From Gunter Wand’s program note on Bruckner 9-
“The greater brusqueness of the Ninth Symphony’s sound world, when compared with that of its predecessors, sometimes creates the impression of a conscious aloofness and results from a greater rigour in the polyphonic part-writing, an aspect of the work that puzzles some listeners on their first encounter with it. It is the expression of an inner truth and withdrawal from the world which, after so many ecstatic visions of otherworldly spendour, is also capable of articulating the most unfathomable dissonance. This terrible scream, in which humanity’s lament at the Paradise that is has lost seems to reverberate till the end of time, can find no resolution or release within itself. It is followed by silence, after which the listener turns to the security of faith. Sound seems to disengage itself from matter and between now and the work’s transfigured conclusion, the music’s pulse continues to beat in the certainty of “NON CONFUNDARIN AETERNUM” : “never let me be put to confusion.”
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