Bolton & Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich

International Brucknerfest Linz 2025. The complete picture. Ivor Bolton and the Tonkünstler Orchestra of Lower Austria bring a completed reconstruction of Bruckner's 9th Symphony to life in all its colourful splendour.

According to numerous contemporaries, Anton Bruckner made a contract with none other than "the good Lord" for the completion of his 9th Symphony. He dedicated the composition to him as a "song of praise to God" in the hope that he would give him the strength to complete it. But things turned out differently: Bruckner died in 1896 and his last symphony remained a three-movement fragment. Despite everything, extensive draft scores and sketches of the outstanding finale have survived. Things became more complicated when Bruckner's death chamber was not sealed in time and memorial hunters greedily pounced on his manuscripts. Since then, the need for a 'complete picture', a finished 9th Symphony, has inspired numerous attempts at completion. Ivor Bolton and the Tonkünstler Orchestra of Lower Austria take up the challenge of bringing Bruckner's 'picture' to life in all its colourful glory with the help of the reconstruction completed over decades of work by Nicola Samale, Giuseppe Mazzuca, John A. Phillips and Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs.