Talk:Symphony No. 9 (Bruckner)

Vandalism or the birth of a new Balhorn?
Since a while now I see absurde changes of the article, I once posted. Contents is massively deleted, about 15523 lines removed without explaination, arbritrary restructuring without understanding. It took me some effort to convince a retired, old, and genius music historian to write an article about Bruckner's Ninth. The articles has a good basis of detailed reference from over 30 music books about Bruckner, giving a deep and fine description about the different opinions in the historical music world of it, about the nature of the Ninth and Bruckner's tragedy with it, why he didn't manage to finish it. Not only that a fine analyis of the movements was given by a true expert, but even though detailed analyis of the recently becoming important completions and the motivations of their authors. I thought I do the English folks some good to translate it. You discovered correctly, that the article was translated from the German version by me with the help of google and by fixing the most important errors, google made. It would have just needed an eloquent native speaker to reshape this rough and jolty English into the fine and sonorous English melody, I love so much. Unfortunately, I cannot offer this on such complex issues, but would it have help? Schopenhauer once said: "Every stupid boy can crush a beetle, but all the professors of the world can't make one!" I can just attest you, that you mananged to shatter the work of one of the rare geniuses into pieces. Currently, I am thinking about to open a Balhorn Award. You, Mr. Orville, will be the first winner. Let me congratulate you here already. Please be so kind to leave me your address here, that I can mail you the award! I mean it! It is a lovely one!

Honestly, I am too old an tired to start a battle about every deleted sentenses with you, as you just blindly delete. Who can win against the void? Although I think, you make a mistake, if you think that the average reader might be overwelmed by a more detailed article. Well, he may not understand all at the first reading, but it will leave some impressions and feelings in him, but when coming back again, at the next reading he will grow with it each time, such as if you listen to a Bruckner Symphony. Did it happen to you too? If not, you miss the best! What happened here is one of the classical examples, how a group of people with little education tries to make an article of a genius better. The result is always a compromise on the lowest level, as Gustav Le Bon educated us. So I hope you can forgive me for my terrible English and that due to my age I use the weapons of irony to talk to you in a friendly way. Just don't bother and keep finishing what you've started, let me see how far it goes. So long! And don't forget to leave me your address for your award! Snaj (talk) 20:49, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Anyone who is interested in the original and complete version before the vandalism, can find it here.

It is the translation from the German version. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Snaj (talk • contribs) 21:31, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Quoting Beethoven's Ninth?
I removed the line from the article


 * for Bruckner consciously went further - what we have of the Finale shows certain sections which actually quote from his predecessor's work.

This is the first time I hear of this. I've listened to three different Finale reconstructions and read the accompanying booklets for all of them. There's talk of Bruckner quoting his own earlier pieces, but nothing about him quoting any Beethoven. Anton Mravcek (talk) 22:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

V13
What's V 13?
 * A dominant thirteenth chord. Mahlerlover1 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 06:21, 2 July 2011 (UTC).
 * Isn't it actually a dominant thirteenth with a flat ninth rather than simply a dominant thirteenth? The A is A natural, rather than A#. 71.174.37.164 (talk) 17:40, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

