MAKING OF

1996 . Requiem

These last morbid words of the old, dying Bruckner echo a hundredfold in the church.

The abbot stops abruptly, staring at Bruckner in deep shock. The candle flickers briefly with an unusual brightness and then almost goes out, bathing the entire scene in an eerily oppressive light.

BRUCKNER watch Nuncio Mortis, his eerie death bird and fabricates stories: "It's all so natural, Your Reverence. First, the body becomes very heavy; you can no longer stand upright, you can't move. Then the mucous membranes in your mouth, nose, and trachea dry out, you become very thirsty, and your thoughts become foggy and confused. Then, little by little, the body loses its warmth, and it becomes increasingly difficult to understand everything around you. Breathing becomes more and more difficult. You can no longer move, you hallucinate nonsense, and finally, you lose consciousness. Then you experience a great inner peace and contentment—many see a tunnel and, at the end, a white light—Jesus Christ!"

He pauses, then: "Yes, and then breathing stops, the heart stops beating - that is physical death!"

A hauntingly long silence follows – even the candle flame seems frozen. The eerie raven figure stands ghostlike and still. Nuncio Mortis He stood on the organ console, still staring hypnotically at Bruckner. The abbot had withdrawn again from the candle's cone of light. His voice sounded incantatory from the semi-darkness.

ABT (OVER): For God's sake, Bruckner! Is this description of dying also found in the secret Fraktur scripts of your Summa Música?

Bruckner doesn't answer, leans forward to the candle as if in a trance, mechanically kneads the wax rim, and plucks at the wick until the candle is burning properly again. With a sense of foreboding, he raises his head and listens...

...indeed: The tower clock strikes six times.

Bruckner reached into the left pocket of his waistcoat and pulled on the silver chain of his pocket watch, opened it, and checked the time. Out of habit, he wound the watch a few times and put it back in his pocket.

BRUCKNER: "My God, how time flies..."

The abbot spotted the large, shiny church key among the stack of papers, grabbed it, and waved it threateningly.

ABT: "What am I going to do with you now, Bruckner?"

BRUCKNER: "Just have the organ played?"

ABT: "No, no! I have my legitimate doubts, because music shouldn't "fear" people, but rather free the mind from all confusion!"

Good things take time.

1996. When I had the idea 11 years earlier to visualize this extraordinary D minor symphony by Bruckner for a wider audience according to his original specifications, I was not yet fully aware of how much patience one has to muster in addition to the actual artistic work in order to realize such an unusual project.

I was utterly devastated when, despite all my intensive efforts, it became a tragic certainty that, by the big Bruckner date of October 11, 1996, a professional, internationally acclaimed event could no longer be organized in his birthplace as planned. Bruckner's Ninth Symphony was, of course, far too precious to me for a conventional open-air concert with some generic scenery in the background.

So all that remained for me was the arduous path to the officials, to advise those in charge that if they were not prepared to make more of their own investment, they should instead play Bruckner's wonderful Requiem in D minor on the anniversary of his death.

I did manage to find one positive aspect to these unfortunate circumstances: I was no longer under so much pressure. Now it was entirely my own project with Bruckner, my artistic interpretation of his Ninth Symphony. counterfeited, most own "Visible Symphony in re minore regeneratione Bruckner"And I was able to finish it in peace and quiet, as this ingenious masterpiece truly deserves. I also consoled myself with the thought that such extraordinary projects simply need time to mature; after all, even a BRuckner dedicated over 10 years of his life to ultimately giving us this NINTH, officially and quite consciously, despite everything.unfinished to leave behind...