement. In the monumental opening “alle breve”, it takes a good two and a half minutes for the powerful main theme, performed by the entire orchestra in unison, to emerge. The ghostly Scherzo, which comes second, seems to begin mid-sentence, after a pause on a dissonant chord. And the devastating Adagio opens with a cantilena in the first violins, unaccompanied at first, full of highly expressive melodic leaps – a unique feature in Bruckner’s symphonies. The existential force and uncompromising nature of this final complete symphonic movement is reflected in highly dissonant towers of sound, emerging within the first few bars, and intensified to apocalyptic proportions by the entire orchestra at the movement’s climax.