Special Annual Edition 2026 / Welser-Möst

CD

Franz Welser-Möst / Vienna Philharmonic

Anton Bruckner 

Symphony No. 9 in D minor, WAB 109
 

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The Special Annual Edition 2026 showcases a concert recording of Anton

Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony in D minor, WAB 109, performed at the 2025 Salzburg Festival under the baton of Franz Welser-Möst. Since his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic in 1998, Franz Welser-Möst has been one of the orchestra’s closest artistic companions, both musically and personally.

The unfinished, three-movement work that Bruckner dedicated to the

“beloved God” is, in the conductor’s words, nothing less than “Catholic theology set to music”. Franz Welser-Möst’s deeply considered approach brings the symphony’s cathedral-like architecture and sweeping dramatic arcs into sharp relief. Monumental in scale yet remarkably transparent, the interpretation opens up a sound world alive to the subtlest dynamic nuances.

The performance reaches a powerful culmination in the expansive third movement, which Franz Welser-Möst treats as the work’s finale.

In featuring Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, this year’s Special Annual Edition marks a notable anniversary: it is 120 years since the Philharmonic first performed the work. The symphony was presented at the Musikverein on

4 March 1906 as part of a Nicolai Concert, conducted by Karl Muck.

Later that same year, on 17 August, the Vienna Philharmonic gave its Salzburg premiere of the work in the Great Hall of the University of Salzburg, with Richard Strauss on the podium.