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findings of serious source scholarship. This by no movement performance of the Ninth in no way New Philharmonic of Westphalia DDD means applies only to Bruckner: in general, dogmatic corresponds to Bruckner’s conception. To act and at the same time uninformed adherents of the retrospectively as if Bruckner needed to be spoken for, The New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia was formed in 1996 from two from the northern Ruhr BRUCKNER 8.555933-34 dubious notion that only a composer’s final score has or to overrule his wishes, is not only to adopt a superior district, the Westphalian Orchestra Recklinghausen and the Philharmonic Orchestra of the City of any validity enjoy rejecting completions of fragmentary attitude, but is moreover an act of profound disrespect Gelsenkirchen. Since 1997, the orchestra has worked under the guidance of their Music Director Johannes Wildner, works. Here, as the conductor and musicologist Peter toward the composer and his musical legacy. Even in its who has developed a far-reaching concept for the artistic and organisational merger of the two existing orchestras, Gülke once fittingly put it, “intellectual sloth surviving fragmentary state the Finale is first and and a strong position in the region. The tasks of the orchestra are very broadly spread. It serves as the major full Symphony No. 9 compromises itself with the trappings of humility”. foremost Bruckner’s own music - whether one symphony orchestra of the region, with a series of nine symphony concerts and several special concerts annually. Bruckner himself expressly wished the Ninth to welcomes or regrets the radicalism of its form and Gelsenkirchen, Recklinghausen and Kamen serve as permanent concert venues, as well as the whole northern Ruhr (with reconstructed Finale) conclude with the as the “best substitute” content - and represented for him an indispensable area. At the same time, the New Philharmonic Orchestra is also the opera orchestra of the Opera House in should he not complete the instrumental final component of his last, four-movement symphony. Gelsenkirchen. Considerable importance is given to activities for children and young people, and thanks to private movement; a pronouncement for which we should sponsors and enormously active teachers and parents it has been possible to reach a great number of children and New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia actually be grateful, for what composer near death young people in schools and thereby to win new audiences. Another important element is found in collaboration Johannes Wildner thinks to take such precautionary measures? For this Benjamin Gunnar Cohrs with from the region for performances of large-scale oratorios and other major choral works. The orchestra reason alone there should be no question that a three- Translation: John A. Phillips has appeared with a number of distinguished conductors and soloists, has embarked on a demanding series of recordings and undertaken tours abroad, notably, in 2000, to Beijing.

Johannes Wildner

Born in , Johannes Wildner studied , violin and musicology, and was a member of the Philharmonic Orchestra. After positions as chief conductor of the State Philharmonic Orchestra of Ko‰ice in Slovakia from 1990 to 1993, of the Prague State Opera from 1994 to 1995), and as First Permanent Conductor of the Leipzig Opera from 1996 to 1998, he has since 1997 been Generalmusikdirektor of the New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia, an orchestra based in Recklinghausen which is also the opera orchestra of the opera house in Gelsenkirchen. In addition to his position in , Johannes Wildner has also been supporting the restructuring process of the Philharmonic Orchestra, as their Music Director since 2002. He has appeared as a guest conductor of major opera houses, festivals and orchestras, including the opera houses of Graz and Leipzig, the opera festival Mozart in Schönbrunn in Vienna, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in , the St Petersburg Philharmonic, the MDR-Symphony, the Vienna Symphony, the Vienna Radio Symphony, the Bruckner Orchestra in Linz, the Mozarteum Orchestra , the New Zealand Symphony, the Taipei National Symphony and the China Philharmonic Orchestra. Johannes Wildner has recorded more than forty CDs and videos, including complete versions of Die Fledermaus and Così fan tutte, as well as Bruckner’s Third and Ninth with the New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia for Naxos.

