ABSTRACT
Anton Bruckner's injunction that, should he not live to complete an instrumental Finale, his Te Deum should be used as, or in place of, a fourth movement to the Ninth Symphony has often been dismissed as fiction. This chapter explores the issue of whether and when Bruckner conceived of some sort of instrumental transition to the Te Deum, and what form that transition may have taken. It discusses the issues have important implications for our understanding of Bruckner the composer and for the performance of his last and most monumentally conceived symphony. A report in the Steyrer Zeitung of 10 May 1896, recounting Franz Bayer's visit to Bruckner, confirms: 'the concluding movement of his Ninth Symphony he has probably sketched in its entirety, but he himself no longer hopes to be able to complete its working-out'.
