Paavo Järvi's magnificent Bruckner 9th
30.10.24
Scherzo
With this fabulous composition, a musician born two hundred years ago said farewell to the world. The bicentenary is bringing us much happiness. This Ninth, for example, is one of the best I have heard in recent years. No wonder because the Tonhalle has a long Brucknerian history. It was none other than Richard Strauss who, in 1903, conducted for the first time in Switzerland a symphony by the Austrian, his Third. And the one we are discussing today, the Ninth, was premiered in Zurich by his Tonhalle in 1907.
The composer undoubtedly knew that it was to be his last work, not so much because of the cabal of ninths (although Bruckner was very superstitious), but because of declining health that left him without the strength to complete it. The symphony remained in three movements, but nothing more was needed. Death gave it the final touch, fate imposed a perfect form.
Surely Bruckner would have said ‘God has willed it so’ because, according to legend, the symphony is dedicated ‘to the good God’. The Maker's finger pointed to the last bars of the third movement and said ‘that's enough’. So taken for granted was Bruckner that in the same year of 1894, in a lecture he gave at the University of Vienna, he told a shocked audience that if he died before completing his Ninth he would pray that the fourth movement would be replaced by his Te Deum. The whole work is a testament. It contains recollections of his musical apprenticeship, a tribute to Wagner, and a farewell. In a letter to his doctor, Bruckner justified the dedication by telling him that he had dedicated two of his symphonies to crowned heads, but now he wanted to dedicate ‘his last work’ (textually) to the greatest of all majesties. Järvi's version is taut, meditative, perfectly articulated phrase by phrase, with great care for chamber details, neither fast nor slow, at just the right speed. A great reading with an ideal orchestra.
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