The first published edition of Anton Bruckner's fourth symphony: Collaboration and authenticity

Nineteenth Century Music

Volumn 20, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 3-26

  Korstvedt, Benjamin Marcus ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 61949203728     PISSN: 01482076     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/746665     Document Type: Review

References (99)

1. Two collected editions of Bruckner's works have been undertaken. The first, Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Vienna, 1930-44) directed by Robert Haas, was left unfinished with the German surrender in 1945.
2. In the late 1940s, a new collected edition was begun under the direction of Leopold Nowak, Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, (2nd rev. edn. Vienna, 1951-).
3. See Leopold Nowak, "Die Anton Bruckner Gesamtausgabe: Ihre Geschichte und Schicksale," in Bruckner Jahrbuch 1982/83, ed. Othmar Wessely (Linz, 1984), pp. 33-67.
4. See Deryck Cooke, "Anton Bruckner," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1980), vol. 3, pp. 360-61
5. rpt. in The New Grove Late Romantic Masters (London, 1985), p. 32
6. and idem, "The Bruckner Problem Simplified," in Vindications: Essays on Romantic Music (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 59, 62.
7. These modern editions are Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke, 4. Band: IV. Symphonie Es-Dur (Originalfassung), ed. Robert Haas (Vienna, 1936; rpt. Leipzig, 1944)
8. and Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke, Band 4/2: IV. Symphonie Es-Dur (Fassung von 1878/80), Studienpartitur, ed. Leopold Nowak (2nd rev. edn. Vienna, 1953).
9. The premiere was given by the Vienna Philharmonic under Hans Richter on 22 January 1888. The two later performances were 15 June 1892 in Vienna at the Musik- und Theater-Ausstellung, conducted by Joseph Schalk, and 5 January 1896 with the Vienna Philharmonic, again conducted by Hans Richter.
10. Cornelis van Zwol, "Bruckners Vierte Symphonie: Nicht nur eine 'Romantische'," in Bruckner Symposion: "Die Fassungen," ed. Franz Grasberger (Linz, 1981), p. 28.
11. See Bruckner's letters to Tappert dated 19 September 1876, 1 October 1876, and 6 December 1876 in Anton Bruckner, Gesammelte Briefe, neue Folge, ed. Max Auer (Regensburg, 1924), pp. 136-41.
12. See also August Göllerich and Max Auer, Anton Bruckner: Eine Lebens- und Schaffens-bild (Regensburg, 1936), 4/1, pp. 417-22.
13. "Ich bin zur vollen Überzeugung gelangt, daß meine 4. romant. Sinfonie einer gründlichen Umarbeitung dringend bedarf" (letter to Wilhelm Tappert, 12 October 1877, in Bruckner, Gesammelte Briefe, neue Folge, p. 144).
14. Nowak also published editions of the first version of the symphony, Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke, Band 4/1: IV. Symphonie Es-Dur (Fassung von 1874), Studienpartitur (2nd improved edn. Vienna, 1975)
15. and the "Volksfest" finale, Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke, zu Band 4/2: IV. Symphonie Es-Dur (Finale von 1878), Studienpartitur (2nd rev. edn. Vienna, 1981).
16. This copyist's score, which was rediscovered in the early 1950s, is now in the collection of Columbia University. For a description, see my First Edition of Anton Bruckner's Fourth Symphony: Authorship, Production and Reception (Ph. D. diss. , University of Pennsylvania, 1995), pp. 257-66.
17. The two collections of Bruckner's letters, Gesammelte Briefe, ed. Franz Gräflinger (Regensburg, 1924)
18. and Gesammelte Briefe, neue Folge, ed. Auer, contain the text of an apparently undated letter to Levi that states: "Darauf verlangte Herr Seidl selbe Partitur und meinte, er würde drüben einen Verleger finden. " The letter appears on pp. 67-68 of Gräflinger's collection and pp. 221-22 of Auer's collection. Both date the letter to 1888. In his biography of Bruckner, which contains a collection of "unpublished letters," Gräflinger wrote that this letter, along with thirty others, was discovered only in 1927 in the Nachlaß of Michael Balling. Here Gräflinger dates the letter 16 November 1886. (This date is surely correct. ) Oddly, this latter source does not include any reference to Seidl; the source of the earlier reading, presumably a draft, is obscure.
19. See Gräflinger, Anton Bruckner: Leben und Schaffen (Umgearbeitete Bausteine) (Berlin, 1927), pp. 319-20.
20. On Gutmann's career, see Leon Botstein, Music and Its Public: Habits of Listening and the Crisis of Musical Modernism in Vienna, 1870-1914 (Ph. D. diss. , Harvard University, 1985), pp. 688-750.