request standard movement list
with tempo markings... thanks. DavidRF (talk) 01:47, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Sébastien Letocart's completion (2008)
I have reverted a recent edit here because of WP:NPOV concerns with the wording. Instead of relying on edit summaries, let's try to have an actual discussion here before making further changes, okay? Rivertorch (talk) 16:18, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Dear Rivertorch: First of all I must say I am also not entirely happy with the recent edit of this unknown user, providing already some information on the newest edition of the Samale et al. Finale (which I represent). I would have preferred to give this information not so early. But the facts are correct, so …
 * In my last edit I have corrected some minor mistakes in Mr. Letocarts statement and put the links into the link section. I have also taken out one link referring to Mr. van der Waals article, which was there twice.
 * Regarding Mr. Letocarts version, I understand the intention of the unknown user to make clear that Letocarts score is not the only alternative arrangement to the Samale et al. performing edition, as one can also see from Mr. van der Waals article.
 * A section like "Further Finale Arrangements" would make sense in order to provide information on the scores by Ernst Märzendorfer (1969), Hein s`Gravesande (1969), Marshall Fine (1969) and Nors S. Josephson (1992). These four scores, and those of Letocart and Carragan, are those providing a completed movement; however, those of Märzendorfer and Fine are not published and unavailable.
 * One last word regarding Mr. Letocarts score: He has taken (as we would be able to legally approve from a comparison of his score, which we have in copy, with our own publications) the Samale et al. performing version and the "Documentation of the Fragment", edited by John Phillips for MWV as a starting point, without the permission of the copyright holders. The result he presents is a strange mixture of maintaining those elements of our publications he could agree with, and replacing all of our findings he could not agree with merely with his own composition. A stylistical analysis of his score proves that he even changed quite often Bruckner´s own, definitive instrumentation (as far as it survived). He has published a commentary which he calls a "thesis" (unfortunately only in french) in which he tries to justify his decisions, however, one should note that this is not an academical "thesis" as we understand the term, because as far as I know it was not written with the aim to achieve a degree. artiumbremen (talk) 22 June 2011 11.52 MET  —Preceding undated comment added 09:54, 22 June 2011 (UTC).
 * A section like "Further Finale Arrangements" would make sense in order to provide information on the scores by Ernst Märzendorfer (1969), Hein s`Gravesande (1969), Marshall Fine (1969) and Nors S. Josephson (1992). These four scores, and those of Letocart and Carragan, are those providing a completed movement; however, those of Märzendorfer and Fine are not published and unavailable.
 * One last word regarding Mr. Letocarts score: He has taken (as we would be able to legally approve from a comparison of his score, which we have in copy, with our own publications) the Samale et al. performing version and the "Documentation of the Fragment", edited by John Phillips for MWV as a starting point, without the permission of the copyright holders. The result he presents is a strange mixture of maintaining those elements of our publications he could agree with, and replacing all of our findings he could not agree with merely with his own composition. A stylistical analysis of his score proves that he even changed quite often Bruckner´s own, definitive instrumentation (as far as it survived). He has published a commentary which he calls a "thesis" (unfortunately only in french) in which he tries to justify his decisions, however, one should note that this is not an academical "thesis" as we understand the term, because as far as I know it was not written with the aim to achieve a degree. artiumbremen (talk) 22 June 2011 11.52 MET  —Preceding undated comment added 09:54, 22 June 2011 (UTC).
 * One last word regarding Mr. Letocarts score: He has taken (as we would be able to legally approve from a comparison of his score, which we have in copy, with our own publications) the Samale et al. performing version and the "Documentation of the Fragment", edited by John Phillips for MWV as a starting point, without the permission of the copyright holders. The result he presents is a strange mixture of maintaining those elements of our publications he could agree with, and replacing all of our findings he could not agree with merely with his own composition. A stylistical analysis of his score proves that he even changed quite often Bruckner´s own, definitive instrumentation (as far as it survived). He has published a commentary which he calls a "thesis" (unfortunately only in french) in which he tries to justify his decisions, however, one should note that this is not an academical "thesis" as we understand the term, because as far as I know it was not written with the aim to achieve a degree. artiumbremen (talk) 22 June 2011 11.52 MET  —Preceding undated comment added 09:54, 22 June 2011 (UTC).
 * One last word regarding Mr. Letocarts score: He has taken (as we would be able to legally approve from a comparison of his score, which we have in copy, with our own publications) the Samale et al. performing version and the "Documentation of the Fragment", edited by John Phillips for MWV as a starting point, without the permission of the copyright holders. The result he presents is a strange mixture of maintaining those elements of our publications he could agree with, and replacing all of our findings he could not agree with merely with his own composition. A stylistical analysis of his score proves that he even changed quite often Bruckner´s own, definitive instrumentation (as far as it survived). He has published a commentary which he calls a "thesis" (unfortunately only in french) in which he tries to justify his decisions, however, one should note that this is not an academical "thesis" as we understand the term, because as far as I know it was not written with the aim to achieve a degree. artiumbremen (talk) 22 June 2011 11.52 MET  —Preceding undated comment added 09:54, 22 June 2011 (UTC).


