I once had a conversation about whether something which was, by conventional standards, incomplete, could still be perfect.

I was reminded of this when I came to review Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony. The conductor Günter Wand used to pair this with Schubert’s much better known and frequently performed Unfinished Symphony – a wonderful and very satisfying concept.

Attempts to “round out” each have never worked, which serves to reinforce the notion that something incomplete can be perfect!  

Schubert’s Unfinished is incomplete for reasons that are unknown; Bruckner’s Ninth is incomplete because, after having laid down the first three movements he spent much time revising earlier works, and, by the time he returned to the Ninth, he was too ill to concentrate on such a mammoth challenge. 

Bruckner possessed the most straight forward, humble but rock-like Catholic faith combined with the most uncomplicated personality, which makes the complexity of his music so fascinating. The Ninth Symphony is enigmatic in the sense that it is his most “modern”. It largely subverts the received wisdom that he was the...