{"id":520729,"date":"2026-01-16T16:17:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T16:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/520729\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T16:17:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T16:17:16","slug":"a-powerful-bruckner-ninth-symphony-from-dallas-symphony-fabio-luisi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/520729\/","title":{"rendered":"A powerful Bruckner Ninth Symphony from Dallas Symphony, Fabio Luisi"},"content":{"rendered":"

As well as a composer and composition professor, Anton Bruckner was an organist. And his symphonies often build up great masses of sound you can imagine echoing around a vast stone-vaulted church. <\/p>\n

Which makes Dallas\u2019 Meyerson Symphony Center<\/a> a dream setting for those symphonies. At the Dallas Symphony Orchestra<\/a>\u2019s Thursday night performance of the unfinished Ninth, led by music director Fabio Luisi<\/a>, massive chords took as much as three seconds to float up and away into hidden reverberation chambers behind grilles ringing the room. Those climaxes exerted visceral intensity, but delicacies at the threshold of audibility seemed physical presences as well.<\/p>\n

Along with Bach\u2019s Art of Fugue, the Mozart Requiem, symphonies by Schubert, Mahler and Elgar, and Puccini\u2019s Turandot and Berg\u2019s Lulu, Bruckner\u2019s Ninth Symphony is one of music history\u2019s tantalizing torsos. The Austrian composer labored over it in fits and starts over nine years, but at his death in 1896 the finale was still a collection of sketches, some of which soon vanished.<\/p>\n

The symphony is usually performed, as here Thursday, as a three-movement work, and it\u2019s often asserted that the 25-minute third movement is a satisfying finale.<\/p>\n

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Bruckner didn\u2019t think so, in desperation even proposing his earlier Te Deum as a conclusion to the symphony, although few have found that a convincing solution. During the last 45 years or so, additional sketches for the finale have surfaced, and a number of musicologists and composers have essayed completions of the movement.<\/p>\n

The surviving material is strong enough that it deserves hearing in at least conjectural elaboration. We routinely accept completions of the Mozart Requiem and Turandot, why not Bruckner Nine? One of the completions would have added 23 minutes or so to a symphony already more than an hour long, but it seems a pity to be deprived of Bruckner\u2019s last thoughts on his last symphony.<\/p>\n

Schumann admired the sometimes \u201cheavenly lengths\u201d in Schubert\u2019s compositions, and the description applies even more dramatically to the vast spans of Bruckner\u2019s symphonies. A man of deep faith, Bruckner assembled majestic cathedrals in sound. <\/b>But the symphonies\u2019 start-and-stop contrasts and obsessive rhythmic gestures challenge the conductor to manage the ebb and flow of energy within overarching structures.<\/p>\n

Luisi did a spectacular job of this Thursday night. His pacing had organic inevitability, with just the right breaths between phrases and daring but strategic yieldings at transitions.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

The climaxes were certainly powerful, although the fortissimos were turbocharged 21st-century American rather than late 19th-century Viennese. Even Bruckner benefits from a bit of controlled reserve. <\/p>\n

There was much lovely detailing, but as in a number of recent DSO performances first violins weren\u2019t always as tidy as you\u2019d expect in a major orchestra, and winds and brasses weren\u2019t always fastidiously tuned. <\/b>Luisi can be a revelatory conductor \u2014 he\u2019ll be honored at the Friday performance with a medal of honor from the Bruckner Society of America \u2014 but the orchestra\u2019s discipline isn\u2019t as consistent as in its best days under former music director Jaap van Zweden<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the hushed ending of the Adagio was spoiled by immediate applause<\/a>. This of all movements needs a few seconds of repose at the end. <\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Details<\/p>\n

Repeats at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Meyerson Symphony Center, 2301 Flora St. $37 to $184. 214-849-4376, dallassymphony.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Jennifer<\/a>Review: A vivid semi-staged \u2018Madama Butterfly\u2019 from the Dallas Symphony<\/a><\/p>\n

But a mostly compelling cast was sometimes overpowered by the orchestra.<\/p>\n

\"On<\/a>Don Stone, Dallas philanthropist and arts advocate, dies<\/a><\/p>\n

Stone was a lover of the arts who held leadership positions at organizations such as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Black Dance Theatre and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As well as a composer and composition professor, Anton Bruckner was an organist. And his symphonies often build…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":520730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1576,1596,76314,127053,7260,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-520729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-classical-music","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-symphony-orchestra","12":"tag-fabio-luisi","13":"tag-performing-arts","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115905681552292586","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}