London Philharmonic Orchestra

For the last two years of his life, Anton Bruckner laboured over the final movement of his Ninth Symphony. He never finished it. The flame of his existence was extinguished even as he leant over the symphony's incomplete score. But as life was leaving Bruckner, vision and faith were only strengthening in him. The performing version of the Ninth Symphony played today has inspiring optimism and boldness. Instruments glide confidently towards unusual and pleasing harmonies and keys before intoning a chorale taken from Bruckner's own setting of the sacred Te Deum text. 'Art had its beginning in God', believed Bruckner, 'And so it must lead back to God.'