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Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) performing version of the Finale. This pioneering its completion. The composition, in all considerably marks, the missing material ‘synthesized’ from known which, as in the Finale of the Eighth, would have Symphony No. 9 achievement provided impetus for long overdue longer than six hundred measures, originally extended material through the use of Bruckner’s own completed the circle. research on all the manuscript sources for the Ninth, significantly further than what survives today, and was compositional techniques. It is thus unjustified to speak Following the crescendo passage sketched by (With Finale reconstructed by Samale - Phillips - Cohrs - Mazzucca) which the director of the Bruckner Complete Edition, apparently largely complete by the summer of 1896. of any kind of free, imitatory composition having been Bruckner at the outset of the coda, the arrangers realised , was no longer able to undertake. Although some of the later, definitive bifolios have undertaken. an overlay of the principal themes of each of the four To this day, ’s Ninth Symphony the first editions. In 1929 the Bruckner Complete Shortly before his death in 1991, he entrusted the task to been lost, the continuity of approximately 560 Bruckner achieved a form in the Finale which took movements as the first climax of the coda, which certain languishes in a purgatory of misunderstanding, false Edition was begun for just this reason, in 1934 the Australian musicologist and composer John A. measures, up to the end of the recapitulation of the sonata structure as a starting-point, but which, in its early Bruckner scholars claim to have seen in a sketch interpretation, appropriation, even barbaric publishing the original score of the Ninth, edited by Phillips. This extensive project on the Ninth comprises chorale, can readily be demonstrated. The great daring and originality, brings the motivic since lost; here it constitutes a logical point of arrival. mishandling, having long fallen “prey to taste” Alfred Orel, together with a study volume which, for the ten volumes. Phillips painstakingly ordered and instrumentation of the c. 220-measure exposition was developments of the first three movements to a This is succeeded by the chorale theme in eight (Adorno). Bruckner had scarcely taken his last breath first time, contained transcriptions of many of the systematised the scattered manuscripts. His detailed probably complete; many bifolios carry Bruckner’s conclusion; the movement is thus indispensable to an measures - derived from Bruckner’s harmonisation of when souvenir hunters swooped down on the Finale manuscripts. But Orel omitted several sources, investigations of paper and handwriting resolved many remark “finished”. In the second half, the lost bifolios understanding of the whole symphony. The principal the chorale by the strings during the recapitulation of manuscripts lying around the room where he died, scattered as they were to the four winds; his details of the Finale’s genesis. Moreover Phillips was 15, 20, 25, 28 and 31 constitute gaps in the score, the theme, with its powerful strides, defies all possibility of the second group - and an eight-measure realisation of which was only secured some time later. The executors presentation was unclear and full of mistakes. Apart thoroughly acquainted with the theoretical systems on contents of which can largely be reconstructed from the development by virtue of its repetitive structure. At the Bruckner’s ascending chorale passage. The realisation of his estate entrusted Bruckner’s pupil from that, his edition of the score, like Nowak’s 1951 which Bruckner founded his compositional technique. foregoing sketches. same time it encompasses the entire spectrum of the of the sketch for the cadence corresponds with the to inquire into the correlation of the remaining 75 score reprint of it, comprised only the first three movements. The definitive performing version of the Finale, Furthermore, sketches have been found to the coda, chromatic scale and so claims for itself an all-embracing climax of the Adagio and the coda of the first bifolios for the Finale of the Ninth. Joseph died on The Te Deum was first published separately in the published in 1991 by Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca long believed lost - a crescendo passage of c. 24 status. The second theme, invariably called the “song movement. This is followed immediately by Bruckner’s 7th November 1900 without having undertaken the task. Complete Edition in 1961 without any reference as to its owes its validity primarily to his insights. measures based on the opening motive and a brief period” by Bruckner, is derived directly from the concluding pedal-point. Above this the arrangers His brother Franz quietly took the manuscripts into his intended function with regard to the Ninth, although The composition of the Finale was not significantly ascending chorale phrase, as well as, most significantly, principal theme, a feature unique to this movement. The realised a “song of praise”, a concluding crescendo keeping, manuscripts which, according to Bruckner’s Universal Edition had published a study score of the different from that of Bruckner’s earlier works. the movement’s concluding 24-measure cadence. usually lush cantabile quality of the second subject was passage of 37 measures, corresponding precisely to the Testament, should have belonged to the Court Library Ninth together with the Te Deum sometime prior to Bruckner had his music paper prepared for him by his Finally, we know from the memoirs of Bruckner’s last here renounced by Bruckner in favour of an length of the final structural units of each of the first (today the Austrian National Library). 