David Dalle
Thursday January 9th, 2025 with David Dalle
Bruckner symphony no. 9. Balkan Brass Battle with Fanfare Ciocarlia vs. Boban Markovic Orkestar.

Today we conclude my Bruckner symphonic cycle with his 9th symphony in d minor. As with his usual practice, Bruckner started working on the 9th symphony immediately after finishing his 8th in 1887. However, the negative feedback he received about the 8th from conductor Hermann Levi--who had conducted the 7th in Bruckner's largest triumph--set Bruckner on a frenzy of revising his existing symphonies. He did not return to the 9th until 1891, and spent the next few years working on it with interruptions due to ill health, revising earlier symphonies, and composing a couple of large choral works. The first three movements were completed in 1894. The first movement begins with a mysterious tremolo in the strings, reminiscent of Beethoven's 9th. It moves through Bruckner's idiosyncratic sonata form with an ominous first theme and warmer second theme. The music all leads to the coda, as, often with Bruckner, the coda is everything. The scherzo is placed second like it was in his 8th (and in Beethoven's 9th). It is Bruckner's most violent and grim scherzo. It starts quietly with delicate pizzicato strings which are soon overtaken by an insistent pounding rhythm which is present even in its quieter moments. Again, this echoes Beethoven's 9th. The middle trio is, unusually, in a faster tempo than the outer parts and is full of fantastical strangeness. After composing one of the greatest slow movements in all symphonic repertoire with the adagio of the 8th, it would seem hard to equal this in the 9th. But the adagio of the 9th is extraordinary. After an initial plaintive dissonance with a piercing leap up a minor ninth, it moves into music of eternal, unbearable beauty with Wagner tubas and horns, which Bruckner called a "farewell to life". Eventually it leads to an enormous climax ending in a dissonant dominant 13th. Afterwards the music quietens down and stretches out towards infinity, ending in blissful silence. Forever, as it turns out, as Bruckner did not live to complete the 4th movement. He was still working on the finale a few hours before his death in 1896. However, the completed three movements make an extremely fulfilling work. After the exquisite farewell of the adagio, nothing more need be said. There are many superb recordings of the 9th, and we will hear a tremendous one from German Bruckner specialist Eugen Jochum and his 1978 recording with the Staatskapelle Dresden.