VORWORT ZUR LETZTGÜLTIG REVIDIERTEN AUSGABE 2012

»Nur eine schlichte Bemerkung – wenn Sie Aufführungsfassungen von unvollständigen Kompositionen und Entwürfen nicht zustimmen, zwingt Sie keine Macht der Welt, zuzuhören. Unterdessen hören diejenigen unter uns, die geistig neugierig geblieben sind, immer noch lieber solche Entwürfe irgendwie klanglich realisiert, als sie in irgendwelchen Archivregalen verschimmeln zu lassen, auch wenn wir natürlich wissen, daß diese oder jene Aufführungsfassung wirklich niemals das sein kann, was der Komponist selbst daraus gemacht hätte. Nochmals: keine Macht der Welt zwingt Sie zum Zuhören …«
[Dace Gisclard, Houston/USA, 26. 8. 2003, Kundenrezension für www.amazon.com]

Im Jahr 1983 begannen Nicola Samale und Giuseppe Mazzuca den mühevollen Arbeitsprozess einer Vervollständigung des unvollendet überlieferten, doch ursprünglich weitestgehend konzipierten vierten Satzes zu Anton Bruckners IX. Sinfonie d-moll. Das Erststadium davon, die Ricostruzione (1985), wurde unter Eliahu Inbal für Teldec sowie unter Gennadij Roshdestvenskij für Melodiya auf CD eingespielt. Mazzuca zeigte nach der Ricordi-Veröffentlichung 1985 kein Interesse mehr an einer weiteren Mitarbeit am Finale. Zu dieser Zeit begann Samale mit Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs zusammenzuarbeiten. Bis 1989 entstanden infolgedessen mehrere Stadien der Partitur, die unter anderem der Dirigent Hubert Soudant für den Niederländischen Rundfunk NCRV aufgenommen hat (Produzent: Cornelis van Zwol); der live-Mitschnitt einer Aufführung unter Samale selbst erschien außerdem bei Melodram Italia auf CD. Letztere Zwischenfassung enthielt bereits zahlreiche bedeutende Neuerungen – neben umfangreichen Änderungen der Instrumentation unter anderem erstmals die Realisierung eines Schluß-Halleluja in D-Dur. 1990 begann Samale, intensiv auch mit dem australischen Musikwissenschaftler John A. Phillips zu arbeiten, der die Funde von Samale, Mazzuca und Cohrs nochmals an den Manuskripten überprüfte und seine Forschungsergebnisse in seiner Dissertation (University of Adelaide, 2002) wie auch in einigen Bänden der Bruckner-Gesamtausgabe vorlegte. Besonderer Bedeutung kommt seiner ›Faksimile-Ausgabe sämtlicher autographen Notenseiten zum Finale‹ (= FA) zu, die 1996 im Musikwissenschaftlichen Verlag Wien erschien und erstmals einer breiten Öffentlichkeit die genaue Kenntnis all dessen ermöglicht, was von Bruckners Hand zu diesem Satz erhalten ist. Sie diente auch der hier vorgelegten letztgültig revidierten Neu-Ausgabe (= NA) als unerläßliche Referenz-Quelle. Phillips gab außerdem eine weitere Revision der Partitur der Aufführungsfassung (= AF) des Finales heraus, die 1992 im Selbstverlag in Bremen und Adelaide erschien. Sie faßte die früheren Arbeiten zwischen 1983 und 1989 zusammen, angereichert um wichtige neue Erkenntnisse, und ist als Aufführungsfassung von Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca (= AF 1992) bekannt geworden, mitunter auch ›SPCM-Version‹ genannt.
Diese 1991 in Linz vom Bruckner-Orchester unter Manfred Mayrhofer erstaufgeführte Weiterentwicklung der Partitur erwies sich als recht erfolgreich. Davon zeugen bis 2003 etwa 40 Aufführungen, verschiedene Rundfunk-Produktionen, Konzertmitschnitte und zwei CD-Einspielungen (Bruckner-Orchester Linz, Kurt Eichhorn; Camerata Tokyo / Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, Johannes Wildner; SonArte & Naxos). Zusätzliches Gewicht erhielt sie durch die von Phillips herausgegebene ›Dokumentation des Finale-Fragments‹ (= DFF), 1999 von den Wiener Symphonikern unter Nikolaus Harnoncourt in Wien aufgeführt und vom gleichen Dirigenten mit den Wiener Philharmonikern 2002 für RCA/BMG auf CD eingespielt. Diese Produktion enthielt auch erstmals die Neu-Ausgabe der ersten drei Sätze der Neunten, die Cohrs mitsamt kritischem Bericht für die Bruckner-Gesamtausgabe vorgelegt hatte.
Unterdessen hatten Samale und Cohrs seit 1985 verschiedentlich Gelegenheit, die Neunte und die AF selbst zu dirigieren; jede Aufführung brachte neue Einsichten. Im Jahr 2003 waren beide überzeugt von der Notwendigkeit, eine Revision der gesamten Partitur durchzuführen. Schließlich entschied Samale als Initiator des Projekts, in Zusammenarbeit mit Cohrs eine Neu-Ausgabe des Finales vorzubereiten, die dann 2005 als Study Score 444 in der Reihe Repertoire Explorer der Musikproduktion Höflich erschien. Auch nach dieser Veröffentlichung boten jedoch verschiedene Aufführungen Anlaß zu weiteren Korrekturen und Umarbeitungen im Detail. Außerdem gewann Cohrs im Zuge seiner Dissertation über das Finale (Universität Hamburg, 2009), die eine erneute Sichtung der Quellen einschloß, neue Erkenntnisse zu bisher strittigen Stellen. Diese stießen eine weitere Diskussion der Partitur an, der in Form eines revidierten Nachdrucks (veröffentlicht 2008) Rechnung getragen wurde. In dieser Form erklang das Finale erstmals am 8. und 9. November 2007 in Stockholm (Orchester des Schwedischen Rundfunks unter Daniel Harding).
Doch weitergehende Einsichten führten dessen ungeachtet nochmals zu einer langen und fruchtbaren Diskussion zwischen Samale, Cohrs und Phillips. Der endgültige Anstoß zur Vorbereitung einer ›letztmalig revidierten Ausgabe‹ ist Sir Simon Rattle zu verdanken, der sich dazu entschloß, die Neunte mitsamt der AF zur Aufführung und Einspielung durch die Berliner Philharmoniker anzusetzen und charmant an die Bearbeiter schrieb: »Ich muß gleich hier loswerden, was für eine erstaunlich beeindruckendes Stück Arbeit Sie geleistet haben. Ich habe die Entwürfe in den vergangenen Jahren immer wieder einmal durchgesehen, und ich habe eine andere namenlose Rekonstruktion gehört, die mich beinahe für den Rest des Lebens davon abgebracht hätte. (…) Ich habe die komplette Sinfonie für Februar 2012 mit den Berliner Philharmonikern aufs Programm gesetzt, auch für ein Gastspiel in New York. Ich fühle mich immer mehr überzeugt von Ihrem Stück plastischer Chirurgie, und fühle, daß es viel verbreiteter gehört und verstanden werden sollte. Und dies von einem Mann, der Mozarts Requiem ganz beiseite gelegt hat! Nochmalige Glückwünsche zu Ihrer erstaunlichen Entdeckungsreise.«