1920, and thus to some extent realised Bruckner’s secretary Anton Meissner, who wrote the names of the doctor, Richard Heller, that the symphony was intended intentionally barren ‘negative image’ of the principal three movements and drawing on various clues from the During rehearsals for the first performance on intentions. instruments, the clefs and key signatures, and ruled the to conclude with a ‘song of praise’ in D major, which theme. All the more unforgettable is the impact of the Te Deum as well as from the symphonic chorus 11 February 1903 in Vienna, the conductor Ferdinand Proper critical discussion of Orel’s edition never barlines. Most of the bifolios of the Finale score Bruckner even played to him on the piano. In other third theme, a resplendent resurrection of the choral (1893). Löwe baulked at the Ninth’s radical nature, completely came about. Nonetheless, attempts to complete the therefore have four measures per page, a fact which words, although the final double barline cannot be theme of the Adagio, referred to by Bruckner as his That Bruckner’s own vision of this final glory died re-orchestrating the first three movements; still Finale were repeatedly based on this defective source. becomes significant for the reconstruction. Bruckner found in the material which survives today, we still “farewell to life”, accompanied by the flames of its with him is undeniable. Every performing version by unresearched, the material for the Finale was dismissed. Some were never published or later withdrawn; other initially formulated his musical material in sketches and have a clear impression of the Finale as a whole. For violin figuration. But for now this vision dies away; the foreign hands is and remains provisional, a “work in Löwe, “out of piety for the Master’s wishes”, as he scores were occasionally performed or even published, particello drafts, then notated the strings and main wind only very few measures has no music whatsoever of movement is not yet over. The well-known opening progress”, and it is by no means impossible that claimed, included in this performance the Te Deum, but but have not established themselves, and justifiably so: entries in score using the prepared bifolios which he Bruckner’s survived. figure from the Te Deum appears hesitantly in the . previously lost material for the Finale may come to he had not considered the stylistic discrepancy between none of their authors ever published a detailed account numbered and laid one after another, rather than The complex methods used in the reconstruction Considerable stretches of the development section use light. But such a contingency solution as this, carefully his altered arrangement and the Te Deum, which was of their activities, an absolute necessity in a critical case interleaving them. He carefully regulated the period can hardly be adequately outlined here, but have been this motive - a formal indication that it was probably and lovingly crafted, can still be regarded as preferable left in its original form. The Te Deum was excluded such as this. Apart from that, all these scores reveal structure of the music as he went along by placing his publicised elsewhere in appropriate scholarly fashion. intended to play a central role in the coda as well. Then, to giving up this daring final movement as entirely lost. from his first edition, although Bruckner probably egregious errors in their methodologies and astonishing so-called metrical numbers beneath each measure. The Clues to the contents of the gaps are supplied by an in place of a true recapitulation, a daring fugue ensues That so much of it has survived, given the transmission intended it to be published with the symphony. Löwe carelessness in their handling of Bruckner’s manuscript woodwind and brass parts were then systematically analysis of the surrounding measures as well as by a based on elements of the principal theme. A further of the sources, is a minor miracle in itself. even published his own arrangement without comment texts. On the one hand the arrangers dispensed with scored out. Bruckner thus refined his conception of the knowledge of Bruckner’s rigorous compositional innovation is the emergence of an ‘epilogue theme’, The Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca score was as Bruckner’s authentic score. The editor’s conviction, significant original passages; on the other, a high music during its orchestration, at times discarding methodology, full understanding of which has to this which is derived from the triplets of the principal theme first performed on 3rd December 1991 in Linz, Austria, cited in his Foreword, that the three completed proportion of ‘free Brucknerian’ writing can always be bifolios and replacing them with new ones. In a final day been overlooked by most musicologists. Precisely of the whole symphony. The second group is richer in and published in the same year. The sources for the movements constituted in themselves a performable, found. One arranger, for example, filled a demonstrably work phase, he would have gone through the this approach makes possible what would probably be a the recapitulation, towards the end introducing an entire Ninth have been appearing successively in new closed unit, ultimately became dogma, for the distorted 16-measure-long gap in the score with no less than 100 composition again and added all the necessary futile undertaking in the case of any other composer, allusion to the Easter hymn Christ ist erstanden. publications in the Bruckner Complete Edition since first editions maintained their validity on the concert measures of his own composition! performance directives (phrasing, articulation, namely, a comprehensive representation of the Finale Following the recapitulation of the chorale, now 1994. Since then, interest in this score has steadily podium for decades; in the process such opinions New steps in the resolution of this problem were dynamics etc.). as a completed whole, although necessarily speculative combined in powerful symbolism with the string increased. On the other hand, the music world, invoking hardened into concrete. first undertaken in 1985, as Nicola Samale and The Finale is hence no collection of disjointed in regard to certain details. The minor gaps in this web figuration of the Te Deum, Bruckner returns to his a misunderstood notion of “Werktreue”, or fidelity to It slowly became common knowledge among Giuseppe Mazzuca published their “Ricostruzione”, the sketches, as uninformed authors continue to claim, but could be filled from the surviving sketches and epilogue theme. It would probably have led into a the printed page, often refuses to acknowledge the Bruckner scholars that ‘something wasn’t right’ about first soundly based and properly documented the remains of a score left in the second-to-last phase of preliminary materials with astonishingly few question restatement of the principal theme of the first movement wishes of a composer, not to speak of the recent 8.555933-34 2 3 8.555933-34 4 8.555933-34 555933-34bk Bruckner US 08/07/2003 11:39 am Page 2

