Anton Bruckner (1824–1896)

The strange title of this symphony conceals confusion and Bruckner's self-critical nature. It used to be thought that this was composed before the First Symphony but not published or acknowledged until afterwards, and Bruckner insisted on the designation "No.0" to fit it in the correct place chronologically. In fact, it was composed after the First, but Bruckner, always self-crtitical, rejected the work and identified it as "No.0" to, literally, "nullify" it. Nonetheless, it is an show more interesting, innovative work and deserves to be heard more often. show less

. Here, as elsewhere with most of my holdings on LibraryThing, the Rating system is woefully inadequate, and I am certain that I am not the only member/participant who feels the same way. Of necessity with established or oft-issued works, a distinction must be drawn between the core work itself, and its representation in a particular edition. So here goes an older man’s love-song to another, older man, and the hour-plus work which he for which he could think of no other dedication – show more having already exhausted Richard Wagner, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, and the Kaiser Franz Josef – than “My dear God”. Despite my personal faith in eternal life, there are a few things I will miss (at first) when I am taken up in The Spirit: sex, my wife’s baking, the Green Mountains, and Bruckner’s music. So much for the work, although those interested can read in my Harmony Junction a hint of my belief that this music may well be continually available in another dimension. That having been said about the work, I turn to this recorded performance.
Frivolous though it may sound, I am reminded of the oft-observed bumper-sticker A BAD DAY’S FISHING BEATS A GOOD DAY’S WORKING. Much the same might be said of the Bruckner Ninth. While this 1969 recording is certainly not a bad performance, it is not on the highest levels of Parnassus, mostly because of a certain fussiness and fooling-around on the part of Maestro Bernstein. I rather suspect that had he recorded this fifteen years later, and possibly with one of the great European orchestras, we might have been blessed with sonic poetry on a par with that of the irreplaceable recorded versions by Furtwängler and Jochum. Even so, joy to any who meet this music for the first time, in this performance or any other. show less

After the EMI Borodin Quartets CD, this is my favourite chamber CD. With Bruckner there have always been, and will always be, the matter of the textual versions. This performance omits the so-called "Intermezzo" with no consequent down-draft on the total structure and its emotional life. A brilliant recording. After all these years I am still startled by how often I find myself humming one or another of the parts at the most unlikeky times. This is how music

Horenstein - one of the great conductors of the twentieth century. He could raise the temperature to boiling point in concert and was amazing in Bruckner and Mahler.