Manuscript page of the Bruckner Ninth Finale sells at auction
The sale in its entirety can be viewed by clicking here.. The manuscript sold for GBP 32,760. FYI: This is not a new section of the Finale. It has been known of before by Bruckner researchers and has been incorporated into the construction of the performing editions that are available today. Auction description: Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) Autograph manuscript, draft for the Finale of the 9th Symphony, [Vienna, 1895-1896] In black ink and pencil. Full score, with title 'Finale Sinf. 9', a compositional manuscript with extensive erasures, cancellations and emendations (including on three pasted slips), some bar sequences numbered by the composer, 26 bars on 24-stave paper, on four pages, 342 x 265mm, bifolium. A draft for the unfinished Finale of Bruckner's great last symphony. Reproduced in the facsimile supplement of the Gesamtausgabe, pp.63-66, and transcribed by Alfred Orel in Entwürfe und Skizzen zur IX. Symphonie (1934), pp.84ff. The majority of the surviving manuscripts for the Finale are in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Bruckner had begun work on his Ninth Symphony immediately after completion of the Eighth on 10 August 1887: the composition was to dominate the last nine years of his life, with constant interruptions occasioned by his revisions to his earlier symphonies and Bruckner's deteriorating health – the first movement alone was not completed until December 1893. The second and third movements (Scherzo and Adagio) followed in 1894, while a note in Bruckner's calendar records the first sketches for the Finale on 24 May 1895: it remained incomplete at his death. The first three movements were premiered at the Musikverein in Vienna on 11 February 1903 under the conductor Ferdinand Löwe. There have been a number of attempts to reconstitute the Finale from the surviving drafts. |