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) performing version of the Finale. This pioneering its completion. The composition, in all considerably marks, the missing material ‘synthesized’ from known which, as in the Finale of the Eighth, would have Symphony No. 9 achievement provided impetus for long overdue longer than six hundred measures, originally extended material through the use of Bruckner’s own completed the circle. research on all the manuscript sources for the Ninth, significantly further than what survives today, and was compositional techniques. It is thus unjustified to speak Following the crescendo passage sketched by (With Finale reconstructed by Samale - Phillips - Cohrs - Mazzucca) which the director of the Bruckner Complete Edition, apparently largely complete by the summer of 1896. of any kind of free, imitatory composition having been Bruckner at the outset of the coda, the arrangers realised Leopold Nowak, was no longer able to undertake. Although some of the later, definitive bifolios have undertaken. an overlay of the principal themes of each of the four To this day, Anton Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony the first editions. In 1929 the Bruckner Complete Shortly before his death in 1991, he entrusted the task to been lost, the continuity of approximately 560 Bruckner achieved a form in the Finale which took movements as the first climax of the coda, which certain languishes in a purgatory of misunderstanding, false Edition was begun for just this reason, in 1934 the Australian musicologist and composer John A. measures, up to the end of the recapitulation of the sonata structure as a starting-point, but which, in its early Bruckner scholars claim to have seen in a sketch interpretation, appropriation, even barbaric publishing the original score of the Ninth, edited by Phillips. This extensive project on the Ninth comprises chorale, can readily be demonstrated. The great daring and originality, brings the motivic since lost; here it constitutes a logical point of arrival. mishandling, having long fallen “prey to taste” Alfred Orel, together with a study volume which, for the ten volumes. Phillips painstakingly ordered and instrumentation of the c. 220-measure exposition was developments of the first three movements to a This is succeeded by the chorale theme in eight (Adorno). Bruckner had scarcely taken his last breath first time, contained transcriptions of many of the systematised the scattered manuscripts. His detailed probably complete; many bifolios carry Bruckner’s conclusion; the movement is thus indispensable to an measures - derived from Bruckner’s harmonisation of when souvenir hunters swooped down on the Finale manuscripts. But Orel omitted several sources, investigations of paper and handwriting resolved many remark “finished”. In the second half, the lost bifolios understanding of the whole symphony. The principal the chorale by the strings during the recapitulation of manuscripts lying around the room where he died, scattered as they were to the four winds; his details of the Finale’s genesis. Moreover Phillips was 15, 20, 25, 28 and 31 constitute gaps in the score, the theme, with its powerful strides, defies all possibility of the second group - and an eight-measure realisation of which was only secured some time later. The executors presentation was unclear and full of mistakes. Apart thoroughly acquainted with the theoretical systems on contents of which can largely be reconstructed from the development by virtue of its repetitive structure. At the Bruckner’s ascending chorale passage. The realisation of his estate entrusted Bruckner’s pupil Joseph Schalk from that, his edition of the score, like Nowak’s 1951 which Bruckner founded his compositional technique. foregoing sketches. same time it encompasses the entire spectrum of the of the sketch for the cadence corresponds with the to inquire into the correlation of the remaining 75 score reprint of it, comprised only the first three movements. The definitive performing version of the Finale, Furthermore, sketches have been found to the coda, chromatic scale and so claims for itself an all-embracing climax of the Adagio and the coda of the first bifolios for the Finale of the Ninth. Joseph died on The Te Deum was first published separately in the published in 1991 by Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca long believed lost - a crescendo passage of c. 24 status. The second theme, invariably called the “song movement. This is followed immediately by Bruckner’s 7th November 1900 without having undertaken the task. Complete Edition in 1961 without any reference as to its owes its validity primarily to his insights. measures based on the opening motive and a brief period” by Bruckner, is derived directly from the concluding pedal-point. Above this the arrangers His brother Franz quietly took the manuscripts into his intended function with regard to the Ninth, although The composition of the Finale was not significantly ascending chorale phrase, as well as, most significantly, principal theme, a feature unique to this movement. The realised a “song of praise”, a concluding crescendo keeping, manuscripts which, according to Bruckner’s Universal Edition had published a study score of the different from that of Bruckner’s earlier works. the movement’s concluding 24-measure cadence. usually lush cantabile quality of the second subject was passage of 37 measures, corresponding precisely to the Testament, should have belonged to the Court Library Ninth together with the Te Deum sometime prior to Bruckner had his music paper prepared for him by his Finally, we know from the memoirs of Bruckner’s last here renounced by Bruckner in favour of an length of the final structural units of each of the first (today the Austrian National Library). 