 * Dear Mr Cohrs,
 * I am not a musicologue or a composer, but a Bruckner's freak since my adolescence. I have found the CD with S. Letocart's completion on John F. Berky's site and, consequently, I thought that it was advisable to add a paragraph "Sébastien Letocart's completion (2008)". I think the current text is as neutral as possible.
 * I am open for making further additions as long as there are sources to document them. Your suggestion for a paragraph "Further Finale Arrangements" is welcome. However it should cite published sources.
 * For two of these persons there is a page on wikipedia:
 * For late Ernst Märzendorfer, as you write, his completion is no not published and thus unavailable.
 * On page Marshall Fine is indicated that he is an author, journalist, and movie critic. Is he well the person you mention? As you write, this completion is also not published and thus unavailable.
 * For the two other persons (Hein s'Gravesande & Nors S. Josephson) I do not find any documentation on wikipedia. Perhaps you could provide me with sources on which there is some documentation on their completion.
 * Best regards, --Réginald alias Meneerke bloem (To reply) 12:36, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * PS: About his sources Letocart writes: Le fac-simile des divers manuscrits, esquisses et bifolios du compositeur disponibles dans le "Finale Faksimile-Ausgabe" édité par la Musikwissenschaflicher Verlag Wien (MVW) sous la direction de Léopold Nowak ont servi de source principale à ce travail de complétion du Finale de la 9ème symphonie. D'autres documents, thèses et réalisations ont été consultés. Ils ont constitué une importante somme d'informations objectives ou au contraire nous paraissant parfois hautement contestables autant sur le plan des hypothèses avancées qu’au niveau de la réalisation musicale. Quoiqu'il en soit, ces autres sources ont permis d’enrichir ma critique et ma réflexion personnelle. --Réginald alias Meneerke bloem (To reply) 12:53, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I just have found this link on which there is documentation on Nors S. Josephson's completion and it can be listened to it, as well as a link to Hein s'Gravesande's score. --Réginald alias Meneerke bloem (To reply) 15:47, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Several comments:
 * Inline citations should be used to support statements in the article's text, so I suspect that the two pdf files at abruckner.com should be moved back into the text, rather than stuck down in the External links section. (My Internet connection is slow enough at the moment that I haven't checked the links, but assuming they meet reliable source guidelines and support what the article now says, they should be inline citations.)
 * I'm not sure that unpublished completions merit mention in the article unless they have been substantially discussed by secondary sources.
 * The sourced statements about the availability of s'Gravesande's and Josephson's respective scores are inappropriate because the links lead to commercial sites where the scores are sold. If readers want to buy the scores, it's up to them to find the sellers; we don't provide those kinds of handy links. Rivertorch (talk) 20:36, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * All information on attempts to complete the Finale can be found in the article of Aart van der Wal. These attempts are also discussed in the Musik Konzepte Volume 120-22 (Bruckners Neunte im Fegefeuer der Rezeption) and in the Dissertation of John Phillips (Bruckner´s Ninth revisited, 2003), available from the University of Adelaide, Australia. artiumbremen Artiumbremen (talk) 12:42, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * As suggested I have removed the two commercial links, and I have added the two references mentioned by B-J Cohrs. I have also moved back the two *.pdf files at abruckner.com into the text. --Réginald alias Meneerke bloem (To reply) 13:34, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It looks much better now. Rivertorch (talk) 17:38, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Nors S. Josephson's completion
Josephson's completion can now be freely dowloaded from abruckner.com. --Réginald alias Meneerke bloem (To reply) 15:11, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Samale/Mazzuca/Phillips/Cohrs completion (1992 / rev. 1996 / rev. 2005 / rev. 2008 / rev. 2011)
I have updated this section by adding the following text and reference:


 * The world premiere of this new ending will be given by the Dutch Brabants Orkest under the baton of Friedemann Layer in Breda (NL), 15 October2011. ...

--Réginald alias Meneerke bloem (To reply) 09:33, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Dem lieben Gott
"Bruckner dedicated this symphony "to the beloved God" (in German, "dem lieben Gott")." Not really. "Lieber Gott" means "dear God", then "To the dear God" would come closer. If we need to mention love, it's rather "To the loving God" (Dem liebenden Gott) than "To the beloved God" (Dem geliebten Gott). --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:42, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Score excerpts
In the score excerpts of movments 1 to 3 are errors (wrong notes), easy to hear. Unfortunately, I do not know the cryptic language to correct them. I have moved the last example (coda) to the SPCM version. The passage is not composed by Bruckner but by SPCM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Snaj (talk • contribs) 21:07, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you bringing this to my attention. I noticed some horn notes were transcribed incorrectly as they were written in B-flat basso. I did not notice this at first and wrote them as if they were in F. After briefly skimming through my other examples and comparing against the manuscript, I see the Scherzo may have some wrong notes (Transposing instruments are tricky sometimes!), but I am not able to find wrong notes anywhere else. Could you please point out what is wrong? Ab18241896 (talk) 02:41, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

