Luogo e data di registrazione		Semperoper, Dresden (Germania) - marzo 1997
	Registrazione: live / studio		live recording
	Executive Producer		Ewald Markl
	Recording Producer		Werner Mayer
	Tonmeister (Balance Engineer)		Klaus Hiemann
	Recording Engineers		Rainer Hoepfber, Wolfgang Werner
	Editing		Ingmar Haas
	Prima Edizione LP		-
	Prima Edizione CD		Deutsche Grammophon | 457 587-2 | LC 0173 |1 CD - 62' 13" | (p) 1999 | 4D DDD
	Note		-

The son of an Upper Austrian village schoolmaster, Bruckner lived simply as a teacher and organist; only in his early 30s did he seriously begin composition. A humble, modest and eccentric personality, his life and, as a consequence, his music, was dedicated to the glory of God. It took until the 1880s before his work began to receive the recognition and success it deserved. True he had his disciples and admirers, among them the composer Hugo Wolf and the conductors Ferdinand Löwe. Franz Schalk and later Artur Nikisch and Hans Flichter. But in general his was a life battered and bruised by critical reception, mostly at the expense of the enormously influential Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick. Bruckner fervently admired Wagner and dedicated his Third Symphony to the German composer, but by allying himself to the Master of Bayreuth he alienated himself from much of the Viennese public who preferred Brahms, who lived in their midst. Much had been made of this schism, but in reality Brahms, Wagner and Bruckner held each other in mutual regard despite their widely differing personalities. It was mischief-making among their supporters which did the damage. Bruckner was a perfectionist and extremely sensitive to comment and criticism. Following the success of the Seventh Symphony under Nikisch at Leipzig in December 1884 (a triumph which began to spread the composer`s name far and wide) he began to discover in himself a self-confidence which had been sadly lacking before. He began to sketch out his Ninth Symphony in 1887 just a couple of days before completing the final touches to his massive Eighth, which he sent off to the conductor Hermann Levi. This proved his undoing, for Levi confessed himself totally bewildered by the work and declined to conduct it, Bruckner was shattered and immediately set to work revising and rescoring not only the Eighth but also making further revisions to his first three symphonies. The result was that the Ninth was consigned to the back burner, and eventually it took the nine remaining years of Bruckner’s life to complete the three extant movements we have today. Perhaps if Richter (who in the end conducted the premiere of the Eighth in 1892) had been the recipient rather than Levi, we would have a finale for the Ninth. As death approached, in the autumn of 1896, Bruckner’s friends realized that it was not to be forthcoming. Richter even suggested to him that his Te Deum might make a fitting conclusion in the way that Beethoven’s Ninth had a triumphant choral ending, and, according to the conductor, Bruckner was not averse to the idea. It was followed at the first performance in February 1903, under Löwe, but the result was far from satisfactory. It took until 1932 before the authentic version of the symphony was heard. Mercifully the 200 or so pages of sketches for the fourth movement that remain do not provide the basis for someone to complete what is already in itself a fitting conclusion to Bruckner’s life. His earlier symphonies often resolve the anguish of his complex personality in their first three movements by a triumphant finale in which the Greater Glory of God seems to have a hand. It is fitting that the Ninth, without any such resolution, stands alone as a stark statement of the mans character. Beethoven's influence is evident from the outset, building from a hushed tremolo of strings (also found in Bruckner’s First and Fourth Symphonies) to a massive unison outburst of the full orchestra. It develops into one of the most original of movements, with the borders of conventional sonata form (exposition, development and recapitulation) far less discernible than his previous symphonies. The essential and familiar Brucknerian ingredients, those terraced blocks of sound, the organist’s feel for registration and tonal colour, are all there, so too is the contrast between noble themes and stark, angular motifs. The scherzo comes next (as it does in only his String Quintet and the Eighth Symphony), and though it may appear to be a danse macabre with an even faster trio section, it also provides a necessary contrast to the tensions of the first movement. With the concluding Adagio, described by many as Bruckner’s farewell to life and reportedly by himself as "the finest I have ever written, it impresses me whenever I play it", Bruckner uses two alternating themes, the first comprised of wide-arching intervals, the second an expansive melody given to the violins. After a climax of agonized dissonance (no visionary grand apotheosis here as in the Adagios of the preceding Seventh and Eighth Symphonies) there descends an uneasy peace, one which might have been resolved in that elusive missing finale. Christopher Fifield