Bruckner's symphonies in their original sound
Deifiance

Anton Bruckner began composing his Symphony No. 9 in D minor on 12 August 1887, just two days after he had (initially) completed the 'Eighth'. The fact that he was unable to complete it before his death on 11 October 1896 had less to do with his age or a decline in his creative powers and more to do with a three-year interruption in his work on the new material. During this period, he fundamentally revised four of his symphonies. Bruckner is said to have confided to his doctor shortly before his death that he wanted to dedicate the 'Ninth ' "to the good Lord" in the hope "that he will give me enough time" to"complete it". The three-movement torso, which is where he left the symphony at the end, pushes forward to the limits of tonality through the "unqualified unleashing of the harmonic centrifugal forces" thus leaving the door to the music of the 20th century wide open.

The monumental fragment is combined with Wolfgang Amadé Mozart's Symphony No. 41 in C major, which the concert organizer Johann Peter Salomon, probably at the beginning of the 19th century, gave the nickname "Jupiter" to express the almost divine perfection of this symphonic masterpiece, which has never been surpassed.

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart (1756-1791)

Symphony No. 41 ("Jupiter") in C major, KV 551 (1788)

- Intermission -

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)

Symphony No. 9 in D minor, WAB 109 (1887-94)

Les Siècles

Jakob Lehmann | Conductor