There are also tempi and articulation notations, that are not original from Bruckner but may be found by Samale/Cohrs. I think the note excerpts should only use notes that are pure Bruckner, originating from his hand writings.Snaj (talk) 22:57, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I have corrected the Scherzo example; I think I got it right this time. Do you think the SPCM coda example should be removed? I originally provided it to show an example of how the coda might be completed, especially one that is analogous to the coda of the 8th. However, I'm a bit worried it may violate NPOV, as it is obviously the only completion to have an example (And a large one at that!), so it might seem like giving undue weight to the SPCM completion (I have no affiliation with SPCM, or any other authors of completions, by the way). I would try to typeset examples for other completions, but I have no access to the scores (And I only got SPCM because extracts of the score were included in an essay by Cohrs). Ab18241896 (talk) 01:34, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for correcting the errors. There are two error left: 2nd Movement, first example: Bruckner decides clearly between staccato and accents! 3rd Movement, second example: The two bass lines are one octave too low. Discussing the music examples in general, I would like to point out, that they cause the site to permanently flip its position, causing the reader some trouble. It also disrupts a bit the structure of the article. I wonder, if it would be maybe nicer, to move them into an extra article about music examples of the Ninth and link to it? Another issue I see is the fact that some examples miss essential voices, e.g. 1st Movement, second example: Bass line is missing. I would suggest to put the present two lines together and add the bass line. 3rd Movement, first example: The very important harmony is missing completely. You asked me if we should keep the Finale example from SPCM. I consider it a bit confusing for the reader and think, on a puristic point of view, to show only examples from the hand of Bruckner himself. To the present knowledge, there is no end available, and it is therefore a speculative end of the symphony. Examples, of what we have from Bruckner, would be much better.Snaj (talk) 21:41, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

I have corrected the last two errors you pointed out. I'm not sure creating a separate article for the examples is a very good idea; I think it is best to keep everything together in one article. As for the omissions in some of the examples you have pointed out, yes, I have been somewhat inconsistent on the "fullness" of the examples; some of them obviously only cover one line, while others condense a significant amount of the orchestral score. With the 3rd movement for example, I thought the theme by itself was enough (I was mainly trying to show its chromaticism and the fact it contains all 12 tones), but I will think about expanding the examples per your suggestions. Ab18241896 (talk) 03:32, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Restructuring the Description
I have somewhat restructured the section description of the first and third movements, by putting the scores on the places where their themes are described. Hopefully it is now put in a more logical way. --Réginald alias Meneerke bloem (To reply) 13:04, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Why is this in the description? - I don't know enough to edit, but it doesn't fit here.
Perhaps it's because I didn't read -everything- above this 'Description' section (though I did more just read the headline), but I don't see how the sentence about B's 9th is at all relevant either to the Description of the symphony, or the paragraph it's trying to be a part of.

Here's the snippet from the page: Description <> Much material for the finale in full score may have been lost very soon after the composer's death; some of the lost sections in full score survived only in two-to-four-stave sketch format. The placement of the Scherzo second, and the key, D minor, are only two of the elements this work has in common with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

The symphony is so often performed without any sort of finale that some authors describe "the form of this symphony [as] … a massive arch, two slow movements straddling an energetic Scherzo."[25]

Löwe version
There are two Löwe versions, both published 1903. The climax of the adagio in the piano reduction is, indeed, tamed. In the orchestral score Löwe edited, also published by Doblinger the same year, this is -not- true (see IMSLP.) ELSchissel (talk) 06:48, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Other finale completions
The attempt by Hein 's-Gravesande (1969) is a simple juxtaposition of the retrieved fragments. The completion by Ernst Märzendorfer (1969) is a kind of rhapsody using the retrieved fragments. It has been performed by the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig under the baton of the composer in the Große Oper of Leipzig on 8 December 1970. Marshall Fine's completion (1979), that was considered lost, has been recently retrieved. --Réginald alias Meneerke bloem (To reply) 07:26, 24 June 2022 (UTC)