The Bruckner problem revisited

Nineteenth Century Music

Volumn 21, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 96-106

  Hawkshaw, Paul ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 60950156667     PISSN: 01482076     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/746833     Document Type: Article

References (54)

1. "Ich vermache die Originalmanuskripte meiner nachbezeichneten Compositionen: Der Sinfonien, bisher acht an der Zahl - die neunte wird, so Gott will, bald vollendet werden, - der 3 großen Messen, des Quintettes, des Te Deums, des 150. Psalms und des Chorwerkes Helgoland - der kais. und kön. Hofbibliothek in Wien und ersuche die k. und k. Direction der genannten Stelle, für die Aufbewahrung dieser Manuskripte gütigst Sorge tragen zu wollen. Zugleich bestimme ich, daß die Firma Jos. Eberle u. Cie. berechtigt sein soll, die Manuskripte der von ihr in Verlag genommenen Compositionen für eine angemessene Zeit von der k. k. Hofbibliothek zu entlehnen und soll Letztere verpflichtet sein, den Herren Jos. Eberle u. Cie gedachte Originalmanuskripte für eine entsprechende Zeit leihweise zur Verfügung zu stellen." This is the fourth clause of Anton Bruckner's last will and testament signed on 10 November 1893 by the composer, and witnessed by two former students - Ferdinand Löwe and Cyrill Hynais - as well as by his solicitor, Theodor Reisch. Rolf Keller, "Die letztwilligen Verfügungen Anton Brückners," Bruckner Jahrbuch 1982-83, ed. Othmar Wessely (Linz, 1984), pp. 111-15, contains a facsimile of the entire document
2. A second Gesamtausgabe edited by Leopold Nowak was started after World War II. Renate Grasberger (Werkverzeichnis Anton Bruckner [Tutzing, 1977], pp. 246-53) provides a publication history of both Collected Works Editions. Work on the second one is ongoing. The editorial process has been complicated by Bruckner's numerous revisions, which resulted in more manuscript versions than those he left to the library
3. Alexander Weinmann, "Anton Bruckner und seine Verleger," in Bruckner-Studien: Leopold Nowak zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Franz Grasberger (Vienna, 1964), pp. 121-38 contains a catalog of Bruckner's first editions
4. Grasberger (Werkverzeichnis, pp. 173-243) reproduces a title page from each of them. Haas's critical reports describe the differences between the first prints and the manuscripts. Assessing the relative merits of various manuscript and printed versions and searching for their raison d'être have been central themes of an extensive literature on the composer
5. See Renate Grasberger's exhaustive Bruckner-Bibliographie (bis 1974) (Graz, 1985)
6. Deryck Cooke ("Bruckner Problem") and Hans Ferdinand Redlich (Bruckner and Mahler [London, 1955], pp. 40-50) summarize the Haas/Nowak position
7. Benjamin Marcus Korstvedt, "The First Published Edition of Anton Bruckner's Fourth Symphony: Collaboration and Authenticity," this journal 20 (1996), 3-26
8. and "Anton Bruckner in the Third Reich and After: An Essay on Ideology and Bruckner Reception," Musical Quarterly 80 (1996), 132-60
9. Benjamin Marcus Korstvedt, "Return to the Pure Sources: The Ideology and Text-Critical Legacy of the First Bruckner Gesamtausgabe," in Bruckner Studies, ed. Timothy L. Jackson and Paul Hawkshaw (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 91-109, contains a detailed discussion of the impact of National Socialist ideology on the International Bruckner Society and the debate touched off by publication of the Haas Collected Works Edition
10. Botstein conducted the American Symphony Orchestra in a successful revival of the Doblinger edition (Vienna, 1896) of Franz Schalk's arrangement of the Fifth Symphony in New York's Avery Fisher Hall on 13 January 1995
11. August Göllerich and Max Auer, Anton Bruckner: Ein Lebens- und Schaffensbild (Regensburg, 1922-37), 4 vols., 4/3, pp. 259-62
12. See also Rolf Keller, "Die letztwilligen Verfügungen," p. 102
13. Publication of the F-Minor Mass was either in progress or just about to begin. The Ninth Symphony, presumably covered in the contract by the phrase "works still to be composed [noch zu komponierende Werke]," had also yet to be engraved (Göllerich-Auer, Anton Bruckner, 4/3, p. 259)
14. Nineteenth-century Austrian probate and copyright law are not relevant, as I hope to show, to the issues of authenticity in Bruckner's sources discussed here. More important is the instruction to Eberle regarding publication of the Fifth and the Sixth Symphonies and the Mass in E Minor