21. Postcard from Levi to Gutmann, dated 1 October 1886 (A-Wn Mus. Hs. 27. 877/1).
22. Gutmann had insisted on, and received, a similar fee as a condition for publishing the Seventh Symphony. As he was to do for the Fourth Symphony, Levi raised this sum for the Seventh Symphony.
23. "Herr Gutmann will selbe übernehmen, meint aber, ich soll mir vom Hofe 1000 fl. für ihn erbitten, welche er mir als Honorar anzubieten dächte. - Das kann ich nicht thun! und fühle ich mich dessen nicht fähig! Herr Gutmann soll diese romant. 4. Sinfonie nur so ohne Honorar hinnehmen" (Franz Gräflinger, Anton Bruckner: Leben und Schaffen (Umgearbeitete Bausteine) [Berlin, 1927], p. 334).
24. "NB. Herrn Gutmann trete ich gern die 1000 Mark zum Verlage ab (4. romantische Sinfonie in Es)" (Gräflinger, Anton Bruckner: Leben und Schaffen, p. 337).
25. Gutmann's edition was published under the title Vierte (romantische) Symphonie (Es-Dur) für grosses Orchester von Anton Bruckner. Although copies of Gutmann's edition are now very rare, the text of this version of the symphony is available in several other editions, notably a "new revision" (which amounts to little more than the correction of misprints) by Josef V. Wöss, published by Universal Edition in 1927 (plate number W. Ph. V. 197 U. E. 3596) and an edition by Hans Redlich (1955), published by Eulenberg (plate number E. E. 3636) and reprinted by Kalmus (Kalmus Miniature Scores no. 93). Redlich's edition has essentially the same text as Gutmann's edition, but does not include the full text of the reprise of the scherzo. Instead, it uses a cumbersome series of instructions for abbreviating the scherzo on its repetition after the trio, (i. e. , "von [Takt] 24b springt auf [Takt] 93" and "von Takt 245 auf den Schluß [S. 136] springen"). The only available recordings of the third version date from the 1940s and 1950s. They include concert recordings by Wilhelm Furtwängler with the Vienna Philharmonic, 19 October 1951 (Music and Arts 796), and Hans Knappertsbusch with the Berlin Philharmonic, 8 September 1944 (Music and Arts 249 or Preiser 90226), as well as two studio recordings from the mid-1950s: Hans Knappertsbusch with the Vienna Philharmonic (Palladio PD 4105) and Lovro von Matacic with the Philharmonia Orchestra (Testament SBT1050). (Note that Furtwängler modifies the text of the third movement by playing the entire first half of the scherzo on its reprise. )
26. For more discographic details, see Lee T. Lovallo, Anton Bruckner: A Discography (Berkeley, 1991), pp. 81-88.
27. A detailed list of the textual differences between the second and third versions is found in Haas, "Vorlagenbericht," Bruckner Sämtliche Werke, 4/1, pp. xvii-xxiv.
28. The first movement is marked half note- 72; the Andante, quarter note = 66; the scherzo, quarter note = 126; the beginning of finale is marked half note = 72, while at m. 43 the tempo is modified to half note = 66.
29. Specifically, key signatures were eliminated and all nondiatonic notes are notated with accidentals. On Bruckner's eccentric notation for brass instruments in the early versions of his symphonies, see Theodor Wünschman, Anton Bruckners Weg als Symphoniker (Steinfeld, 1976), pp. 89-90. The third version also employs horns in Emusic flat sign and low Bmusic flat sign and trumpets in Emusic flat sign and C in addition to the F instruments called for in the second version.
30. I am currently at work on a study of the musical, historical, and critical significance of the third version.
31. This document is currently in an inaccessible private collection in Vienna. A set of black and white photographs of the entire manuscript is, however, in the collection of the Wiener Stadtbibliothek (A-Wst M. H. 9098/c).
32. Pages 113-15 of the finale appear to have been copied by someone other than the main copyist.
33. These markings may have originated in rehearsal. Göllerich and Auer reported that Bruckner took an active role in supervising such details at the rehearsals for the first performance: "He was concerned to see his remarks strictly followed and several times said: 'Please, would one of the gentlemen possibly write that down- here's a pencil'!" (Er wollte seine Bemerkungen streng respektiert wissen und pflegte mehrmals zu sagen: "Bitte, will einer der Herren sich das vielleicht hineinschreiben- da wär a [sic] Bleistift!") (Göllerich and Auer, Anton Bruckner, 4/2, p. 586).
34. Alfred Orel identified Ferdinand Löwe as the main copyist; see Orel, "Ein Bruckner-Fund (Die Endfassung der IV. Symphony)," Schweizerische Musikzeitung 88 (1949), 323.
