Sometimes in life, you really need a little push to do
something you have been thinking to do but did not actually do it for whatever
reasons or excuses.
This is exactly the case with my homework of a summary of
the status of the Finale completion of Bruckner’s unfinished symphony, the
Ninth, and its relevant recordings.
Thanks to my good friend who suggested a meeting to discuss this
topic, I have been taking an organised look at this interesting and
controversial topic for the past week, at long last.
In retrospect, my first encounter with these recordings was
a little more than 30 years ago. What excitement the 2 recordings, by Yoav
Talmi on the Carragan Finale completion, and Eliahu Inbal on an early draft of
the Samale and Mazzuca Finale completion respectively, have given me when they
were first released in the late 1980s, is pure nostalgia.
More later.
P.S. Two recordings not shown are downloads, one of them is
the very attractive completion attempt by Letocart, and another is Soudant conducting
the Utrecht Symphony Orchestra on an early Carragan completion.