15. With the exception of the autograph score of the E-Minor Mass, all of the manuscripts listed in the will are now in the possession of the Music Collection of the Austrian National Library, Vienna (A-Wn, formerly the k. und k. Hofbibliothek). Most of them were delivered to the library by Bruckner's solicitor, Dr. Theodor Reisch, on 19 October 1896. Missing at that time were the autographs of the E-Minor Mass that the solicitor had given to the diocese of Linz for which it was written and where it remains today; the F-Minor Mass, which was awarded to the A-Wn in a celebrated legal proceeding in 1922; and the first three movements of the Third Symphony, which came from Alma Mahler in 1948. Leopold Nowak, "Das Bruckner-Erbe der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek," Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 21 (1966), 526-31. The Stichvorlagen listed in Table 1 are also in the A-Wn with the exception of a manuscript for the Eighth Symphony in the library of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna (A-Wgm). Symphonies Three and Nine in the first Collected Works Edition were edited by Fritz Oeser and Alfred Orel respectively; Günter Brosche and Franz Grasberger edited the First Symphony (1891) and Psalm 150 respectively in the Nowak Edition. The Gesamtausgabe column has been left blank for the Second Symphony because an adequate modern score has yet to appear. See n. 49 below. Two scores of the Third Symphony were published by Rättig during the composer's lifetime
16. Wiener Stadt und Landesbibliothek (A-Wst), Musiksammlung M. H. 9098/c
17. Thomas Leibnitz, Die Brüder Schalk und Anton Bruckner (Tutzing, 1988), pp. 267-68
18. Korstvedt, "Bruckner's Fourth Symphony," p. 23
19. It is difficult, for example, to detect substitutions of pages and bifolios or distinguish layers of handwriting in a photograph
20. Only twenty-seven pages of proofs for the Gutmann edition are preserved. A-Wn Mus. Hs. 29.127. They contain no evidence (i.e., annotations that can be shown to be autograph) of Bruckner's participation in the final editorial stages
21. For example, Josef Schalk wrote to his brother on 9 May 1887 that "Löwe has reorchestrated many places in the 'Romantic' very advantageously with Bruckner's approval" (Leibnitz, Brüder Schalk, p. 267)
22. Thomas Rôder "Master and Disciple United: The 1889 Finale of the Third Symphony," a forthcoming paper, originally read at the second international conference Perspectives on Anton Bruckner, Manchester, England, April 1996, describes Franz Schalk's work on the Third Symphony. I am grateful to Dr. Röder, who has provided a copy of the paper for inclusion in the proceedings of the conference. In the case of both the Third and Fourth Symphonies there is no doubt that the students worked with Bruckner's blessing
23. Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke, ed. Leopold Nowak, 3/3 (Vienna, 1985), foreword
24. Letter in the A-Wst, Handschriftensammlung, I. N. 20.674. In his article "Ein Bruckner-Fund (die Endfassung der IV. Sinfonie)," Schweizerische Musikzeitung 88 (1949), 324, where Orel accepted the Stichvorlage as the last legitimate version of the symphony, he also pointed out that there were unauthorized differences with the edition. Orel wrote detailed observations about the Stichvorlage in a copy of the Gutmann edition now preserved as A-Wst, Musiksammlung, M. 59.499
25. Haas's comment is found in the foreword to a reprint of his edition: Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke, vol. 4 (Leipzig, 1944), p. 1. As Korstvedt observes, Haas's removal as editor prevented his including this version of the symphony in the Collected Works Edition
26. Letter to Max von Oberleithner, 31 July 1891, Leibnitz, Brüder Schalk, p. 276
27. See Korstvedt, "Bruckner's Fourth Symphony," pp. 25-26, for a selection of points of view on the first edition of the Symphony or Theodor Helm's review of Josef Schalk's arrangement of the F-Minor Mass in the Deutsche Zeitung, 24 March 1893
28. See, for example, in Knappertsbusch recordings of the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic from the years 1955 and 1956 respectively. Rereleased in 1975 as Teldec 6.35237-00-501 (SMB 25 039-D/1-3)
29. Leopold Nowak, "Die Messe in F-moll von Anton Bruckner," Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 15 (1960), 429
