Sir Simon Rattle conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker in Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 including the world premiere of the latest scholarly revision of the fourth movement that the composer left unfinished at his death.
Sir Simon and the Orchestra unveiled the new version at Berlin’s Philharmonie in early February 2012 and at New York’s Carnegie Hall the same month. “It was fascinating to hear this monumental symphony performed with [its new] final movement. After a quizzical opening and a strong statement of the main theme there are stretches of fitful counterpoint, brass chorales and ruminative passages that take you by surprise. Overall the music pulses with a hard-wrought insistence that crests with a hallelujah coda.” (The New York Times)
On 11 October 1896, the day he died, Bruckner was still desperately trying to finish the final movement of his ninth symphony. He had completed and orchestrated one third of the movement and sketched the layout for the entire finale. Unfortunately, for scholars attempting to construct the remaining two thirds of the movement, many of the manuscript pages were subsequently stolen by autograph hunters. Some of these pages have resurfaced in recent years and several attempts have been made to complete the last movement, including four prior versions by the current musicological team of Nicola Samale, Giuseppe Mazzuca, John Phillips and Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs.
“From a fresh re-examination of the manuscripts it was possible to find some convincing new solutions, binding the music even better together.” (Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs). With the benefit of 25 years of scholarship, this latest version is arguably the most comprehensive realisation of Bruckner’s sketches.
John Phillips adds, “The Finale is no musical curiosity, but an integral part of the work as its composer intended. Just as Beethoven designed his last symphony around its choral finale, Bruckner designed his Ninth around this huge, ultimately triumphant movement, synthesizing sonata form, fugue, and chorale. For the devoutly Catholic Bruckner, the symphony was to be his “homage to Divine majesty” […] The Adagio, his “Farewell to Life,” traces a gradual process of dissolution that leads us, spellbound, into the enigmatic music of the Finale [which] would end with a “song of praise to the dear Lord,” a “Hallelujah” borrowed from earlier in the work. And it is with this “Hallelujah” theme—the first entry of the trumpets in the Adagio—that the Ninth can so justly and so gloriously now conclude.”
In an interview for the Berlin Philharmonic's Digital Concert Hall, Sir Simon expressed his faith in the newly assembled four-movement version and begged audiences to be receptive to the new material. “There's a kind of myth that there are only sketches left of the last movement. In fact, there was really an emerging full score, complete almost to the end,” Rattle said, adding that Bruckner was writing in his most radical, forward-looking style in the Ninth, especially in the finale.
According to Gramophone, ‘to help listeners understand just how ‘complete’ the finale actually was at the time of Bruckner's death, Rattle compared the composer to an architect designing a cathedral. Indeed, Bruckner had the rather unique composition method of deciding how long his movements should be and then putting all the bars on the manuscript, numbered and with phrase lengths, even before writing the first note. “So actually, even when there are some empty pages, we know exactly how many bars there were and what kind of phrases there were,” concluded Rattle, explaining how much of the manuscript evidence was strewn throughout various collections. He also said that had the composer lived another two months, the finale would have been complete.’
For music lovers who discount the validity of any fourth movement to the Symphony No. 9, there is much to enjoy in the Berliner Philharmoniker’s performance of the first three movements: “Mr. Rattle and the Berlin players deftly balanced elements of Schubertian structure and Wagnerian turmoil in the mysterious first movement. The brutal power of the scherzo’s main theme was chilling, with the orchestra pummelling the dense, thick, dissonance-tinged chords. And Mr. Rattle laid out the threads of chromatic counterpoint in an organic, glowing and, when appropriate, gnashing account of the Adagio.” (The New York Times) For those with the intellectual curiosity to hear how accomplished Bruckner scholars have most recently realised the unfinished movement, it is performed here by the world-renowned team of Sir Simon Rattler and the Berliner Philharmoniker.

