Of course, it was absolutely what Bruckner had intended: the final, visionary statement of a composer peering into the realm beyond his own death. In truth, Bruckner's finale was no less strange than the final quartets of Beethoven, or the late paintings of Turner. It was meant to be heard.

Last night at Carnegie, Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic made their case for the completed 9th symphony, performing it for the first time in the U.S. (They performed it in Berlin for the first time two weeks ago.) Of course, having one of the world's great orchestras perform this reconstruction is it's own validation; in Rattle's view, they were simply honoring Bruckner's original intentions.

From the outset, Rattle - who conducted without a score - employed broad tempi, drawing out the music for maximum effect while coaxing impossibly loud crescendi from the orchestra. Throughout the first movement, the string players were all in perfect unison, digging into their instruments with mad intensity. At the end of the movement, the timpani (played by Wieland Welzel) started with an almost indetectible hum, signaling the final coda with its furious trumpets and tubas, as if the Rapture were upon us. It was completely overwhelming: I was stunned, lost.

The second movement Scherzo started innocently enough, with its winds and pizzicato strings playing a delicate, pastoral theme. Which, less than a minute later is completely brutalized by staccato brass and timpani, pounding the strings into submission. It was like something out of Shostakovich: furious and unforgiving, with the orchestra gyrating like a huge, seething organism.

At first, the third movement Adagio seems to offer some reprieve from the darkness, with its tender strings and glowing Wagner tubas. But, before long, the rolling timpani and searing brass join forces in a fanfare of frightening intensity. Back and forth the music went, until finally Rattle exhorted the players to go for broke, strings and winds flying everywhere before crash landing on one of the harshest, most terrifying dissonances in all of music. Throughout, he kept the pace quicker than normal, refusing to milk the Adagio's pathos as if to telegraph there was still more to come.

Even so, it was strange not to hear applause after the soft, slow fade of the horns, so long familiar as the conclusion of this monumental symphony. But, after a pause, Rattle raised his baton and struck the downbeat for the finale, which was completely new to my ears. It started strangely, with dissonant chords and tempi that were all over the map. The music was clipped, restrained, as if someone were fumbling about in an unlit room. Finally, it came together with a loud, triumphant fanfare that reprised the central theme from the Adagio. 

The mystery of how to deal with the coda, for which almost no music was written, was resolved when Samale, Mazzuca, Phillips and Cohrs decided to follow Bruckner's standard blueprint by ending with all of the main themes from the preceding movements superimposed one on top of the other, ending with a final, major key chorale. According to Rattle, there was literally only one way that all of the themes could fit together, so that the ending "almost wrote itself."

As I sat there listening to the Berliners pour themselves into these final bars, I welled up with emotion. It was if they were saying: "We'll take it from here, Anton. Well done." A three-movement 9th will never sound the same again.

The full Berlin performance can be seen (for a fee) on the Berlin Philharmonic's website here. Other info available on Carnegie's website here. Back tonight for the final sold-out performance, featuring Hugo Wolf songs and Mahler's 2nd.