Schon die ersten beiden Aufführungen der Partitur unter Friedemann Layer (mit Het Brabants Orkest, Eindhoven und Breda, Holland, 15 und 16 Oktober 2011), insbesondere jedoch die Aufführungen unter Rattle (mit dem Bundesjugendorchester in der Berliner Philharmonie am 23. Oktober 2011 und den Berliner Philharmonikern ebenda vom 7. bis 9. Februar sowie am 24. Februar 2012 in der Carnegie Hall, New York) wie auch der Mitschnitt auf CD (EMI 9 52969 2, Mai 2012) erbrachten in der Tat neue und breit gestreute öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit. Um so mehr sahen sich die Autoren inder Pflicht, eine Partitur zu veröffentlichen, die nun wirklich als ›letztmalig revidierte Ausgabe‹ betrachtet werden soll (es sei denn natürlich, es kämen bislang unbekannte, verlorene Bogen der Partitur zukünftig wieder ans Licht).
Ein so langwieriger Arbeits- und Veröffentlichungsprozess mag verwirrend scheinen, ist aber keineswegs beispiellos. Dazu ein Beispiel aus der Literatur: Der Musik- und Literaturwissenschaftler Stefan Schenk-Haupt legte in seiner 2003 veröffentlichten, vergleichenden Studie zu A. Pope und T. S. Eliot (Dulness Never Dies, Europäische Hochschulschriften 399, Verlag Peter Lang) dar, daß ein Schlüsselwerk des 18. Jahrhunderts, The Dunciad (= ›Die Dummkopfiade‹) von Alexander Pope, nicht nur ein work in progress war, das zwischen 1728 und 1743, also in knapp 15 Jahren, in wenigstens vier Stadien entstand, sondern bereits zu dieser Zeit 15 vom Verfasser durchgesehene bzw. autorisierte Auflagen wie auch 3 Raubdrucke, insgesamt 18 Auflagen und 59 Reprints durchlaufen hatte, die immer wieder parallel auf dem Markt erhältlich waren. Auch im Falle des Finales kann nurmehr ein work in progress vorgelegt werden, welches allenfalls als abgeschlossen betrachtet werden könnte, wenn die verschollenen letztgültigen Partiturbogen doch noch ans Licht kommen sollten. Bruckners Tod verhindert ohnehin eine endgültige Bestimmung von Details.
Die Zusammenarbeit mehrerer Autoren und Herausgeber von ganz unterschiedlicher Begabung und Persönlichkeit mag einiges mehr an Zeit erfordern, um zu abschließenden Ergebnissen zu kommen, dabei eingeschlossen viele Irrtümer und neue Ansätze, doch hat sie gegenüber der Arbeit eines einzigen Autors auch einen Vorteil: Schon im Entstehungsprozess erzeugt die Zusammenarbeit eine Art ›peer reviewing‹, eine gegenseitige Kontrolle der Resultate.Der Versuch, eine Aufführungsfassung des Finales zu erarbeiten, ähnelt in mancher Hinsicht auch der Filmmacherei: Herausgeberische Entscheidungen lassen sich mit denen eines Filmregisseurs in der Post-Produktion durchaus vergleichen. Für den letztgültigen Schnitt muß er seine bisherige Rolle als Umsetzer des Drehbuchs aufgeben und sich stattdessen in den Zuschauer hineinversetzen. Seine Auswahl und Anordnung der gefilmten Takes bestimmt die Struktur und beeinflußt die Wirkung des Films auf die Zuschauer. Manchmal kommt es nun vor, daß sich Regisseure mitunter Jahre nach der Premiere des Films dazu entschließen, einen Neuschnitt vorzunehmen. Die Gründe dafür sind jedem Film-Liebhaber bekannt: Manchmal werden für den ›Director's cut‹ Szenen wieder eingefügt, die der Regisseur vielleicht auf Wunsch der Produzenten zuvor weglassen mußte. Manchmal ermöglicht der technische Fortschritt Dinge, die beim ursprünglichen Dreh noch nicht möglich waren. Es kommt aber auch vor, daß ein Regisseur einfach zu neuen Einsichten gelangte, die den Film als Ganzes überzeugender wirken lassen und die von ihm beabsichtigte Aussage vertiefen. (Dafür wäre Francis Ford Coppolas Apocalypse Now: Redux ein gutes Beispiel.) Dies trifft sicher auch auf diese Aufführungsfassung des Finales zu, die über einen Zeitraum von insgesamt fast 30 Jahren in den Details immer weiter durchgfeilt wurde.
Unserer Ansicht nach sollte diese Musik durch zwei gleichermaßen wichtige Verfahren aufführbar gemacht werden– a) die klangliche Realisation der nicht komplettierten Manuskripte selbst, wie in der DFF, herausgegeben von Phillips, geeignet für Werkstatt-Konzerte, Konzert-Einführungen oder Media-Präsentationen, wie auch b) eine vervollständigte Aufführungsfassung, die zumindest annähernd einen Eindruck der Neunten als viersätziges Ganzes gestattet. Eine ›Dokumentation‹ ermöglicht den hörend nachvollziehbaren Vergleich des erhaltenen Materials mit den vorgenommenen Rekonstruktionen und Ergänzungen, doch darüber hinaus möchte der Zuhörer im Konzert lebendige MUSIK erleben und nicht tönende Philologie. Aus diesem Grund ist nicht nachzuvollziehen, warum man diese Ansätze miteinander vermischen sollte. Philologische Probleme sollten in wissenschaftlicher Debatte aufgearbeitet werden, doch wo läge der Sinn, eine Partitur zu fabrizieren, die einerseits auf spekulative Rekonstruktionen verlorener Partien nicht verzichtet, doch andrerseits keinerlei Gebrauch von den substantiellen Skizzen Bruckners macht, die von der Coda erhalten sind? Abgesehen davon, daß man ein Publikum ignoriert, das nicht aus Akademikern besteht, würde dies zur Folge haben, nurmehr die Legende von der dreisätzig doch ›vollendeten‹ Neunten durch einen neuen Mythos des ›Unvollendeten‹ zu ersetzen – diesmal mit noch deutlicherem Abbruch …
Dabei sollten uns andere Fragmente längst gelehrt haben, daß die Realität mitunter ohnehin anders ist, als die Legende uns glauben machen will: Bachs Kunst der Fuge beispielsweise hat nicht nur in einer bereits vollständigen Urfassung überlebt (Hrsg. Christoph Wolff, Edition Peters), die von Ausführenden so gut wie nie berücksichtigt wird – Forschungen von Gregory Butler haben sogar ergeben, daß die unvollendet überlieferte Quadrupelfuge ursprünglich wohl bereits lange vor dem Tod des Komponisten beendet worden war. Ihr Schlußteil ist vermutlich auf dem Weg zum Notenstecher verlorengegangen; nach Bachs Tod wurde der dafür reservierte Platz in den Vorlagen mit Material aufgefüllt, das dem Stecher bereits vorlag. (Ton Koopman vermutete 2007 gar, Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach habe den Schluß absichtlich unterschlagen, um dem Werk einen Fragment-Charakter zu geben!) Die bislang einzige auf philologischer Grundlage beruhende Komplettierung von Contrapunctus XIV durch David Schulenberg (1992) wurde sogar in die neue Bärenreiter-Urtext-Ausgabe übernommen (Hrsg. Klaus Hofmann, Kassel 1998), wird jedoch leider so gut wie nie aufgeführt. Der bedeutungsschwangere Abbruch wird immer noch bevorzugt – ungeachtet der Tatsache, daß offenbar Butler zufolge die Quadrupelfuge nicht einmal als Schlußstück vorgesehen war, sondern vielmehr die vier Kanons den Werk-Zyklus beschließen sollten …
Einige Änderungen der hier zur Diskussion gestellten Partitur sind die notwendige Folge neuer Einsicht und Quellen-Bewertung. Andere stellen Varianten dar, die nicht zuletzt eine Frage des persönlichen Gespürs für diese Musik aus dem Erlebnis der eigenen Aufführungen heraus und die Essenz von nunmehr fast 30 Jahren Erfahrung sind. Dies schließt eine erneute Ausarbeitung der früher lückenhaft geglaubten Gesangsperiode in der Exposition und in der Fuge (deren musikalischer Verlauf nunmehr vollständig aus der Skizze abgeleitet werden konnte) ebenso ein wie zahlreiche Präzisierungen der Instrumentation, Phrasierung, Artikulation, Dynamik und Tempi. Außerdem wurden besonders in der Coda Änderungen vorgenommen, die der von manchen Kritikern bemängelten Zerstücktheit entgegenwirken und den Schluß einheitlicher wirken lassen sollen.
Die philologischen Studien der letzten Jahrzehnte hatten ohnehin zweifelsfrei ergeben, daß Bruckner zum Finale der IX. Sinfonie keinen Haufen unzusammenhängender Skizzen, sondern eine im Entstehen begriffene Autograph-Partitur hinterlassen hat, die in der primären Endstufe bereits ein halbes Jahr vor Bruckners Tod fertiggestellt war. Das erhaltene Material zum Finale präsentiert sich in Form mehrerer Arbeitsschichten, die man zu einem überraschend vollständigen Ganzen zusammenfassen kann. Nur für äußerst wenige Takte ist kein direktes Vorlagenmaterial Bruckners mehr vorhanden. Diese Lücken ließen sich nicht durch freie Nach-Komposition, sondern ein ›musik-forensisches‹ Synthese-Verfahren auffüllen, das unter Berücksichtigung von Bruckners eigener, streng wissenschaftlicher Kompositionstechnik mit Hilfe zahlreicher Parameter lückenhafte Texturen aus der Analyse des Vorherigen und Folgenden mit hohem Wahrscheinlichkeitsgrad schließt und auf freie Komposition im eigentlichen Sinne verzichtet.
Einzelheiten zu Quellenlage und Entstehungsprozeß teilen die Bände der Gesamtausgabe mit, insbesondere die rekonstruierte Autograph-Partitur und die Faksimile-Ausgabe. Die Konsultation dieser Quellen-Publikationen ist zum Verständnis des Folgenden unbedingt erforderlich, auch wenn durch die neuen Erkenntnisse der hier vorgelegten Neuausgabe einige ihrer Details behutsamer Korrektur bedürfen. Weitere Referenz ist der 2002 von Cohrs im Auftrag der Herausgeber erarbeitete Musik-Konzepte-Band 120-122 (Bruckners Neunte im Fegefeuer der Rezeption; München, 2003), insbesondere darin die von ihm gemeinsam mit Phillips verfaßte ›Einführung in die erhaltenen Quellen zum Finale‹, sowie Cohrs' Dissertation ›Das Finale der IX. Sinfonie von Anton Bruckner (Wiener Bruckner Studien 3, Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag Wien, 2012), die eine neue ›Präsentation des Fragments‹ in Partitur enthält.
Das grundsätzliche Layout der NA folgt im Wesentlichen den Vorgaben der kritischen Neuausgabe der IX. Sinfonie (1.–3. Satz) von Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs in der Gesamtausgabe (vgl. dort S. XIII), wurde allerdings aus praktischen Erwägungen in manchen Details noch weiter modifiziert. Die Terminologie richtet sich weitgehend nach den Vorgaben der Studienbände zum Finale wie von John A. Phillips aufgestellt (vgl. Autograph-Partitur, S. XXV; FA, S. XIX; ›Dokumentation‹, S. XXVIIff). Weitere grundlegende und hilfreiche Erläuterungen bietet Phillips' Kommentar am Ende der ›Dokumentation‹ (vgl. dort, S. 85ff). Verschiedene eingearbeitete Tabellen teilen Konkordanzen der NA (Taktzahlen, verwendetes Quellenmaterial, Tempoangaben etc.) zur AF 1992 und FA, Übersichten der zugrundegelegten Manuskripte und der Form des Satzes mit. Aufgrund der Verbreitung der AF 1992 durch Aufführungen, Publikationen und Einspielungen schien geboten, im Kommentar der NA neben der Beschreibung philologischer Probleme und der angewandten ›musik-forensischen‹ Rekonstruktions- bzw. Synthesetechniken auch Anmerkungen zu den Veränderungen im Vergleich zur AF 1992 mitzuteilen. Die Diskussion der Partiturbogen des Finales wurde dem Kritischen Bericht zur IX. Sinfonie (1.–3. Satz) angeglichen (vgl. S. XVI). Da die Quellen zum Finale dank der Veröffentlichungen der Bruckner-Gesamtausgabe und des Musikwissenschaftlichen Verlags Wien extrem gut dokumentiert sind, wäre der Versuch müßig, das Partiturbild der hier vorgelegten Aufführungsfassung durch differenzierte Notengrößen, Strichelungen, Einklammerungen oder Ähnliches zu belasten. Der Kommentar verzeichnet entsprechend nicht die zahllosen notwendigen Ergänzungen spieltechnischer Anweisungen, sondern teilt stattdessen die von Bruckner noch selbst gesetzten, wenigen Hinweise dieser Art mit. Auf Fußnoten wurde im Rahmen dieser praktischen Ausgabe verzichtet, abgesehen von Angaben zu den korrespondierenden Bogen der autographen Partitur.
Dank gilt zunächst den Sponsoren und der Guttenberg-Stiftung, die den Computer-Notensatz der Ausgabe 2005 ermöglicht hatten, und dem Notensetzer Thomas Ohlendorf. Besonderer Dank gilt Ken Ward, Herausgeber des British Bruckner Journal, und John F. Berky, Webmaster von www.abruckner.com, die mit der Veröffentlichung von Materialien und Informationen beide ungemein hilfreich waren. Auch sei allen Bibliotheken, Orchestern, Dirigenten, Veranstaltern, Forschern und zahlreichen Einzelpersonen herzlichst gedankt, die diese Arbeit seit 1983 finanziell, logistisch und moralisch, durch Veröffentlichungen, Anregungen und Kritik unterstützt oder die Verbreitung, Aufführungen und Aufnahmen ermöglicht haben. Besonders zu Dank verpflichtet sind wir allerdings Sir Simon Rattle und den Berliner Philharmonikern, die mit ihrer Hingabe dieser Partitur 2012 neues Leben eingehaucht haben. Zum Ausdruck dieser Dankbarkeit sei diese letztgültig revidiere Ausgabe Sir Simon Rattle gewidmet.
AUTORENGEMEINSCHAFT SAMALE ET AL., ADELAIDE-BREMEN-ROM, OKTOBER 2012
ORIGINALE INSTRUMENTE

