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This concert is over. Date: Tue. 4. June 2024 19:00 (18:00)

Venue: Suntory Hall Venue Info Seat

[Bruckner 200]

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Eliahu INBAL, Conductor

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Bruckner: Symphony No.9 in D minor WAB109 (with Finale:2021-22 SPCM version*) [*Japan premiere]

Program Notes

At the time of Brucknerʼs death, Symphony No. 9 was completed up to the third movement, but the fourth movement finale was unfinished. Thereafter, performances of Symphony No. 9 generally ended with the third movement, and playing Brucknerʼs Te Deum instead of the finale, which he had suggested shortly before his death, did not gain popularity.
　From the 1960s, attempts to complete the finale from drafts and sketches left by the composer began in earnest. Among them, an edition by Nicola Samale and Giuseppe Mazzuca was first published in 1983. It was recorded in 1986 by Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eliahu Inbal (one of the earliest recordings of the completed symphony). The Samale and Mazzuca edition was later revised by John A. Phillips and Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs (Samale, Phillips, Cohrs, and Mazzuca edition; SPCM edition).
　Today, following the first three movements of the Nowak edition, we present the fourth movement of the latest SPCM edition revised by Phillips. For this concert, Dr. Phillips himself has contributed a commentary on the music, which is published below.
Monthly TMSO
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Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, WAB 109

“Dem lieben Gott” [To the dear Lord]

Ⅰ Feierlich, Misterioso [Solemn; mysterious]
Ⅱ Scherzo: Bewegt, lebhaft [Allegro, lively]
Ⅲ Adagio: Langsam, feierlich [Slow, solemn]
Ⅳ Finale: Misterioso, nicht schnell [Mysterious, not fast]

Ⅰ-Ⅲ; Nowak edition

Performing Version of the Finale 1983-2012 by Nicola Samale, John A. Phillips, Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs and Giuseppe Mazzuca; revision John A. Phillips 2021-22; Japanese Premiere.

Anton Bruckner: Born 4 September 1824 in Ansfelden, Austria; died 11 October 1896 in Vienna

　Begun in 1887, Brucknerʼs Ninth Symphony is traditionally performed in the three movements Bruckner had completed by 1894. However, the last 18 months of his life were spent working assiduously on its Finale. It was so important to him that the symphony not conclude with the third movement that he directed his Te Deum be performed following the Adagio.
　But among the 490 pages of manuscripts that survive for the Finale, Bruckner left an orchestral score, no less definitive than those of the first three movements, likewise notated on numbered bifolios (four-page double sheets, mostly 16 bars long). About the first third of the Finale was fully completed, the rest was left in string score, in ink, with important wind entries in ink and pencil.
　The Ninth was to be Brucknerʼs masterwork, his opus summum musices; its Finale had been emerging in Brucknerʼs mind for almost a decade before he embarked on its detailed composition. Its score reveals that Brucknerʼs originality, clarity of conception and contrapuntal skill remained undiminished.
　Tragically, a number of the score bifolios, among other manuscripts, were stolen by souvenir hunters from Brucknerʼs apartment following his death. At the 1903 premiere of the Ninth, the first three movements were presented in a reorchestrated arrangement, its conductor Ferdinand Löwe lying outright about the existence of a Finale. The myth that Bruckner left only a few indecipherable ‘sketchesʼ is still in currency today. The manuscripts were first published in 1934 in the Bruckner Complete Edition, but errors in their transcription led to further misunderstandings. In 1963, British musicologist Hans Ferdinand Redlich justly wrote of the Ninth: “Rarely has the posthumous work of a great composer been treated by posterity with such persistent unfairness.”
　Begun in 1983, efforts to reconstruct the Finale by the editorial team of Nicola Samale, John Phillips, Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs and Giuseppe Mazzuca (hence, ‘SPCMʼ) led to the publication of Phillipsʼ reconstruction of Brucknerʼs autograph (1994, 1999) and facsimile edition of the original manuscripts (1996) in the Bruckner Complete Edition. This brought about a revolution in informed musicological opinion. Phillips and Cohrs went on to independently write doctoral theses on the Ninth.
　Their exhaustive research showed that, despite the lost bifolios, far more survives for the Finale than was previously believed, including extensive drafts for the coda, now included in their entirety in this latest revision. The missing bifolios can be reconstructed from Brucknerʼs particello or short-score sketches preceding the composition of the score. The movementʼs form, its motivic and harmonic continuity is apparent throughout. Bruckner was also a profoundly methodical and theoretically insightful composer whose artistic decisions followed a readily construable compositional logic. Reconstructing the Finaleʼs compositional continuity and completing its orchestration was a far less subjective process than it might seem.
　The SPCM Finale has been progressively refined throughout its history. At 649 bars, the current revision, which has the wholehearted approval of Maestro Samale, is four bars shorter than in 2012 (the version recorded so successfully by Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic). It is now even more solidly based on the original materials: 440 bars represent the continuity of surviving score bifolios (68%), a further 122 were reconstructed from the sketches or continuity drafts (19%). Only 87 bars (13%, 9 bars fewer than in 2012), required more ‘forensicʼ restoration.
　Expressly conceived as his last symphony and musical testament, the Ninth was dedicated, with Brucknerʼs characteristic sincerity, to “the dear Lord”; he also referred to it as “Homage to Divine Majesty”. It was to be in D minor, like Beethovenʼs Ninth, itself an act of homage to that celebrated work. Begun only days after Bruckner completed his Eighth in August 1887, composition of the Ninth was delayed for years by Brucknerʼs retrospective revisions of several previous symphonies, designed to bring his major works to the same exacting level of compositional craftmanship.
　Like his Fifth, Brucknerʼs Ninth was actually orientated around a Finale of great weight and emotional power, intended to end not in resigned beatitude but in triumphant glory. Bruckner marshalled up all the numinous, ‘gothicʼ elements of the key of D minor found in Beethoven, raising them to greater levels of mystery, solemnity, rapture and, at times, sheer terror. As in his Seventh and Eighth, Bruckner enriched his orchestral palette with the dark, mysterious sound of four Wagner tubas, given important roles in the last two movements. The work is harmonically rich beyond compare: Dramatic dissonances such as the opening of the Scherzo or climax of the Adagio, not to mention many remarkable passages in the Finale, foreshadow twentieth-century harmonic developments.

