Luogo e data di registrazione		Alte Oper, Frankfurt (Germania) - settembre 1988
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Wolfgang Mohr - Hans Bernhard Bätzing / Detlef Kittler (HR) - Martin Fouqué
	Prima Edizione LP		Teldec - 6.44251 AZ - (1 LP) - durata 58' 56" - (p) 1989 - Digitale
	Prima Edizione CD		Teldec - 8.44251 ZK - (1 CD) - durata 58' 56" - (p) 1989 - DDD
	Note		Co-Produktion mit dem HR Franfurt.

On 25th November 1875 ANTON BRUCKNER drafted his inaugural lecture for his appointment to the teaching staff of Vienna University. In it we read: "As you will be aware from a variety of sources, music has made such gigantic progress in the last two hundred years, it has expanded and rounded off its inner organism to such an extent, that the present-day observer of this wealth of material finds himself confronted with a perfectly constructed building. The structure of this building and the relation of its different parts to the whole show a certain regularity and follow certain laws: we can see how one part proceeds from another, how one element cannot exist without the other, and yet each forms a whole in its own right." These lines are of considerable interest, revealing as they do the altogether harmonic and self-sufficient view of art of a man interested in organic growth, who is one of the truly tragic figures in the modern musical landscape from a biographical point of view. Bruckner was a thoroughly introverted and deeply religious person, for whom God and art lay asymptotically close to one another. Few musical personalities of the 19th century aroused as much animosity as Bruckner, and it is not without a certain fatality that no lesser figure than Brahms played a signal role in the attacks on this modest composer. Brahm’s silly reference to Bruckner’s “huge symphonic serpents" (1897) was one of the smallest injuries Bruckner had to suffer. But it was Bruckner himself who contributed so lastingly to the development of the “perfectly constructed building” that his works, regardless of all personal and historical circumstances, are among the most colossal ever produced by the Western mind. Nor is the size of these symphonies achieved at the expense of dignity - Bruckner balances the two in fascinating manner. The SYMPHONY NO. 6 IN A MAJOR was composed between September 1879 and September 1881. Only the second and third movements were actually performed during the composer’s lifetime - on 11th February 1883 as part of a Vienna Philharmonic concert conducted by Wilhelm Jahn. The critics, Eduard Hanslick at their head, were once again hostile, but the audience accorded the work a warm reception. The Sixth was performed in full for the first time albeit with unauthorized cuts, on 26th February 1899 by the Vienna Philharmonic under no less a baton than that of Gustav Mahler. The first printing followed in 1901, although this did not reproduce Bruckner’s original score in full. The composer's autograph score was not published until 1937, when it appeared in an edition by the great Bruckner scholar Robert Haas - in all respects a fate typical of Bruckner’s works. The four-movement symphony plays for a full hour; Bruckner dedicated it to Frau and Herr von Oelzelt-Nevin as thanks for rent-free accomodation. The Sixth is among the composer's most concentrated works, and was the product of the transition from the monumental Fifth to the serenity of the last three symphonies. The thematic substance is strongly linked, and this lends the work a special unity. The opening movement, Majestoso, is in sonata form with three thematic groups. The second movement, Adagio - sehr feierlich, is likewise composed in sonata form with three thematic groups; in contrast to the erratic diction of its predecessor, however, it shows the mystical, transcendental dimension of Bruckner’s personality. The adagio is followed by a typical Bruckner scherzo nothing short of demonic in style. Its main key is A minor, with the original trio set in the parallel major key of C major. The fourth and final movement, Bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell, is once again written in sonata form. Three thematic groups refer back to the first movement in the course of this movement with its remarkably ingenious colouring. Bruckner’s instrumentation is exceptionally rich: the work is scored for two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons; four horns, three trumpets and three trombones, bass tuba, timpani and strings. Looking at, or rather listening to this grandiose musical structure, it seems impossible to comprehend with what “infernal deep-rooted hatred” (Loerke) a man as upright and sincere as Bruckner was persecuted as long as he lived. But Bruckner himself knew only too well what he was doing: in his own words, “If what I write is good, it will endure..." Knut Franke Translation: Clive Williams