3 Flöten (Wiener Flöte aus Holz)
3 Oboen (Wiener Oboe)
3 Klarinetten in B (Wiener Klarinette; nur im Adagio wechselnd mit Klarinetten in A)
3 Fagotte (Wiener Fagott)

8 Hörner in F – 7.8. auch in B tief – (Wiener Horn)
2 Tenor-Tuben in B – werden von 5.6. Hrn. übernommen –
2 Baß-Tuben in F – werden von 7.8. Hrn. übernommen –
3 Trompeten in F (große Trompete doppelter Rohr-Länge)
Alt-, Tenor-, Bass-Posaune
(NB: Zug-Posaunen von Penzel waren seit 1883 bei den Wiener Philharmonikern üblich.)
Kontra-Baßtuba (Wiener Baßtuba in F mit Quartventil)
3 Pauken (Wiener Pedalpauken mit Naturfell-Bespannung)

Streicher (mindestens 12-12-8-8-6)

ZUR AUFFÜHRUNGSPRAXIS
Bruckner ging in der Instrumentierung von den Verhältnissen der Wiener Philharmoniker aus, die eine Streicherbesetzung von etwa 14-12-10-8-8 aufwiesen. Die Holzbläser wurden bei dieser Streicherstärke oft bereits verdoppelt. Traditionell befanden sich die Violingruppen antiphonal links und rechts, die Kontrabässe (Vier-Saiter) hinter dem Orchester in einer Reihe. Die Celli saßen meist mittig links, die Violen mittig rechts. Sinnvoll wäre es nach Erfahrung des Herausgebers jedoch, die Violen links hinter den ersten Violinen zu platzieren, da sie so den Schall nach vorn abstrahlen; die zweiten Violinen fühlen sich dann mit den Celli rechts hinter ihnen deutlich wohler. Auf diese Weise wird der bei Bruckner in der Stimmführung bedeutsame Tenor besser hörbar, der maßgeblich auch zur räumlichen Differenzierbarkeit der Gruppen des Orchesters im Publikum beiträgt. Infolgedessen bietet sich weiterhin an, die Hörner bzw. Tuben links hinter den Violen, Trompeten, Posaunen und Kontrabaßtuba rechts hinter den Celli zu postieren. Dadurch wirkt der Blechbläserklang nicht so massiv gepanzert; Alt- und Tenor-Instrumente sind ebenfalls antiphonal aufgestellt. Man bedenke zur Balance außerdem, daß die Blechblasinstrumente um 1900 etwa um ein Drittel kleiner und enger gebohrt, entsprechend schwächer, doch zugleich farbiger waren und allgemein direkter ansprachen. Stahlsaitenbespannung bei Streichern kam erst in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts auf; zumindest für die beiden hohen Saiten ist umsponnener Darm zu empfehlen. Das exzessive ›Saucen-Vibrato‹ war damals in Orchestern ebensowenig üblich wie das ständige Sostenuto-Spiel. Nuancen und Timbre wurden mit differenziertem Vibrato, durch Bogen- und Grifftechnik erzielt; ein leichtes Portamento wurde keineswegs verschmäht. Üblich war die natürlich-harmonische Stimmung mit reinen Quinten und Terzen, wie die Bohrung und Intonierung erhaltener Holzblasinstrumente nahelegt. Näheres zu Wiener Instrumenten um 1900 finden Interessenten im Symposiumsbericht Musikinstrumente und Musizierpraxis zur Zeit Gustav Mahlers, Hrsg. Reinhold Kubik, Böhlau-Verlag, Wien–Köln–Weimar 2007. (ISBN 978-3-2005-77696-3) Es galt in Wien der Pariser Stimmton (a = 435).

ZU DIESER PARTITUR
Gesamtlänge: 653 Takte
Aus erhaltenen Partiturbogen: 1–216 [= 216], 233–48 [= 16], 265–328 [= 64], 345–408 [= 64], 425–56 [= 32], 481–512 [= 32], 529–44 [= 16]: = 440 Takte
Ausarbeitung von Originalskizzen oder Satzverlaufs-Entwürfen an richtiger Stelle: 217–28 [= 12], 329–44 [= 16], 409–24 [= 16], 457–72 [= 16], 561–88 [= 28], 609–12, 614 [= 5], 617–40 [= 24]: = 117 Takte
Von den Herausgebern ergänzte Lücken: 229–32 [= 4], 249/50 [=2], 251–56 [= 6], 257–64 [= 8], 473–80 [= 8], 513–28 [= 16], 545–60 [= 16], 590–608 [= 20], 613, 615/16 [=3], 641–53 [= 13]: = 96 Takte
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PREFACE TO THE
CONCLUSIVE REVISED EDITION 2012

”Just a simple remark – if you don't approve of performing versions of composer's unfinished sketches, no one is holding your hand to the fire forcing you to listen. In the meantime, those of us with intellectual curiosity, although we know such things as this and other performing versions can never really exist as the composer would have completed them, would still rather hear the sketches in some way rather than having them remain mute in archive drawers. Again: no one is forcing you to listen …”
[Bruckner-Fan Dace Gisclard, Houston/USA, 26. 8. 2003, www.amazon.com]

