Luogo e data di registrazione		Philharmonie, Berlino (Germania) - settembre 1979
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Production		Dr. Hans Hirsch, Magdalene Padberg
	Recording Supervision		Michel Glotz
	Balance Engineer		Günter Hermanns
	Prima Edizione LP		Deutsche Grammophon - 2530 828 - (1 LP) - durata 61' 04" - (p) 1976 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		Deutsche Grammophon - 419 083-2 - (1 CD) - durata 61' 04" - (c) 1987 - ADD
	Note		Cover Design: Holger Matthies, Hamburg

In his essay "The Symphony from Beethoven to Mahler", which appeared in 1918, Paul Bekker distinguished between German and Austrian symphonic writing of the 19th century. He attributed an intellectual character to German, but not to Austrian symphonies, considering the latter to be products of undiluted romanticism, with no intellectual basis. Bekker's principal conclusion in this respect was that Austrian symphonic music is a product of romanticism entirely of the senses, since all the ideas clamouring to be expressed are transformed into music without any detour by way of literary or programmatic functions. He concluded, in this connection, that Bruckner carried on the musical line of Schubert. Anton Bruckner was certainly not a composer of literary orientation like Schumann, or even Brahms. Nevertheless, his sensuous romanticism had motivation of its own. In his Ninth Symphony, he went further in opening up hitherto unexplored territory than in any of his earlier works. It cannot have been an urge for novelty as an end in itself which drove him in this direction, but an elemental creative wull beyond the sphere of his senses, influenced by metaphysical concepts of existence. One aspect of this work which brings Bruckner close to Schubert is its incompleteness; like several of Schubert's sonatas, Bruckner's D minor Symphony has no finale - it ends with an Adagio. This incompleteness - though it was not Bruckner's intention - leaves the listener with a sense of nearness to death and transcendence. What may be experienced in late Schubert (and throughout Wagner) as a longing for death appears in Bruckner's Ninth Symphony as preparedness for death - not as a fatalistic insight into what cannot be avoided. Here, Bruckner stands before us as a positive figure: a devout man determined to fight. The character of the music, programmatic in the wider sense, does away with rigid boundaries between component parts of the structure, allowing for the creation of freer formal blocks which influence one another, their inner development clearly resulting from the specific characteristics of their subject matter. In the first movement, Bruckner works with three main themes and motive material derived from them, making use of only a very free concept of sonata form. The Scherzo is dominated by diffuseness of the sound picture, the scene being set immediately by a dissonant chord played by an oboe and three clarinets. The key of D minor is clearly established only in the enthralling string passage to a stamping three-four rhythm (bar 42), and even then the tonality is quickly obscured by harshly conflicting dissonances. The sense of anxiety and disquiet engendered by this movement is not dispelled by its Trio in F sharp major, and indeed becomes still more pronounced as fleeting wisps of sound and jagged figures create in icy atmosphere. In the Adagio, Bruckner opens up broad tonal expanses. Never before did he so plunge into apparent unreality - the opening theme's initial leap of a ninth at first gives no clear indication of its key centre. As the movement proceeds, the transfiguration of the musical material is carried to its conclusion. The correctness of Bekker's assertion is, however, confirmed: here, without any intellectual preconception, Bruckner has entered into a hitherto unknown area of experience, with the aid of his unshaken, unadulterated romanticism. Hanspeter Krellmann (Translation: John Coombs)