“记得有人说莱纳听了自己这个勃拉姆斯录音感动的哭了，这个版本确实有值得聆听的地方。笔者认为这个版本有勃拉姆斯傲骨凛然的霸气，却又不失铁汉的柔情，前者可以听他的第四乐章，后者可以听他的第二乐章。
虽然将录音的优劣也放在版本比较的考量有一点奇怪，但是我们却必须说，录音确实会影响聆听时的整体感受。就如之前说过的，莱纳这个录音诠释的非常爽朗，而且又不缺曲子中的灰暗面，如果你可以接受索尔蒂的诠释方法，那么应该可以轻易接受这个莱纳的最后录音。”
——以上引用蓝昌松先生的评点。这是一张著名的录音，我仅仅在线听过而已。个人觉得莱纳首乐章主题速度过快，皇家爱乐的弦乐还没有完全放开。但莱纳终究功力不凡，乐队是渐入佳境。之后的几个乐章都完成得很好，莱纳的独有气质在末乐章尤为突出。
总之是一次上佳水平的演绎，虽然不是完美级别。

鲍罗丁：第三交响曲
BORODIN:Symphonie No. 3
鲍罗丁《第三交响曲）（未完成〕，作于1885-1886年，未完成，由格拉祖诺夫整理完成，共两个乐章（据说鲍罗丁原定作4个乐章）：1．甚中庸的速度，A小调，奏鸣曲式。第一主题与第二主题都是俄罗斯民歌旋律，在反复句上用上了合唱的应和方式，发展部为两个主题的交织，再现部双簧管有精彩表现。2活拨生动，D大调，谐谑曲，3段体，接近奏鸣曲式，发展部两个主题调性改变，以不同形态出现。这个乐章中重登空心五度的伴奏音型、五拍子节奏及节奏变化，大二度关系的两个调式乐句的结合方式．都极具俄罗斯民歌特征。
鲍罗丁《小组曲》(格拉祖诺夫配器)
《小组曲》是一部由七个乐章组成的钢琴曲，作为鲍罗丁钢琴作品的代表作,《小组曲》创作于1885年，但其中许多章节却早在19世纪70年代就创作完成，鲍罗丁去世后，亚历山大·格拉祖诺夫将其改编成了交响作品，并自行加入了鲍罗丁的另一部作品中的一个乐章将其改编为八个乐章。这部作品本是献给比利时的路易斯伯爵夫人的，这位伯爵夫人致力于大力推广鲍罗丁的作品，她不仅组织翻译了《伊格尔王子》的部分唱段，还促成了其《第一交响曲》在比利时verviers和Liege地区的首演。这位路易斯伯爵夫人,也正是法国作曲家圣-桑的赞助人，她同样也为鲍罗丁所在的法国剧作家、作曲家和编辑协会提供赞助。鲍罗丁原来为这部作品所起的题目是《为爱人所作的小诗》，但在印刷时被出版商改为《小组曲》。
原作分为七个乐章，作曲家分别对每段起了单独的标题并作了解释：
第一乐章：修道院，行板，c小调（教会的誓言只有上帝培养的思考）
第二乐章:插曲，小步舞曲，F大调（梦幻般的生活）
第三乐章：玛祖卡，快板，C大调（为舞蹈而作）
第四乐章：玛祖卡，快板，D大调（为舞蹈及舞者所作）
第五乐章：回旋曲，慢板，D大调（为舞蹈而作）
第六乐章：萨拉班德舞曲，快板，D大调（为爱所作）
第七乐章：夜曲，小行版，G大调（被爱的幸福所愉悦）

金装卡拉扬系列。
这张唱片收录德沃夏克《第九交响曲》和斯美塔纳《我的祖国》。
德沃夏克的《E小调第九交响曲》（自新大陆）灵感源自创业时代的美国，体现了意气勃发的朝气。整部乐曲结构完整，配器丰富，音效丰满，是交响曲这一体裁中口碑极佳的一部伟大作品。四个乐章形象各异，精彩绝伦，均是经常在音乐会上单独演奏的名曲。
卡拉扬指挥的这个版本，不再像柏林爱乐版中那样德国味十足，代之以优雅的维也纳乐风。“企鹅”评价三星保留一星，并得到日本“究极百大”榜单与日本《唱片艺术》名曲三百共同推荐。