I'm with David on this, of course. Few music lovers would be without, e.g., the Mozart Requiem or Puccini's Turandot or Bartok's Viola Concerto, among other repertory works rendered "complete" by other hands. Of course, Bernstein refused to consider a completed Mahler 10th, but then, that was not the first or only time that Lenny was flat out wrong. What one hears in either the William Carragan or Samale/Mazzuca/Phillips/Cohrs completion of the Bruckner 9 Finale is 2/3 Bruckner, 1/3 educated speculation based on sketches and verbal clues from Bruckner. What Bruckner left behind is also, IMO, some incredibly fine music---fine late Bruckner that cries out to be heard in performance. The coda must remain speculative, unless further folios or manuscript pages turn up from "private collections". Bruckner did not specifically express a hope that other hands finish the Ninth. His was an explicit partnership with God, and "if the Good Lord does not grant me time to finish it, he'll have only Himself to blame." to paraphrase. In that case, Bruckner did specify that the Te Deum be played as a Finale. What is important--and undeniable--is that the composer did contemplate his own failing health and mortality and never sanctioned consideration of the three-movement torso as in any form or fashioned "finished", or standing as "an artistic whole". One may infer from this, with ample justification, an imperative to either fashion a performable orchestral finale or use the Te Deum in lieu of the orchestral finale. In this sense, the work of Carragan and SMPC does indeed fit with the composer's will. The musical and artistic merit of their work is an entirely different consideration, of course. As a Bruckner lover, I hear it and I say, Halleluia! John Proffitt KUHF-FM Houston