Klenau: Symphony No. 9

Paul von Klenau’s (1883-1946) grandiose Ninth Symphony in eight movements was composed in Copenhagen 1945 as his last major work; an extraordinary fusion of a Requiem with Latin text and a traditional symphony for orchestra, choir and four soloists. The manuscript then lay unknown for more than fifty years until it appeared in the 2001 discovery of a large collection of Klenau manuscripts in Vienna, and not until March 2014 – after a thorough editing by The Royal Library in Copenhagen – did it receive its first performance by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Schønwandt. This world premiere recording presents the full symphony; a magnificent opus of both tonal, atonal and even twelve-tone passages, very far removed from the style that predominated in the post-Nielsen Danish music of the 1940s.