STEPHEN HOUGH PERFORMS MENDELSSOHN
of the Eighth by his revered friend, the conductor Hermann Levi, instigated a terrible creative crisis in this most sensitive and insecure of composers. For the next four years, Bruckner laid the Ninth aside and— goaded by his well-intentioned but musically inept disciples— feverishly overhauled the scores of not only the Eighth, but his first four symphonies as well. Precious time was lost that might have brought the Ninth to completion.
To understand Bruckner’ s unique mystical world, we need to know something about the man himself. Born in rural Upper Austria to a family of sturdy peasant origins, he was the latest bloomer of all the major composers. His early life was devoted to teaching and service as organist in local churches. With great reluctance, he left his provincial sanctuary for Vienna in 1868 at the age of 44. There, he wrote his last eight symphonies while building a reputation at the Vienna Conservatory as a beloved and eccentric teacher of composition. Naive and socially insecure, Bruckner never lost his rural Upper Austrian accent and was ill-equipped to deal with the sophisticated machinations of Viennese musical politics. Devoted to and somewhat influenced by Wagner’ s music, he bore the brunt of the anti-Wagnerian attacks by the pro-Brahms clique, led by the Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick. Throughout all his trials, Bruckner was sustained by his profound Catholic faith.
Thus all Bruckner’ s symphonies can be understood as spiritual quests expressed in musical terms. The Ninth, written by a man who knew he was close to death, is the most urgent of these quests: a battle between the composer’ s faith and fears. Despite his religious faith, Bruckner suffered bouts of paralyzing depression throughout his life, and in the Ninth’ s music, we experience this literally life-anddeath struggle with his demons and his failing body.
Listening to the Ninth To enter fully into the world of a Bruckner symphony, listeners must turn off their cell phones and readjust their 21 st-century internal clocks. Inspired by Wagner’ s music dramas and Beethoven’ s Ninth Symphony,
Bruckner conceived his symphonic movements on a very grand scale. His themes are extremely long: really families of themes built cumulatively from many elements. He also had a habit, heard often in the Ninth, of pausing before launching a new phase of his structure(“ But look, if I have something important to say I must first take a deep breath!” he once explained), and these pauses can be helpful guideposts.
First movement: As is customary in Bruckner’ s symphonies, the music stirs from a primeval void of soft tremolo strings. From the mists, the eight horns— they are the Ninth’ s signature instruments— gradually gather the elements of the first theme family. In a long crescendo, this finally culminates with the horns shouting out the terrifying last phrase in a triple-forte“ Bruckner unison.” This music is rooted in D minor, the key Bruckner called his favorite; it is also the key of Beethoven’ s Ninth. Now Bruckner pauses for breath before launching the second theme family: beautiful music for strings in A major that aspires to happiness but is tonally unstable. This is crushed by the third theme family: a rocking dirge in strings over weeping woodwinds, back in D minor. This too reaches an immense climax, which closes the first statement of the movement’ s themes.
Rather than thinking in terms of traditional symphonic sonata form, Bruckner scholar Robert Simpson suggests we listen to this movement as statement, expanded counterstatement( a combination of development and recapitulation) and large closing coda. In the counterstatement, the feeling of crisis and anxiety is greatly intensified in the now stretched-out themes. When the coda finally arrives over a muffled drum roll, it reinforces this sense of searing tragedy as a brass chorale swells from gentleness to a violent close, shattered by dissonant trumpets.
Second movement: Bruckner was famous for his Austrian peasant-dance scherzos, but the Scherzo, also in D minor, is altogether different in its unprecedented brutality— a vision of
Hell perhaps? Little demons scamper in pizzicato strings before Mephistopheles himself appears in a hammering brassdominated theme that, once heard, can never be forgotten. An insouciant oboe tries vainly to laugh off this vision. A Bruckner pause precedes the Trio section in a faster tempo: delicately scored music for strings and woodwinds that remains nervous and unsettled. And with good reason: for the savage Scherzo soon repeats itself.
Third movement: The Adagio third movement contains Bruckner’ s most beautiful music contending with what Simpson calls his most“ tortuous” passages. The violins’ opening theme, leaping up a painful minor-ninth interval, evokes both yearning and suffering. This begins the first theme family, which includes rising scales recalling the“ Holy Grail” motive in Wagner’ s Parsifal and loud, threatening brass fanfares. The horns— four of them now playing the dusky-toned Wagner tubas— follow the fanfares with noble descending chords, which Bruckner called his“ Farewell to Life.” A more lyrical second-theme family opens with a poignant violin melody. This is all music in search of a key— E major— which it will not find until this melody returns near the end of the movement.
As in the first movement, a long counterstatement develops and expands all this material. It ultimately reaches a terrible climax of volume and dissonance that Simpson calls“ the tearing of the veil— in Bruckner’ s mind, perhaps, the opening of the gates of death.” Bruckner pauses— and then timorously steps across. A glorious vista of heavenly peace in serene E major awaits him after all the struggles he has endured. To the noble strains of horns and Wagner tubas, he has attained his goal, leaving us with a true sense of artistic completion and fulfillment.
Instrumentation: Three flutes, three oboes, three clarinets, three bassoons, eight horns including four Wagner tubas, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, © 2018
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