Following his critically acclaimed interpretation of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, Iván Fischer leads his Budapest Festival Orchestra to the summit of 19th-century symphonic music, with this new recording of the monumental, enigmatic, unfinished and deeply religious Ninth Symphony of Anton Bruckner.

The three completed movements are pervaded with angst and awareness of death. As in Mozart’s unfinished Requiem, the first movement is dominated by a dark D minor. The pounding rhythms of the Scherzo seem to anticipate Stravinsky and Bartók, while the large leaps and piercing dissonances point towards the Second Viennese School of Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. The Adagio is Bruckner’s heartrending farewell to the world and to life. Although Bruckner died before he could write the huge fourth movement he had in mind, there is something satisfying and comforting in concluding with the Adagio.