Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, WAB 109 (Original Version)

Featuring

François-Xavier Roth
Gürzenich-Orchester Köln
Anton Bruckner

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Recording & Production

This recording was made in the Cologne Philharmonie, which has been the home of the Gürzenich Orchestra, one of its two resident orchestras, since its opening in 1986.

Compositional Technique

Bruckner's Ninth Symphony shares the same key, D Minor, and a mysterious onset from nothingness with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, but expands the first theme's appearance to 62 bars.

Performer Biography

François-Xavier Roth, the conductor, founded his own orchestra, Les Siècles, in 2003, which performs on both modern and period instruments, often within the same concert.

Interpretation

Conductor François-Xavier Roth emphasizes the prophetic and future-oriented aspects of Bruckner's original versions, aiming to reveal a "magma of timbre" that foreshadows spectral music.

Composition History

Bruckner's Ninth Symphony was unfinished at his death, with only three movements completed, and many of his manuscript sketches for the fourth movement were stolen by souvenir hunters.

Composer Biography

Anton Bruckner, the composer, died at age 72 in the Kustodenstöckl, rooms in the Custodial Wing of Belvedere Palace, provided to him by Emperor Franz Joseph I.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Bruckner, a deeply religious man, was fascinated by the anatomical question of whether the soul was merely a function of the brain or if the brain was a condition for the soul's communication with the world.