1920, and thus to some extent realised Bruckner’s secretary Anton Meissner, who wrote the names of the doctor, Richard Heller, that the symphony was intended intentionally barren ‘negative image’ of the principal three movements and drawing on various clues from the During rehearsals for the first performance on intentions. instruments, the clefs and key signatures, and ruled the to conclude with a ‘song of praise’ in D major, which theme. All the more unforgettable is the impact of the Te Deum as well as from the symphonic chorus 11 February 1903 in Vienna, the conductor Ferdinand Proper critical discussion of Orel’s edition never barlines. Most of the bifolios of the Finale score Bruckner even played to him on the piano. In other third theme, a resplendent resurrection of the choral Helgoland (1893). Löwe baulked at the Ninth’s radical nature, completely came about. Nonetheless, attempts to complete the therefore have four measures per page, a fact which words, although the final double barline cannot be theme of the Adagio, referred to by Bruckner as his That Bruckner’s own vision of this final glory died re-orchestrating the first three movements; still Finale were repeatedly based on this defective source. becomes significant for the reconstruction. Bruckner found in the material which survives today, we still “farewell to life”, accompanied by the flames of its with him is undeniable. Every performing version by unresearched, the material for the Finale was dismissed. Some were never published or later withdrawn; other initially formulated his musical material in sketches and have a clear impression of the Finale as a whole. For violin figuration. But for now this vision dies away; the foreign hands is and remains provisional, a “work in Löwe, “out of piety for the Master’s wishes”, as he scores were occasionally performed or even published, particello drafts, then notated the strings and main wind only very few measures has no music whatsoever of movement is not yet over. The well-known opening progress”, and it is by no means impossible that claimed, included in this performance the Te Deum, but but have not established themselves, and justifiably so: entries in score using the prepared bifolios which he Bruckner’s survived. figure from the Te Deum appears hesitantly in the flute. previously lost material for the Finale may come to he had not considered the stylistic discrepancy between none of their authors ever published a detailed account numbered and laid one after another, rather than The complex methods used in the reconstruction Considerable stretches of the development section use light. But such a contingency solution as this, carefully his altered arrangement and the Te Deum, which was of their activities, an absolute necessity in a critical case interleaving them. He carefully regulated the period can hardly be adequately outlined here, but have been this motive - a formal indication that it was probably and lovingly crafted, can still be regarded as preferable left in its original form. The Te Deum was excluded such as this. Apart from that, all these scores reveal structure of the music as he went along by placing his publicised elsewhere in appropriate scholarly fashion. intended to play a central role in the coda as well. Then, to giving up this daring final movement as entirely lost. from his first edition, although Bruckner probably egregious errors in their methodologies and astonishing so-called metrical numbers beneath each measure. The Clues to the contents of the gaps are supplied by an in place of a true recapitulation, a daring fugue ensues That so much of it has survived, given the transmission intended it to be published with the symphony. Löwe carelessness in their handling of Bruckner’s manuscript woodwind and brass parts were then systematically analysis of the surrounding measures as well as by a based on elements of the principal theme. A further of the sources, is a minor miracle in itself. even published his own arrangement without comment texts. On the one hand the arrangers dispensed with scored out. Bruckner thus refined his conception of the knowledge of Bruckner’s rigorous compositional innovation is the emergence of an ‘epilogue theme’, The Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca score was as Bruckner’s authentic score. The editor’s conviction, significant original passages; on the other, a high music during its orchestration, at times discarding methodology, full understanding of which has to this which is derived from the triplets of the principal theme first performed on 3rd December 1991 in Linz, Austria, cited in his Foreword, that the three completed proportion of ‘free Brucknerian’ writing can always be bifolios and replacing them with new ones. In a final day been overlooked by most musicologists. Precisely of the whole symphony. The second group is richer in and published in the same year. The sources for the movements constituted in themselves a performable, found. One arranger, for example, filled a demonstrably work phase, he would have gone through the this approach makes possible what would probably be a the recapitulation, towards the end introducing an entire Ninth have been appearing successively in new closed unit, ultimately became dogma, for the distorted 16-measure-long gap in the score with no less than 100 composition again and added all the necessary futile undertaking in the case of any other composer, allusion to the Easter hymn Christ ist erstanden. publications in the Bruckner Complete Edition since first editions maintained their validity on the concert measures of his own composition! performance directives (phrasing, articulation, namely, a comprehensive representation of the Finale Following the recapitulation of the chorale, now 1994. Since then, interest in this score has steadily podium for decades; in the process such opinions New steps in the resolution of this problem were dynamics etc.). as a completed whole, although necessarily speculative combined