In 1983, Nicola Samale and Giuseppe Mazzuca initiated the arduous task of completing the final movement of Anton Bruckner's IXth Symphony in d minor, originally almost complete in its conception, but nowadays partially lost. A first phase, finished in 1985, was published by Ricordi and subsequently recorded for CD with Eliahu Inbal (Teldec) and Gennadij Roshdestvenskij (Melodiya) conducting. Giuseppe Mazzuca, after the 1985 Ricordi publication, showed no further interest in work on the Finale. At about the same time, Nicola Samale started a collaboration with Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs, and developed with him further phases of the score, recorded, among others, under Hubert Soudant for the Netherlands Broadcasting Company NCRV (Producer: Cornelis van Zwol) and recorded live under Samale himself, released on CD by Melodram Italia. The latter already included important new features – apart from massive changes in instrumentation, also for the first time the realization of a final Halleluja in D major. In 1990, Samale also started to collaborate with the Australian scholar John A. Phillips, who re-checked the philological findings by Samale, Mazzuca, and Cohrs, and correlated them with his own research on the manuscripts. He later published his findings in his thesis (University of Adelaide, 2002) as well as in some volumes within the Bruckner Complete Edtion. Of particular interest is his ‘Facsimile Edition of all Surviving Musical Autographs’ (=FE), which appeared in 1996 in the Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag, Vienna, making available all that survived from Bruckner's own hand for this movement for the very first time to a large public. It serves as an indispensable reference source for the Conclusive Revised Edition (=CRE). Phillips also edited the next phase of the score, which appeared as a self-publication in 1992 in Adelaide and Bremen. It comprised the earlier results from 1983 until 1989, enriched with further new findings, later becoming known as the performing version by Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca, or SPCM version (= PV 1992).
This version, premiered 1991 by the Bruckner-Orchester Linz under Manfred Mayrhofer, was very successful – almost 40 performances in nine countries, by 17 orchestras under 14 conductors, including a Studio-CD-Production (Bruckner Orchester Linz, Kurt Eichhorn/Camerata Tokyo), a Live-CD-Recording (Neue Philharmonie Westphalen, Johannes Wildner/SonArte & Naxos), a Studio-Radio-Production (BBC) and three Live-Radio-Recordings (Netherlands Broadcasting Company, Hilversum; DeutschlandRadio, Cologne; Bayrischer Rundfunk, Munich) between 1991 and 2003. The Completed Performing Version gained additional support from the ‘Documentation of the Finale Fragment’ (=DFF), edited by John Phillips, first performed by the Wiener Symphoniker under Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Vienna, 1999), and repeated by the same conductor with the Wiener Philharmoniker, performed in Salzburg in 2002 and later issued on CD by RCA/BMG Classics. This production also contained for the first time the Critical New Edition of the first three movements, edited by Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs for the Bruckner Complete Edition.
However, both Samale and Cohrs have had the opportunity to conduct the Ninth and the Finale on various occasions since 1985; each performance brought new insights. Finally, in 2003 they became convinced that a revision of the entire score should be the next step, and Samale, as the initiator of this project, decided to prepare a new edition together with Cohrs. This was published 2005 as Study Score 444 of the Repertoire Explorer series at Musikproduktion Höflich, Munich. Unfortunately, some subsequent performances as well as new manuscript research undertaken by Cohrs in preparation of his dissertation (University of Hamburg, 2009) brought further new insights, requiring various corrections and revisions, to be included in a revised reprint (published in 2008). In this shape, the Finale received its première in Stockholm (8 & 9 November 2007; Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding).
Nevertheless, further insights led to a long and fruitful discussion between Samale, Cohrs and Phillips. The motivation to prepare a ‘Conclusive Revised Edition’ we owe to Sir Simon Rattle who decided to perform and record the Ninth including the performing version with the Berlin Philharmonic, and who charmingly wrote to the editors: ”I must say at once what a stunningly impressive piece of work you have done. I have been looking at the sketches in a very on and off fashion for some years, and heard another nameless reconstruction that almost put me off for life … It is undeniably very strange music, but what you have done has a ring of truth, and it is an extraordinary experience. (…) I have programmed the complete symphony with the BPhil in February 2012, also touring .to New York. I feel increasingly convinced by your plastic surgery, and feel that it should be more widely heard and understood. This from a man who has abandoned the Mozart Requiem! Congratulations again on your astonishing journey.”
In fact, already the first two performances of the score under Friedemann Layer (with Het Brabants Orkest, Eindhoven and Breda, Netherlands, 15 and 16 October 2011), but in particular the performances of Rattle (with the German National Youth Orchestra in the Berlin Philharmonie, 23 October 2011, and the Berlin Philharmonic in Berlin, Philharmonie, 7 to 9 February 2012, and New York, Carnegie Hall, 24 February 2012) as well as the recording (EMI 9 52969 2, May 2012) brought a fresh and widespread public attention. The more the authors felt obliged to publish then a score which should by all means be considered as their ‘Conclusive Revised Edition’ (unless hitherto unknown, lost score bifolios might turn up in future).
Such a protracted process of development and publication of a score may appear as being confusing to outsiders, however, it is not without precedent in History of Editions. An example taken from literature may serve as an illustration here. The scholar Stefan Schenk-Haupt demonstrated in his comprehensive study on A. Pope and T. S. Eliot (Dulness Never Dies, Europäische Hochschulschriften 399, Peter Lang, Frankfurt 2003) that The Dunciad by Alexander Pope – a book holding a key position in the 18th Century – should not only be understood as ‘work in progress’, being developed between 1728 and 1743 (i. e. ca 15 years), and in at least four working phases, but also has been published during this time in 15 editions corrected or authorized by Pope himself as well as in three further ‘pirate editions’, in all, 18 editions and 59 further reprints, and many of them being available simultaneously on the market. Similarly, the CRE of the Finale represents a ‘work in progress’, which could be considered to be finished only under the condition that all lost score bifolios had come back to light – apart from the fact that a ‘final’ evaluation of details was rendered impossible by Bruckner's death anyway.
A collaboration of various authors and editors of much different talent and personality may demand much more time to come to conclusive results, including many errors, and new attempts, but it has certainly one advantage opposed to the work of a single author: already at the process of gestation, the collaboration creates a kind of ‘peer reviewing’, of mutual control of the results. The attempt to prepare a performing version of the Finale is also in some ways similar to making a movie: editorial decisions can be compared to the post-production decisions of the director. For the final cut, his earlier function is complete and instead he now has to put himself in the shoes of the audience. His selection and order of the filmed material determines the structure and also influences the effect of the movie on the audience. Sometimes it may happen that, years after the première, film directors decide to prepare a new »director's cut« of a movie, for reasons which are known to everyone who likes movies; sometimes, new technology makes improvements possible; sometimes a director restores scenes he had to take out earlier on the demand of the producers – but sometimes he may also simply have come to new insights which would help to make the movie more convincing. (For this, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse now: Redux may be a good example.) And it is similarly so in the case of this performing version, which has been fine-tuned over a period of, in all, almost 30 years.
Two equally important approaches are needed to make this music performable – a) the sonic realisation of the surviving manuscripts themselves, as in the DFF edited by Phillips, suitable for workshop concerts, concert introductions or media presentation; as well as b) the completed performing version which would allow at least an approximate impression of the IXth Symphony as a four movement unity. While the DFF allows one to compare the surviving material with its completions in aural experience, listeners want to hear music in a concert, not philology. For this reason one cannot understand the motivation to conflate these two approaches. Philological questions should certainly be addressed in scholarly debate, but what is the point of producing a score which would necessarily still include speculative reconstructions of lost portions, while not making any use of the substantial sketch material that survives for the Coda? Apart from ignoring an audience which does not consist mainly of scholars, this approach could only replace the old legend of a three movement Ninth as being sufficiently ‘vollendet’ by a new myth of an ‘Unfinished’ – this time with an even more clearly audible break.
Other fragments should have taught us that reality may be totally different from legend anyway: Bach's Kunst der Fuge, for instance, did not only survive in a complete, initial version (Christoph Wolff, Ed.; Peters 1986) much too rarely considered by performers – according to modern research, the famous, incomplete Quadruple Fugue was finished long before the composer's death, its conclusion being lost on its way to the engraver, who finally decided himself to fill up the space reserved for the missing final section with other, fitting music of Bach. (In 2007, Ton Koopman even assumed that C. P. E. Bach did not include the ending of this fugue in order to maintain the fragmentary character of the work!) The performing version of Contrapunctus XIV by David Schulenberg (1992, the only one based on philological research so far) has even been included in the Bärenreiter Urtext Edition (Klaus Hofmann, Ed., Kassel 1998), but performers almost never dare to play such brave attempts at a completion, and people still prefer the abrupt stop – not to mention the fact that, as Butler pointed out, the Quadruple Fugue was possibly not even the final piece of the cycle; more likely, Bach intended to place the four canons at the end …
Some of the changes presented in this score are the result of new philological research and insight. Others merely represent variants and not necessarily ‘improvements’, but based on now almost 30 years of experience in examining, discussing, editing and performing this music. This also comprises the new elaboration of what were hitherto believed to be gaps within the Second Theme of the Exposition and within the Fugue (now fully established from the original sketches) as well as many refinements of instrumentation, phrasing, articulation, dynamics and tempi. Particularly in the Coda many changes have been undertaken in order to give a more coherent impression of these important final bars. From a fresh re-examination of the manuscripts it was possible to find some convincing new solutions, binding the music better together.
Philological research undertaken during the last decades had already revealed beyond doubt that Bruckner did not leave a pile of disconnected sketches for the Finale, but actually an emerging autograph score, which was most likely finished at least in its primary work phase almost half a year before Bruckner's death. The surviving manuscripts constitute material from various working phases, which could be combined to a surprisingly complete extent; for a very few bars only no material survived at all. It was possible to cover such gaps not so much by using ‘free composition’, but merely a technique of ‘synthesization’ (similar to reconstruction techniques in forensic medicine and plastic surgery), in which the musical fabric of lost bars can be regained to a certain extent from deductive analysis, observing the material before and after the gap as well as Bruckner's own, strictly ‘scientific’ approach of composing, hence to dispense with a free composition in the true sense of the expression.
Details of sources for, and for the gestation of the Finale have been provided by the various volumes which appeared in the Bruckner Complete Edition, in particular the FE and ‘Reconstruction of the Autograph Score’ (=RAS), edited by John Phillips. In order to fully understand the reconstruction procedures of this performing version, reference to these sources is indispensable. It may be also of help to consult the comprehensive Musik-Konzepte Vol. 120–22 on the Finale topic edited by Cohrs in 2003 (Bruckners Neunte im Fegefeuer der Rezeption; München, 2003; there in particular the ‘Introduction into the Surviving Sources of the Finale’, prepared by Cohrs and Phillips) and Cohrs' dissertation Das Finale der IX. Sinfonie von Anton Bruckner (Wiener Bruckner Studien 3, Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag Wien, 2012), which includes a new ‘Presentation of the Fragment’ in score.
The layout of the CRE is based on that established by Cohrs in his New Critical Edition of the Ninth (see preface of that score, p. XXII), but was further modified here for practical reasons. Terminology was used according to the principles given in other volumes of the Bruckner Complete Edition (see in particular RAS, p. XXVff; FE, p. XIXff; DFF, p. XXVIIff). Further information was provided by Phillips in his Commentary on the DFF (see there, p. 85ff). Various tables will be given in the CRE, providing information on concordances, bar numbers, page numbers, source material being used, Tempi and formal analysis of the Finale. Due to the relative availability of the PV 1992 (for instance, in some public and university libraries) and its documentation in publications and CD productions it seemed to be indispensable that the Commentary on the CRE should not only address philological problems and explain the reconstruction and supplementation techniques being used therein, but also refer to the differences and changes in comparison with the PV 1992. The layout of the discussion of sources in the Commentary itself was mainly adapted from the Critical Report on the Ninth by Cohrs (see there, p. XVI). Since the sources for the Finale have been documented extremely well (thanks to the efforts of the Bruckner Complete Edition and Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag), it seemed to be unnecessary to make the layout more complicated by using different sizes of notes, dotted lines or indications in brackets. The interested user of this score should compare it with the FE and the RAS. In order to avoid too much information, the Commentary does not indicate the numerous additions (such as accents, articulation, phrasing, dynamics) sign by sign or note by note, but on the contrary those being left by Bruckner himself. Where it seemed appropriate, the notes provided here include extracts from earlier writings of Cohrs (Musik-Konzepte, CD-Booklets). Annotations have not been included in this practical edition, except indications of the corresponding bifolios from the autograph score.
Thanks are due in the first place to the sponsors and the Guttenberg Foundation, who made possible the typography of the 2005 edition, and to the typesetter Thomas Ohlendorf. Special thanks go to Ken Ward, Editor of The Bruckner Journal, and John F. Berky, the webmaster of www.abruckner.com, who both helped immensely with publishing materials and information on this performing version. We also wish to thank all those institutions, orchestras, conductors, libraries, scholars, and various other enthusiasts, who have supported this work since 1983, with financial, logistical or moral support, publicity, comments and suggestions, or have even made the distribution, performance or recording of the CPV possible. However, in particular we are indebted to Sir Simon Rattle and the commited players of the Berlin Philharmonic, who brought this score to new life in 2012. To express our gratitude appropriately, we dedicate this Conclusive Revised Edition to Sir Simon Rattle.
AUTHORIAL TEAM SAMALE ET AL., ADELAIDE-BREMEN-ROM, OCTOBER 2012
ORIGINAL INSTRUMENTS

