Search - Bruckner, Swr Radio Sym Stuggart, Giulini :: Symphony No 9

Bruckner had started to compose his Ninth Symphony immediately after finishing his Eighth in August of 1887. This work took up more than nine years of his life. Bruckner worked longer on it than on any of his other symphonies, yet never finished it. The work is, as the Bruckner scholar Manfred Wagner expresses it, a compendium generale of the composer's life work, bringing together all he had previously accomplished. The late Carlo Maria Giulini was one of the twentieth century's greatest orchestral conductors, and rare recordings of his like this one are in high demand by collectors. Over the years Giulini held posts with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and worked with many others. Although for many years an outstanding conductor of Italian opera, from 1967 onwards Giulini decided to focus instead on the concert repertory where he could have more control and less need for compromise. In this performance, recorded live in September of 1996, the legendary conductor's Bruckner tends to be long-breathed and glowing. Giulini is an absolute master of the difficult transitions and uses slight, natural-sounding fluctuations in tempo.