in powerful symbolism with the string increased. On the other hand, the music world, invoking hardened into concrete. first undertaken in 1985, as Nicola Samale and The Finale is hence no collection of disjointed in regard to certain details. The minor gaps in this web figuration of the Te Deum, Bruckner returns to his a misunderstood notion of “Werktreue”, or fidelity to It slowly became common knowledge among Giuseppe Mazzuca published their “Ricostruzione”, the sketches, as uninformed authors continue to claim, but could be filled from the surviving sketches and epilogue theme. It would probably have led into a the printed page, often refuses to acknowledge the Bruckner scholars that ‘something wasn’t right’ about first soundly based and properly documented the remains of a score left in the second-to-last phase of preliminary materials with astonishingly few question restatement of the principal theme of the first movement wishes of a composer, not to speak of the recent 8.555933-34 2 3 8.555933-34 4 8.555933-34 555933-34bk Bruckner US 08/07/2003 11:39 am Page 2

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) performing version of the Finale. This pioneering its completion. The composition, in all considerably marks, the missing material ‘synthesized’ from known which, as in the Finale of the Eighth, would have Symphony No. 9 achievement provided impetus for long overdue longer than six hundred measures, originally extended material through the use of Bruckner’s own completed the circle. research on all the manuscript sources for the Ninth, significantly further than what survives today, and was compositional techniques. It is thus unjustified to speak Following the crescendo passage sketched by (With Finale reconstructed by Samale - Phillips - Cohrs - Mazzucca) which the director of the Bruckner Complete Edition, apparently largely complete by the summer of 1896. of any kind of free, imitatory composition having been Bruckner at the outset of the coda, the arrangers realised Leopold Nowak, was no longer able to undertake. Although some of the later, definitive bifolios have undertaken. an overlay of the principal themes of each of the four To this day, Anton Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony the first editions. In 1929 the Bruckner Complete Shortly before his death in 1991, he entrusted the task to been lost, the continuity of approximately 560 Bruckner achieved a form in the Finale which took movements as the first climax of the coda, which certain languishes in a purgatory of misunderstanding, false Edition was begun for just this reason, in 1934 the Australian musicologist and composer John A. measures, up to the end of the recapitulation of the sonata structure as a starting-point, but which, in its early Bruckner scholars claim to have seen in a sketch interpretation, appropriation, even barbaric publishing the original score of the Ninth, edited by Phillips. This extensive project on the Ninth comprises chorale, can readily be demonstrated. The great daring and originality, brings the motivic since lost; here it constitutes a logical point of arrival. mishandling, having long fallen “prey to taste” Alfred Orel, together with a study volume which, for the ten volumes. Phillips painstakingly ordered and instrumentation of the c. 220-measure exposition was developments of the first three movements to a This is succeeded by the chorale theme in eight (Adorno). Bruckner had scarcely taken his last breath first time, contained transcriptions of many of the systematised the scattered manuscripts. His detailed probably complete; many bifolios carry Bruckner’s conclusion; the movement is thus indispensable to an measures - derived from Bruckner’s harmonisation of when souvenir hunters swooped down on the Finale manuscripts. But Orel omitted several sources, investigations of paper and handwriting resolved many remark “finished”. In the second half, the lost bifolios understanding of the whole symphony. The principal the chorale by the strings during the recapitulation of manuscripts lying around the room where he died, scattered as they were to the four winds; his details of the Finale’s genesis. Moreover Phillips was 15, 20, 25, 28 and 31 constitute gaps in the score, the theme, with its powerful strides, defies all possibility of the second group - and an eight-measure realisation of which was only secured some time later. The executors presentation was unclear and full of mistakes. Apart thoroughly acquainted with the theoretical systems on contents of which can largely be reconstructed from the development by virtue of its repetitive structure. At the Bruckner’s ascending chorale passage. The realisation of his estate entrusted Bruckner’s pupil Joseph Schalk from that, his edition of the score, like Nowak’s 1951 which Bruckner founded his compositional technique. foregoing sketches. same time it encompasses the entire spectrum of the of the sketch for the cadence corresponds with the to inquire into the correlation of the remaining 75 score reprint of it, comprised only the first three movements. The definitive performing version of the Finale, Furthermore, sketches have been found to the coda, chromatic scale and so claims for itself an all-embracing climax of the Adagio and the coda of the first bifolios for the Finale of the Ninth. Joseph died on The Te Deum was first published separately in the published in 1991 by Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca long believed lost - a crescendo passage of c. 24 status. The second theme, invariably called the “song movement. This is followed immediately by Bruckner’s 7th November 1900 without having undertaken the task. Complete Edition in 1961 without any reference as to its owes its validity primarily to his insights. measures based on the opening motive and a brief period” by Bruckner, is derived directly from the concluding pedal-point. Above this the arrangers His brother Franz quietly took the manuscripts into his intended function with regard to the Ninth, although The composition of the Finale was not significantly ascending chorale phrase, as well as, most significantly, principal theme, a feature unique to this movement. The realised a “song of praise”, a concluding crescendo keeping, manuscripts which, according to Bruckner’s Universal Edition had published a study score of the different from that of Bruckner’s earlier works. the movement’s concluding 24-measure cadence. usually lush cantabile quality of the second subject was passage of 37 measures, corresponding precisely to the Testament, should have belonged to the Court Library Ninth together with the Te Deum sometime prior to Bruckner had his music paper prepared for him by his Finally, we know from the memoirs of Bruckner’s last here renounced by Bruckner in favour of an length of the final structural units of each of the first (today the Austrian National Library). 