Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra / Season 2023-24

A. BRUCKNER

Conductor Maximiano Valdés
Symphony No.9 in D minor, WAB109, Anton Bruckner

1.10 h (w/out intermission)
orquestafilarmonicademalaga.com
Program notes Jose Antonio Canton

Bruckner began working on this last symphony in 1887, after putting the last touches to his massive Eighth. Two years later he was still at it, having interrupted work to revise some of his earlier compositions. There were other interruptions as well, caused by his poor state of health. The Symphony No.9 in D minor could be called his ‘Unfinished Symphony’, as he did not complete the last movement, Finale. It is said that he recommended that at the concert in which the symphony would be presented provisionally, his Te Deum be heard as a final supplement. This in fact is what happened when the three finished movements were performed in Vienna on the 11th of February, 1903, with Ferdinand Löwe, the composer’s student and friend, conducting.
Dedicated to ‘My dear God’, this symphony was a major cause of concern for the composer at the end of his life, as expressed in words that are attributed to him: “I have done my duty on earth. I have accomplished what I could, and my final wish is to be allowed to finish my Ninth Symphony. Three movements are almost complete, the Adagio nearly finished. There only remains the finale. I trust that death will not deprive me of my pen”. Destiny would have it that this work only has three movements, constituting the capstone of one of the most solid symphonic corpora of history.

Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra Season 2023-24