3 Flutes (wooden Viennese Flute)
3 Oboes (Viennese Oboe)
3 Clarinets in Bb (Viennese Clarinet; only in the Adagio alternating with Clar. in A)
3 Bassoons (Viennese Bassoon)

8 Horns in F – 7.8. alternating with Horns in Bβ low – (Viennese Horn)
2 Tenor-Tubas in Bb – alternating with 5.6. Hrn. –
2 Bass-Tubas in F –alternating with 7.8. Hrn. –
3 Trumpets in F (large Trumpet of double length)
Alto-, Tenor-, Bass-Trombone
(NB: Slide Trombones by Penzel were used in the Vienna Philharmonic since 1883)
Doublebass-Tuba (Viennese Bass Tuba in F with fourth valve)
3 Timpani (Viennese Pedal-Timpani with natural cover)

Strings (min. 12-12-8-8-6)

ON PERFORMING PRACTICE
When making his score Bruckner would have had in mind the practice of the Wiener Philharmoniker, including a String orchestra of ca. 14-12-10-8-8. With such a number of Strings it was common practice to double the Woodwinds. Traditionally the two Violin groups were placed on the left and right side of the rostrum, the Double Basses in one row behind the orchestra. Celli were sitting left behind the first, Violas right behind the second Violins. However, it might be helpful to reverse this and place the Violas left behind the first Violins, so that they can reflect their sound directly to the audience instead of to the rear wall. Furthermore, the second Violins feel much more comfortable with Celli behind them. In so doing, the Tenor part, so important in Bruckner's voice leading and design, will be better audible, which contributes significantly to the spaciality of sound. Hence it might be possible as well to place the Horns to the left behind the Violas, Trumpets, Trombones and Tuba to the right, behind Celli. This would make the sound of the Brass less heavy. Regarding orchestral balance, one should also bear in mind that the Brass instruments from ca. 1900 were much smaller, less heavy, but also much more colourful. Steel strings were common only in the second half of the 20th Century; gut-strings are recommended at least for the upper Strings. The modern ‘Maplenut-Syrup-Vibrato’ was as much uncommon as a permanent sostenuto playing. Nuances an Timbre were achieved by technique and flexible vibrato, and a slight portamento was by no means unwelcome. Common at that time was the natural-harmonic intonation with pure fifths and thirds, as the bore and intonation of extant original woodwind instruments reveal. More interesting information on Viennese instruments from ca. 1900 can be found in Musikinstrumente und Musizierpraxis zur Zeit Gustav Mahlers, Ed. Reinhold Kubik, Böhlau-Verlag, Wien–Köln–Weimar, 2007. (ISBN 978-3-2005-77696-3) The french pitch (a = 435) was common in Vienna.

ABOUT THIS SCORE
Total length: 653 bars
Taken from surviving score bifolios: 1–216 [= 216], 233–48 [= 16], 265–328 [= 64], 345–408 [= 64], 425–56 [= 32], 481–512 [= 32], 529–44 [= 16]: = 440 bars
Elaboration of original sketches or drafts (SVE) in their correct position: 217–28 [= 12], 329–44 [= 16], 409–24 [= 16], 457–72 [= 16], 561–88 [= 28], 609–12, 614 [= 5], 617–40 [= 24]: = 117 bars
Gaps supplemented by the authors: 229–32 [= 4], 249/50 [=2], 251–56 [= 6], 257–64 [= 8], 473–80 [= 8], 513–28 [= 16], 545–60 [= 16], 590–608 [= 20], 613, 615/16 [=3], 641–53 [= 13]: = 96 bars

PREFACE TO THE
CONCLUSIVE REVISED EDITION 2012

”Just a simple remark – if you don't approve of performing versions of composer's unfinished sketches, no one is holding your hand to the fire forcing you to listen. In the meantime, those of us with intellectual curiosity, although we know such things as this and other performing versions can never really exist as the composer would have completed them, would still rather hear the sketches in some way rather than having them remain mute in archive drawers. Again: no one is forcing you to listen …”
[Bruckner-Fan Dace Gisclard, Houston/USA, 26. 8. 2003, www.amazon.com]