1920, and thus to some extent realised Bruckner’s secretary Anton Meissner, who wrote the names of the doctor, Richard Heller, that the symphony was intended intentionally barren ‘negative image’ of the principal three movements and drawing on various clues from the During rehearsals for the first performance on intentions. instruments, the clefs and key signatures, and ruled the to conclude with a ‘song of praise’ in D major, which theme. All the more unforgettable is the impact of the Te Deum as well as from the symphonic chorus 11 February 1903 in Vienna, the conductor Ferdinand Proper critical discussion of Orel’s edition never barlines. Most of the bifolios of the Finale score Bruckner even played to him on the piano. In other third theme, a resplendent resurrection of the choral Helgoland (1893). Löwe baulked at the Ninth’s radical nature, completely came about. Nonetheless, attempts to complete the therefore have four measures per page, a fact which words, although the final double barline cannot be theme of the Adagio, referred to by Bruckner as his That Bruckner’s own vision of this final glory died re-orchestrating the first three movements; still Finale were repeatedly based on this defective source. becomes significant for the reconstruction. Bruckner found in the material which survives today, we still “farewell to life”, accompanied by the flames of its with him is undeniable. Every performing version by unresearched, the material for the Finale was dismissed. Some were never published or later withdrawn; other initially formulated his musical material in sketches and have a clear impression of the Finale as a whole. For violin figuration. But for now this vision dies away; the foreign hands is and remains provisional, a “work in Löwe, “out of piety for the Master’s wishes”, as he scores were occasionally performed or even published, particello drafts, then notated the strings and main wind only very few measures has no music whatsoever of movement is not yet over. The well-known opening progress”, and it is by no means impossible that claimed, included in this performance the Te Deum, but but have not established themselves, and justifiably so: entries in score using the prepared bifolios which he Bruckner’s survived. figure from the Te Deum appears hesitantly in the flute. previously lost material for the Finale may come to he had not considered the stylistic discrepancy between none of their authors ever published a detailed account numbered and laid one after another, rather than The complex methods used in the reconstruction Considerable stretches of the development section use light. But such a contingency solution as this, carefully his altered arrangement and the Te Deum, which was of their activities, an absolute necessity in a critical case interleaving them. He carefully regulated the period can hardly be adequately outlined here, but have been this motive - a formal indication that it was probably and lovingly crafted, can still be regarded as preferable left in its original form. The Te Deum was excluded such as this. Apart from that, all these scores reveal structure of the music as he went along by placing his publicised elsewhere in appropriate scholarly fashion. intended to play a central role in the coda as well. Then, to giving up this daring final movement as entirely lost. from his first edition, although Bruckner probably egregious errors in their methodologies and astonishing so-called metrical numbers beneath each measure. The Clues to the contents of the gaps are supplied by an in place of a true recapitulation, a daring fugue ensues That so much of it has survived, given the transmission intended it to be published with the symphony. Löwe carelessness in their handling of Bruckner’s manuscript woodwind and brass parts were then systematically analysis of the surrounding measures as well as by a based on elements of the principal theme. A further of the sources, is a minor miracle in itself. even published his own arrangement without comment texts. On the one hand the arrangers dispensed with scored out. Bruckner thus refined his conception of the knowledge of Bruckner’s rigorous compositional innovation is the emergence of an ‘epilogue theme’, The Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca score was as Bruckner’s authentic score. The editor’s conviction, significant original passages; on the other, a high music during its orchestration, at times discarding methodology, full understanding of which has to this which is derived from the triplets of the principal theme first performed on 3rd December 1991 in Linz, Austria, cited in his Foreword, that the three completed proportion of ‘free Brucknerian’ writing can always be bifolios and replacing them with new ones. In a final day been overlooked by most musicologists. Precisely of the whole symphony. The second group is richer in and published in the same year. The sources for the movements constituted in themselves a performable, found. One arranger, for example, filled a demonstrably work phase, he would have gone through the this approach makes possible what would probably be a the recapitulation, towards the end introducing an entire Ninth have been appearing successively in new closed unit, ultimately became dogma, for the distorted 16-measure-long gap in the score with no less than 100 composition again and added all the necessary futile undertaking in the case of any other composer, allusion to