Soli Deo Gloria

Fyodor Lednev conducts a new version of Anton Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony and the world premiere of Boris Filanovsky’s “Bruckner DIY”.

Programme

Anton Bruckner (1824–1896)
Symphony no. 9 in D minor, WAB 109, 1887–1896
Arranged for chamber orchestra by Boris Filanovsky, 2025 (world premiere)
Commissioned by GES-2 House of Culture
I. Feierlich, Misterioso
II. Scherzo. Bewegt, lebhaft
iii. Adagio. Langsam, feierlich

Boris Filanovsky (b. 1968)
Bruckner-DIY, 2025
World premiere
Commissioned by GES-2 House of Culture

The Ninth Symphony, dedicated to “Beloved God,” crowned Bruckner’s creative career and spoke the final word in Austro-German Romanticism. The score took nine long years to write and remained unfinished: the composer was still struggling with the fourth and final movement of the work when he died in 1896. The three completed movements take more than an hour to perform.

Performed by

Fyodor Lednev conductor 

Pritiazheniye Creative Association
Daniil Kogan artistic director 

Yaroslav Timofeev concert host

Illustration: Anastasia Filippova

Bruckner took no notice of other people’s revisions and reductions of his symphonies. He believed that the original versions would eventually be understood and accepted. That is, of course, what happened. But today I can allow myself to play with the original, as if I was composing inside something that has already been composed; something that has canonical status, but, precisely for that reason, permits dialogue.

—Boris Filanovsky

Conductor Fyodor Lednev and the musicians of Pritiazheniye Creative Association present a new version of the Ninth, created by composer Boris Filanovsky for chamber ensemble at the request of GES-2 House of Culture.

Specialists in Bruckner’s work have tried more than once to reconstruct the fourth movement of the Ninth Symphony based on surviving sketches, although the composer himself reputedly wanted his own Te Deum be performed as the Symphony’s finale if he was not able to complete it. GES-2 House of Culture has taken a different approach: Boris Filanovsky’s Bruckner DIY is a homage to the incompleteness of Bruckner’s Ninth. It was written especially for the Music Unbound series and its performance will bring the evening to a close.

The voice of the titan fades and a mumbling pygmy comes onto the stage... That’s what I wanted to avoid! So my piece is not a piece, not a musical form. It is a set of objects to be assembled independently. Into what? Into whatever you want. It is a super-multipart suite of instant compositions. They are written in the footsteps of Bruckner, but are practically devoid of any temporal aspect. Each of them requires your complete concentration. There are many such moments, but apart from them there is nothing, only the spaces in between. It is the only way I can hope to gain a quantity of your attention comparable to the amount you give to Bruckner.

—Boris Filanovsky

Fyodor Lednev (b. 1971, Minsk) is a conductor. He graduated from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory specialising in choral conducting (1995) and operatic and symphonic conducting (1998). Since 1995, he has taught at the Saint Petersburg Rimsky-Korsakov Music College. He has appeared as guest conductor with leading Russian orchestras, including the Svetlanov State Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, the Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra, the musicAeterna Choir and Orchestra, and others. In 2024 he won the prize for Best Conducting Work at the Golden Mask theatre awards in Moscow.

Pritiazheniye (“Attraction”) Creative Association was founded in 2019 by violinist Daniil Kogan. Its musicians perform conceptual programmes, engage with an unconventional repertoire, and introduce elements of performance art into traditional concert formats. Pritiazheniye has performed at leading venues in the Russian capital: Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, the Chamber Hall of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, DK Rassvet, and Zaryadye Concert Hall.

Yaroslav Timofeev (b. 1988, Novgorod) is a musicologist, concert presenter, and lecturer. He is a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, chief editor of Musikalnaya Akademia magazine, and has worked since 2010 at the Moscow Philharmonic Society (Russia’s largest concert organisation) where he leads a number of projects: Mum, I’m Crazy about Music (since the 2017/2018 season), The Language of Music (co‑author and presenter since 2018/2019), Thing-in-Itself (author and presenter since 2021/2022), and All Stravinsky (author and presenter since 2022/2023). He has performed since 2017 as pianist with the Russian indie group, OQJAV.

Boris Filanovsky (b. 1968, Leningrad) is a composer and curator. He studied composition at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. From 2000 to 2012, he was artistic director of the eNsemble contemporary music group at the Pro Arte Institute in Saint Petersburg. He has lived and worked in Berlin since 2013, including a residence as part of the Berlin Artists-in-Residence Programme (DAAD, 2013–2014). Boris Filanovsky’s music has been performed under the batons of Vladimir Jurowski, Teodor Currentzis, and Fyodor Lednev, and by the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, eNsemble, Schönberg Ensemble, ensemble mosaik, unitedberlin, and Orkest de Volharding.