In 1983, Nicola Samale and Giuseppe Mazzuca initiated the arduous task of completing the final movement of Anton Bruckner's IXth Symphony in d minor, originally almost complete in its conception, but nowadays partially lost. A first phase, finished in 1985, was published by Ricordi and subsequently recorded for CD with Eliahu Inbal (Teldec) and Gennadij Roshdestvenskij (Melodiya) conducting. Giuseppe Mazzuca, after the 1985 Ricordi publication, showed no further interest in work on the Finale. At about the same time, Nicola Samale started a collaboration with Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs, and developed with him further phases of the score, recorded, among others, under Hubert Soudant for the Netherlands Broadcasting Company NCRV (Producer: Cornelis van Zwol) and recorded live under Samale himself, released on CD by Melodram Italia. The latter already included important new features – apart from massive changes in instrumentation, also for the first time the realization of a final Halleluja in D major. In 1990, Samale also started to collaborate with the Australian scholar John A. Phillips, who re-checked the philological findings by Samale, Mazzuca, and Cohrs, and correlated them with his own research on the manuscripts. He later published his findings in his thesis (University of Adelaide, 2002) as well as in some volumes within the Bruckner Complete Edtion. Of particular interest is his ‘Facsimile Edition of all Surviving Musical Autographs’ (=FE), which appeared in 1996 in the Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag, Vienna, making available all that survived from Bruckner's own hand for this movement for the very first time to a large public. It serves as an indispensable reference source for the Conclusive Revised Edition (=CRE). Phillips also edited the next phase of the score, which appeared as a self-publication in 1992 in Adelaide and Bremen. It comprised the earlier results from 1983 until 1989, enriched with further new findings, later becoming known as the performing version by Samale-Phillips-Cohrs-Mazzuca, or SPCM version (= PV 1992).
This version, premiered 1991 by the Bruckner-Orchester Linz under Manfred Mayrhofer, was very successful – almost 40 performances in nine countries, by 17 orchestras under 14 conductors, including a Studio-CD-Production (Bruckner Orchester Linz, Kurt Eichhorn/Camerata Tokyo), a Live-CD-Recording (Neue Philharmonie Westphalen, Johannes Wildner/SonArte & Naxos), a Studio-Radio-Production (BBC) and three Live-Radio-Recordings (Netherlands Broadcasting Company, Hilversum; DeutschlandRadio, Cologne; Bayrischer Rundfunk, Munich) between 1991 and 2003. The Completed Performing Version gained additional support from the ‘Documentation of the Finale Fragment’ (=DFF), edited by John Phillips, first performed by the Wiener Symphoniker under Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Vienna, 1999), and repeated by the same conductor with the Wiener Philharmoniker, performed in Salzburg in 2002 and later issued on CD by RCA/BMG Classics. This production also contained for the first time the Critical New Edition of the first three movements, edited by Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs for the Bruckner Complete Edition.
However, both Samale and Cohrs have had the opportunity to conduct the Ninth and the Finale on various occasions since 1985; each performance brought new insights. Finally, in 2003 they became convinced that a revision of the entire score should be the next step, and Samale, as the initiator of this project, decided to prepare a new edition together with Cohrs. This was published 2005 as Study Score 444 of the Repertoire Explorer series at Musikproduktion Höflich, Munich. Unfortunately, some subsequent performances as well as new manuscript research undertaken by Cohrs in preparation of his dissertation (University of Hamburg, 2009) brought further new insights, requiring various corrections and revisions, to be included in a revised reprint (published in 2008). In this shape, the Finale received its première in Stockholm (8 & 9 November 2007; Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding).
Nevertheless, further insights led to a long and fruitful discussion between Samale, Cohrs and Phillips. The motivation to prepare a ‘Conclusive Revised Edition’ we owe to Sir Simon Rattle who decided to perform and record the Ninth including the performing version with the Berlin Philharmonic, and who charmingly wrote to the editors: ”I must say at once what a stunningly impressive piece of work you have done. I have been looking at the sketches in a very on and off fashion for some years, and heard another nameless reconstruction that almost put me off for life … It is undeniably very strange music, but what you have done has a ring of truth, and it is an extraordinary experience. (…) I have programmed the complete symphony with the BPhil in February 2012, also touring .to New York. I feel increasingly convinced by your plastic surgery, and feel that it should be more widely heard and understood. This from a man who has abandoned the Mozart Requiem! Congratulations again on your astonishing journey.”
In fact, already the first two performances of the score under Friedemann Layer (with Het Brabants Orkest, Eindhoven and Breda, Netherlands, 15 and 16 October 2011), but in particular the performances of Rattle (with the German National Youth Orchestra in the Berlin Philharmonie, 23 October 2011, and the Berlin Philharmonic in Berlin, Philharmonie, 7 to 9 February 2012, and New York, Carnegie Hall, 24 February 2012) as well as the recording (EMI 9 52969 2, May 2012) brought a fresh and widespread public attention. The more the authors felt obliged to publish then a score which should by all means be considered as their ‘Conclusive Revised Edition’ (unless hitherto unknown, lost score bifolios might turn up in future).
Such a protracted process of development and publication of a score may appear as being confusing to outsiders, however, it is not without precedent in History of Editions. An example taken from literature may serve as an illustration here. The scholar Stefan Schenk-Haupt demonstrated in his comprehensive study on A. Pope and T. S. Eliot (Dulness Never Dies, Europäische Hochschulschriften 399, Peter Lang, Frankfurt 2003) that The Dunciad by Alexander Pope – a book holding a key position in the 18th Century – should not only be understood as ‘work in progress’, being developed between 1728 and 1743 (i. e. ca 15 years), and in at least four working phases, but also has been published during this time in 15 editions corrected or authorized by Pope himself as well as in three further ‘pirate editions’, in all, 18 editions and 59 further reprints, and many of them being available simultaneously on the market. Similarly, the CRE of the Finale represents a ‘work in progress’, which could be considered to be finished only under the condition that all lost score bifolios had come back to light – apart from the fact that a ‘final’ evaluation of details was rendered impossible by Bruckner's death anyway.
A collaboration of various authors and editors of much different talent and personality may demand much more time to come to conclusive results, including many errors, and new attempts, but it has certainly one advantage opposed to the work of a single author: already at the process of gestation, the collaboration creates a kind of ‘peer reviewing’, of mutual control of the results. The attempt to prepare a performing version of the Finale is also in some ways similar to making a movie: editorial decisions can be compared to the post-production decisions of the director. For the final cut, his earlier function is complete and instead he now has to put himself in the shoes of the audience. His selection and order of the filmed material determines the structure and also influences the effect of the movie on the audience. Sometimes it may happen that, years after the première, film directors decide to prepare a new »director's cut« of a movie, for reasons which are known to everyone who likes movies; sometimes, new technology makes improvements possible; sometimes a director restores scenes he had to take out earlier on the demand of the producers – but sometimes he may also simply have come to new insights which would help to make the movie more convincing. (For this, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse now: Redux may be a good example.) And it is similarly so in the case of this performing version, which has been fine-tuned over a period of, in all, almost 30 years.
Two equally important approaches are needed to make this music performable – a) the sonic realisation of the surviving manuscripts themselves, as in the DFF edited by Phillips, suitable for workshop concerts, concert introductions or media presentation; as well as b) the completed performing version which would allow at least an approximate impression of the IXth Symphony as a four movement unity. While the DFF allows one to compare the surviving material with its completions in aural experience, listeners want to hear music in a concert, not philology. For this reason one cannot understand the motivation to conflate these two approaches. Philological questions should certainly be addressed in scholarly debate, but what is the point of producing a score which would necessarily still include speculative reconstructions of lost portions, while not making any use of the substantial sketch material that survives for the Coda? Apart from ignoring an audience which does not consist mainly of scholars, this approach could only replace the old legend of a three movement Ninth as being sufficiently ‘vollendet’ by a new myth of an ‘Unfinished’ – this time with an even more clearly audible break.
Other fragments should have taught us that reality may be totally different from legend anyway: Bach's Kunst der Fuge, for instance, did not only survive in a complete, initial version (Christoph Wolff, Ed.; Peters 1986) much too rarely considered by performers – according to modern research, the famous, incomplete Quadruple Fugue was finished long before the composer's death, its conclusion being lost on its way to the engraver, who finally decided himself to fill up the space reserved for the missing final section with other, fitting music of Bach. (In 2007, Ton Koopman even assumed that C. P. E. Bach did not include the ending of this fugue in order to maintain the fragmentary character of the work!) The performing version of Contrapunctus XIV by David Schulenberg (1992, the only one based on philological research so far) has even been included in the Bärenreiter Urtext Edition (Klaus Hofmann, Ed., Kassel 1998), but performers almost never dare to play such brave attempts at a completion, and people still prefer the abrupt stop – not to mention the fact that, as Butler pointed out, the Quadruple Fugue was possibly not even the final piece of the cycle; more likely, Bach intended to place the four canons at the end …
Some of the changes presented in this score are the result of new philological research and insight. Others merely represent variants and not necessarily ‘improvements’, but based on now almost 30 years of experience in examining, discussing, editing and performing this music. This also comprises the new elaboration of what were hitherto believed to be gaps within the Second Theme of the Exposition and within the Fugue (now fully established from the original sketches) as well as many refinements of instrumentation, phrasing, articulation, dynamics and tempi. Particularly in the Coda many changes have been undertaken in order to give a more coherent impression of these important final bars. From a fresh re-examination of the manuscripts it was possible to find some convincing new solutions, binding the music better together.
Philological research undertaken during the last decades had already revealed beyond doubt that Bruckner did not leave a pile of disconnected sketches for the Finale, but actually an emerging autograph score, which was most likely finished at least in its primary work phase almost half a year before Bruckner's death. The surviving manuscripts constitute material from various working phases, which could be combined to a surprisingly complete extent; for a very few bars only no material survived at all. It was possible to cover such gaps not so much by using ‘free composition’, but merely a technique of ‘synthesization’ (similar to reconstruction techniques in forensic medicine and plastic surgery), in which the musical fabric of lost bars can be regained to a certain extent from deductive analysis, observing the material before and after the gap as well as Bruckner's own, strictly ‘scientific’ approach of composing, hence to dispense with a free composition in the true sense of the expression.
Details of sources for, and for the gestation of the Finale have been provided by the various volumes which appeared in the Bruckner Complete Edition, in particular the FE and ‘Reconstruction of the Autograph Score’ (=RAS), edited by John Phillips. In order to fully understand the reconstruction procedures of this performing version, reference to these sources is indispensable. It may be also of help to consult the comprehensive Musik-Konzepte Vol. 120–22 on the Finale topic edited by Cohrs in 2003 (Bruckners Neunte im Fegefeuer der Rezeption; München, 2003; there in particular the ‘Introduction into the Surviving Sources of the Finale’, prepared by Cohrs and Phillips) and Cohrs' dissertation Das Finale der IX. Sinfonie von Anton Bruckner (Wiener Bruckner Studien 3, Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag Wien, 2012), which includes a new ‘Presentation of the Fragment’ in score.
The layout of the CRE is based on that established by Cohrs in his New Critical Edition of the Ninth (see preface of that score, p. XXII), but was further modified here for practical reasons. Terminology was used according to the principles given in other volumes of the Bruckner Complete Edition (see in particular RAS, p. XXVff; FE, p. XIXff; DFF, p. XXVIIff). Further information was provided by Phillips in his Commentary on the DFF (see there, p. 85ff). Various tables will be given in the CRE, providing information on concordances, bar numbers, page numbers, source material being used, Tempi and formal analysis of the Finale. Due to the relative availability of the PV 1992 (for instance, in some public and university libraries) and its documentation in publications and CD productions it seemed to be indispensable that the Commentary on the CRE should not only address philological problems and explain the reconstruction and supplementation techniques being used therein, but also refer to the differences and changes in comparison with the PV 1992. The layout of the discussion of sources in the Commentary itself was mainly adapted from the Critical Report on the Ninth by Cohrs (see there, p. XVI). Since the sources for the Finale have been documented extremely well (thanks to the efforts of the Bruckner Complete Edition and Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag), it seemed to be unnecessary to make the layout more complicated by using different sizes of notes, dotted lines or indications in brackets. The interested user of this score should compare it with the FE and the RAS. In order to avoid too much information, the Commentary does not indicate the numerous additions (such as accents, articulation, phrasing, dynamics) sign by sign or note by note, but on the contrary those being left by Bruckner himself. Where it seemed appropriate, the notes provided here include extracts from earlier writings of Cohrs (Musik-Konzepte, CD-Booklets). Annotations have not been included in this practical edition, except indications of the corresponding bifolios from the autograph score.
Thanks are due in the first place to the sponsors and the Guttenberg Foundation, who made possible the typography of the 2005 edition, and to the typesetter Thomas Ohlendorf. Special thanks go to Ken Ward, Editor of The Bruckner Journal, and John F. Berky, the webmaster of www.abruckner.com, who both helped immensely with publishing materials and information on this performing version. We also wish to thank all those institutions, orchestras, conductors, libraries, scholars, and various other enthusiasts, who have supported this work since 1983, with financial, logistical or moral support, publicity, comments and suggestions, or have even made the distribution, performance or recording of the CPV possible. However, in particular we are indebted to Sir Simon Rattle and the commited players of the Berlin Philharmonic, who brought this score to new life in 2012. To express our gratitude appropriately, we dedicate this Conclusive Revised Edition to Sir Simon Rattle.
AUTHORIAL TEAM SAMALE ET AL., ADELAIDE-BREMEN-ROM, OCTOBER 2012
ORIGINAL INSTRUMENTS