the Easter hymn Christ ist erstanden. publications in the Bruckner Complete Edition since first editions maintained their validity on the concert measures of his own composition! performance directives (phrasing, articulation, namely, a comprehensive representation of the Finale Following the recapitulation of the chorale, now 1994. Since then, interest in this score has steadily podium for decades; in the process such opinions New steps in the resolution of this problem were dynamics etc.). as a completed whole, although necessarily speculative combined in powerful symbolism with the string increased. On the other hand, the music world, invoking hardened into concrete. first undertaken in 1985, as Nicola Samale and The Finale is hence no collection of disjointed in regard to certain details. The minor gaps in this web figuration of the Te Deum, Bruckner returns to his a misunderstood notion of “Werktreue”, or fidelity to It slowly became common knowledge among Giuseppe Mazzuca published their “Ricostruzione”, the sketches, as uninformed authors continue to claim, but could be filled from the surviving sketches and epilogue theme. It would probably have led into a the printed page, often refuses to acknowledge the Bruckner scholars that ‘something wasn’t right’ about first soundly based and properly documented the remains of a score left in the second-to-last phase of preliminary materials with astonishingly few question restatement of the principal theme of the first movement wishes of a composer, not to speak of the recent 8.555933-34 2 3 8.555933-34 4 8.555933-34 555933-34bk Bruckner US 08/07/2003 11:39 am Page 5

findings of serious source scholarship. This by no movement performance of the Ninth in no way New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia DDD means applies only to Bruckner: in general, dogmatic corresponds to Bruckner’s conception. To act and at the same time uninformed adherents of the retrospectively as if Bruckner needed to be spoken for, The New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia was formed in 1996 from two orchestras from the northern Ruhr BRUCKNER 8.555933-34 dubious notion that only a composer’s final score has or to overrule his wishes, is not only to adopt a superior district, the Westphalian Symphony Orchestra Recklinghausen and the Philharmonic Orchestra of the City of any validity enjoy rejecting completions of fragmentary attitude, but is moreover an act of profound disrespect Gelsenkirchen. Since 1997, the orchestra has worked under the guidance of their Music Director Johannes Wildner, works. Here, as the conductor and musicologist Peter toward the composer and his musical legacy. Even in its who has developed a far-reaching concept for the artistic and organisational merger of the two existing orchestras, Gülke once fittingly put it, “intellectual sloth surviving fragmentary state the Finale is first and and a strong position in the region. The tasks of the orchestra are very broadly spread. It serves as the major full Symphony No. 9 compromises itself with the trappings of humility”. foremost Bruckner’s own music - whether one symphony orchestra of the region, with a series of nine symphony concerts and several special concerts annually. Bruckner himself expressly wished the Ninth to welcomes or regrets the radicalism of its form and Gelsenkirchen, Recklinghausen and Kamen serve as permanent concert venues, as well as the whole northern Ruhr (with reconstructed Finale) conclude with the Te Deum as the “best substitute” content - and represented for him an indispensable area. At the same time, the New Philharmonic Orchestra is also the opera orchestra of the Opera House in should he not complete the instrumental final component of his last, four-movement symphony. Gelsenkirchen. Considerable importance is given to activities for children and young people, and thanks to private movement; a pronouncement for which we should sponsors and enormously active teachers and parents it has been possible to reach a great number of children and New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia actually be grateful, for what composer near death young people in schools and thereby to win new audiences. Another important element is found in collaboration Johannes Wildner thinks to take such precautionary measures? For this Benjamin Gunnar Cohrs with choirs from the region for performances of large-scale oratorios and other major choral works. The orchestra reason alone there should be no question that a three- Translation: John A. Phillips has appeared with a number of distinguished conductors and soloists, has embarked on a demanding series of recordings and undertaken tours abroad, notably, in 2000, to Beijing.

Johannes Wildner

Born in Austria, Johannes Wildner studied conducting, violin and musicology, and was a member of the Orchestra. After positions as chief conductor of the State Philharmonic Orchestra of Ko‰ice in Slovakia from 1990 to 1993, of the Prague State Opera from 1994 to 1995), and as First Permanent Conductor of the Leipzig Opera from 1996 to 1998, he has since 1997 been Generalmusikdirektor of the New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia, an orchestra based in Recklinghausen which is also the opera orchestra of the opera house in Gelsenkirchen. In addition to his position in Germany, Johannes Wildner has also been supporting the restructuring process of the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra, as their Music Director since 2002. He has appeared as a guest conductor of major opera houses, festivals and orchestras, including the opera houses of Graz and Leipzig, the opera festival Mozart in Schönbrunn in Vienna, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, the St Petersburg Philharmonic, the MDR-Symphony, the Vienna Symphony, the Vienna Radio Symphony, the Bruckner Orchestra in Linz, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the New Zealand Symphony, the Taipei National Symphony and the China Philharmonic Orchestra. Johannes Wildner has recorded more than forty CDs and videos, including complete versions of Die Fledermaus and Così fan tutte, as well as Bruckner’s Third and Ninth Sym