　The first movement employs Brucknerʼs characteristic sonata form, an exposition of three groups of themes, developed and reprised, followed by a coda. The ominous opening of the first movement builds into its overwhelming principal theme, perhaps representing the “Divine Majesty” to which the work was to pay homage. The second subject brings a rapturous spiritual calm, the third, a sense of the tragedy of human existence. Bruckner fuses development and reprise together into a long counter-statement, rising to overwhelming climaxes. The coda is concise but monumental.
　The Scherzo which follows seems demonically supercharged, a veritable Totentanz, or dance of death; Bruckner may even have intended a vision of Hell. The unearthly Trio is unlike anything else he ever composed.
　The Adagio is a deeply moving retrospective, rising to transcendent, visionary heights. Two broad theme groups are each restated, followed by a long, climactic coda. The initial entry of the trumpets (bar 5, in D major) probably foreshadowed the “Allelujah” with which Bruckner intended to conclude the Finale. Just after the first climax a sorrowful theme emerges in the Wagner tubas: Bruckner referred to this as his “Farewell to Life”. It recurs later as an impassioned chorale in the strings, and will return again as the glorious chorale theme of the Finale. The Adagioʼs coda ascends to a climax of terrifying power – perhaps a confrontation with death itself – followed by a passage that quotes the “miserere” of Brucknerʼs own D minor mass and prefigures the opening of the Finale: Earthly life is over.
　If the Adagio was Brucknerʼs farewell to life, he must have intended the Finale, good Catholic that he was, to be the soulʼs journey through Purgatory – and to end with its salvation. The initial compulsive, dotted rhythms and “demonic” tritone progressions dominate the whole movement; this ominous beginning builds into another terrifying principal theme: God appears again as remorseless judge. The second group, initially desolate, later recalls happier memories. The third group is the magnificent chorale prefigured in the Adagio, here symbolising redemption, but it break off catastrophically; the soul has yet much to undergo.
　The development is dominated by the four-note motive Bruckner borrowed from his Te Deum, symbolising faith. The principal theme then returns as a daring fugue, followed by a long crescendo culminating in a new, victorious theme in the horns; but this too breaks off in an echoing void. The reprise of the second group follows, bringing two musical allusions: firstly, to the chorale, and secondly, to the melody of the ancient liturgical song “Christ is risen”, a favourite of the composer; this also returns us to D minor, and suddenly, in one of the greatest passages in all Bruckner, the chorale returns in D major united with the Te Deum “faith” motive: we are coming home at last. It segues into the triumphant horn theme, only to confront us again with the forbidding main theme of the first movement…
　We can now reconstruct Brucknerʼs coda even more accurately. A mysteriously circling ascent led into the final chorale statement for which we have the allusion in the reprise as well as a late sketch. Then: three remarkable drafts, dated May 1896, are now included in their entirety. The restored passage allows the themes of first movement and Finale to combine in symbolic demonstration of the unity underlying the whole symphony. A final, terrifyingly dissonant passage conclusively cadences into D major: Salvation has been achieved.
　Bruckner stated that he would here introduce, “with great power”, an “Allelujah” prefigured in an earlier movement, “in order that the symphony end with a hymn of praise to the dear Lord”. This can be identified as the already-mentioned first entry of the trumpets in the Adagio. Numerous compositional clues reveal how Bruckner would have transformed this into his concluding “hymn of praise”.

©Dr John A Phillips, Sydney, 2024

Ⅰ-Ⅲ: Composed in 1887-94
Ⅳ: Composed in 1895-96
Ⅳ SPCM edition: Reconstructed in 1983-2012; Revised in 2021-22

Premiere of Ⅰ-Ⅲ Löwe edition: February 11, 1903 in Vienna
Premiere of Ⅰ-Ⅲ original edition: April 2, 1932 in Munich

World Premiere of Ⅳ SPCM 2021-22: November 30, 2022 in London
London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Robin Ticciati
Japan Premiere of Ⅳ SPCM 2021-22: June 4 & 5, 2024 in Tokyo
Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eliahu Inbal

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