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"What we love about him is the pure, unadulterated joy of the journey itself," wrote the philosopher Ernst Bloch in his book "The Spirit of Utopia" about Anton Bruckner – and he also praised his "active mobility." The expansion of the formal and instrumental dimensions in Beethoven's symphonies was the foundation for Bruckner's monumental works in the orchestral art form. He was repeatedly compared to the current anniversary celebrant, and eventually, he was finally recognized as a worthy artistic successor. Bruckner then spent nine more years perfecting his final symphonic work, which we are performing under the direction of Jonathan Nott. It is in d-minor, which means that Bruckner was already venturing into dangerous territory: because that is precisely the key that Beethoven used for his Ninth Symphony. Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 9 in d-minor. Because he clearly feared that he might be accused of something, he explained his reasons for choosing this key at the time: "What can I do about the fact that the main theme came to me in d-minor? It's simply my favorite key." So he didn't change anything, and he added with a wink: "But with a choir like Beethoven – then Bruckner is really a fool." Until his death in 1896, he worked on the symphony and was unable to complete the final movement, which may have been a deliberate decision: after the solemn opening, there is a wild, percussive scherzo, and the ending is not a hymn-like vocal finale like Beethoven's – but an elegiac adagio, which Bruckner himself described as "a farewell to life."
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