3 Flutes (wooden Viennese Flute)
3 Oboes (Viennese Oboe)
3 Clarinets in Bb (Viennese Clarinet; only in the Adagio alternating with Clar. in A)
3 Bassoons (Viennese Bassoon)

8 Horns in F – 7.8. alternating with Horns in Bβ low – (Viennese Horn)
2 Tenor-Tubas in Bb – alternating with 5.6. Hrn. –
2 Bass-Tubas in F –alternating with 7.8. Hrn. –
3 Trumpets in F (large Trumpet of double length)
Alto-, Tenor-, Bass-Trombone
(NB: Slide Trombones by Penzel were used in the Vienna Philharmonic since 1883)
Doublebass-Tuba (Viennese Bass Tuba in F with fourth valve)
3 Timpani (Viennese Pedal-Timpani with natural cover)

Strings (min. 12-12-8-8-6)

ON PERFORMING PRACTICE
When making his score Bruckner would have had in mind the practice of the Wiener Philharmoniker, including a String orchestra of ca. 14-12-10-8-8. With such a number of Strings it was common practice to double the Woodwinds. Traditionally the two Violin groups were placed on the left and right side of the rostrum, the Double Basses in one row behind the orchestra. Celli were sitting left behind the first, Violas right behind the second Violins. However, it might be helpful to reverse this and place the Violas left behind the first Violins, so that they can reflect their sound directly to the audience instead of to the rear wall. Furthermore, the second Violins feel much more comfortable with Celli behind them. In so doing, the Tenor part, so important in Bruckner's voice leading and design, will be better audible, which contributes significantly to the spaciality of sound. Hence it might be possible as well to place the Horns to the left behind the Violas, Trumpets, Trombones and Tuba to the right, behind Celli. This would make the sound of the Brass less heavy. Regarding orchestral balance, one should also bear in mind that the Brass instruments from ca. 1900 were much smaller, less heavy, but also much more colourful. Steel strings were common only in the second half of the 20th Century; gut-strings are recommended at least for the upper Strings. The modern ‘Maplenut-Syrup-Vibrato’ was as much uncommon as a permanent sostenuto playing. Nuances an Timbre were achieved by technique and flexible vibrato, and a slight portamento was by no means unwelcome. Common at that time was the natural-harmonic intonation with pure fifths and thirds, as the bore and intonation of extant original woodwind instruments reveal. More interesting information on Viennese instruments from ca. 1900 can be found in Musikinstrumente und Musizierpraxis zur Zeit Gustav Mahlers, Ed. Reinhold Kubik, Böhlau-Verlag, Wien–Köln–Weimar, 2007. (ISBN 978-3-2005-77696-3) The french pitch (a = 435) was common in Vienna.

ABOUT THIS SCORE
Total length: 653 bars
Taken from surviving score bifolios: 1–216 [= 216], 233–48 [= 16], 265–328 [= 64], 345–408 [= 64], 425–56 [= 32], 481–512 [= 32], 529–44 [= 16]: = 440 bars
Elaboration of original sketches or drafts (SVE) in their correct position: 217–28 [= 12], 329–44 [= 16], 409–24 [= 16], 457–72 [= 16], 561–88 [= 28], 609–12, 614 [= 5], 617–40 [= 24]: = 117 bars
Gaps supplemented by the authors: 229–32 [= 4], 249/50 [=2], 251–56 [= 6], 257–64 [= 8], 473–80 [= 8], 513–28 [= 16], 545–60 [= 16], 590–608 [= 20], 613, 615/16 [=3], 641–53 [= 13]: = 96 bars