30. and see my "An Anatomy of Change: Anton Bruckner's Revisions to the Mass in F Minor," in Bruckner Studies (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 1-31. As was the case with the Third and Fourth Symphonies, Bruckner was aware the arrangement was being done, and since he must have provided the copy score, we can assume he approved of it at the outset
31. My "Anatomy of Revision," p. 30, contains a facsimile of some of Bruckner's corrections
32. Haas, Sämtliche Werke, 5, Revisionsbericht (Vienna, 1936), p. I
33. Nowak, Sämtliche Werke, 5 Revisionsbericht (Vienna, 1985), p. 73
34. Franz Schalk reported to Max Auer that he had consulted with Bruckner about adding a brass choir to the closing chorale of the Finale at the first performance because the players in the orchestra were exhausted by that point. Max Auer, "Der Streit um den 'echten' Bruckner im Licht biographischer Tatsachen," Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft 103 (May 1936), 541
35. The first Viennese performance took place on 1 March 1898 under Ferdinand Löwe - almost a year and a half after Bruckner had passed away. Göllerich-Auer, Anton Bruckner, 4/4, p. 242
36. Nowak, Sämtliche Werke, 5, Revisionsbericht, p. 69
37. Letter from Franz to Josef, 14 August 1892. Leibnitz, Brüder Schalk, pp. 168-69
38. Nowak speculated that some work on the arrangement may have been done as early as 1887, Sämtliche Werke, 5, Revisionsbericht, pp. 79-80
39. "Die Partitur der V. Symphonie, die jetzt zum Druck verwendet wird."
40. A-Wn Mus. Hs. 6030, 6031, 6064, and 36.693. As Leopold Nowak points out, A-Wn 36.693 contains faint pencil annotations, suggesting it may have been used by Franz Schalk to do some of the arrangement. This may have been the score that Bruckner gave to Schalk and that Meissner described as missing in May 1895
41. A-Wn Mus. Hs. 29.129 and 29.130
42. r. "Original. Hiermit nach der Drucklegung wieder in meine Hānde. C. Hynais (Zeuge)."
43. As was the case with the Fourth Symphony, an engraver's copy of the Hynais arrangement of the Sixth surfaced in 1939 and was studied by Alfred Orel. Orel's notes in the A-Wst, Musiksammlung, report that the manuscript contains no autograph entrances
44. Manfred Wagner, Der Wandel des Konzepts: Zu den verschiedenen Fassungen von Brückners Dritter, Vierter und Achter Symphonie (Vienna, 1980)
45. In the meantime there is no evidence that its first edition is any more or less reliable than that of the Third Symphony. For the purposes of allowing scholars to compare the first editions with the manuscript versions, the editors of the Collected Works Edition and the Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag, Vienna, are about to begin a new series of reprints of the first editions, listed in Table 1. These should not be confused with the 1888 version of the Fourth Symphony, which must some day be included as part of the Bruckner Sämtliche Werke with all of the changes approved by the composer
46. William Carragan provided a detailed description of the problems in "The Genesis of Anton Bruckner's Second Symphony," read at the first international conference, Perspectives on Anton Bruckner, Connecticut College, 21-24 February 1994. He is currently editing scores that should rectify the situation
47. Korstvedt, "Return to the Pure Sources," pp. 101-05
48. Haas's score of the Eighth Symphony has also been criticized for mixing versions, though not to the same extent. Nowak, Sämtliche Werke, 8/2, foreword
49. Redlich, Bruckner and Mahler, pp. 49-50
50. For Bruckner's Masses and Symphonies, these processes actually unfolded in relatively contained situations, especially during his lifetime
51. Franz Schalk in particular became one of the leading conductors of his generation, although he was only beginning his career when he was involved in the preparation of the editions of the Third and Fourth Symphonies. Thomas Leibnitz, "Franz Schalk," in Anton Bruckner: Ein Handbuch (Vienna, 1996), pp. 383-84
52. Bruckner had personal copies of a number of the first editions to consult. See, for example, my The Manuscript Sources for Anton Bruckner's Linz Works (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1984), pp. 280, 287, and 297
53. Friedrich Klose, Meine Lehrjahre bei Bruckner: Erinnerungen und Betrachtungen (Regensburg, 1927), pp. 140-43. The concert took place on 20 April 1887
54. See n. 28