35. The packet containing the photographs in the Stadtbibliothek was labeled, quite likely by Orel himself, "von Ferdinand Löwe geschrieben. " The qualifying word "teilweise" was added by a later hand. Lili Schalk reported that her late husband, Franz Schalk, identified the copyists of the Stichvorlage as "Scherzo Franz good/the rest badly Löwe" (Scherzo Franz gut/sonst mangelhaft Löwe);
36. see "Gespräche über Bruckner mit Franz," unpublished typescript in the Nachlaß of Lili Schalk (A-Wn F18 Schalk 360/4/4).
37. In Bruckner's autograph score of the second version of the symphony (A-Wn Mus. Hs. 19. 476), in the finale, there are some penciled sketches and indications of possible revisions that may derive from the preparation of the third version. Although these jottings, which are not in Bruckner's hand, correspond only partially to the third version, they may be remnants of the process of revision that produced this text. See my First Edition of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony, pp. 308-10, for tabulation of these notations.
38. The first three movements are each paginated separately starting from 1, while the finale is numbered from 101 through 142, even though the first three movements occupy sixty-eight pages, not one hundred. (The score of the first movement consists of thirty pages, the Andante sixteen pages, the scherzo twenty-five pages, and the finale forty-two pages. Note that the reprise of the scherzo is not simply signaled by a da capo indication but is written out in full. ) The finale is on twenty-stave paper that has no logo, while the first three movements are on twenty-four-stave bifolios emblazoned with the logo of Breitkopf and Härtel: a bear holding a staff and a hammer seated behind a shield above the inscription: "B & H nr. 14A. " Bruckner also used this paper for the preliminary sketches and drafts of the first movement of the Ninth Symphony, many of which date from 1887. See Mariana Sonntag, The Compositional Process of Anton Bruckner: A Study of the Sketches and Drafts of the First Movement of the Ninth Symphony (Ph. D. diss. , University of Chicago, 1987), I, pp. 19-25. Two facts suggest that the score of the finale is the oldest part of the manuscript. In each of the first three movements, the initial page contains a list of the abbreviation of the instrument names to be used on subsequent pages. (Presumably these abbreviations were instructions to the engravers. ) Although the score of the finale lacks these indications, a list of abbreviations of the instruments used in the finale is found, however, on a loose page that follows the score of the scherzo. This page, which is on the paper used for the first three movements and is in the hand of the copyist of the scherzo, was probably prepared when the first three movements were copied to make the older score of the finale suitable for the engravers. Moreover, the notation of certain passages in the third flute/ piccolo also suggests that the extant score of the finale predates the other movements. The third and fourth movements of the third version of the symphony include, unlike the earlier version, a third flute part doubling on piccolo. In the scherzo, the third flute/piccolo part was copied when the score was initially prepared. The score of the finale, however, did not originally include this new part: whenever an independent part for the third flute/piccolo is called for, it appears on a hand-drawn staff added above the topmost printed staff (see mm. 131-54, 302-08, 317-23). Apparently Bruckner decided to add the piccolo at some time after the finale had been copied, but before the extant score of the third movement had been readied.
39. The names Vogl and Backofen appear twice in the same hands that the casting-off did. As Orel suggested, they must be the names of the engravers; see Orel, "Ein Bruckner-Fund (Die Endfassung der IV. Symphony)," p. 323.
40. "Freund Löwe, der sowie auch Hirsch Dich herzlichst grüßen läßt, hat die Romantische in vielen Theilen, sehr vorteilhaft und mit Bruckners Zustimmung uminstrumentiert. Die unerhört peinliche Genauigkeit um nicht zu sagen Pedanterie hat ihn aber die Arbeit sehr verzögern lassen, so daß erst vor einigen Tagen Gutmann, der sie verlegt, den ersten Satz bekam" (A-Wn F 18 Schalk 158/8/ 4). I am grateful to Morten Solvik for obtaining the full text of this letter for me. Leopold Nowak quoted part of the letter in Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke, Band 5: V. Symphonie B-Dur, Revisionsbericht, prepared by Robert Haas, supp. Leopold Nowak (Vienna, 1985), p. 90.
41. It is also partially quoted in Thomas Leibnitz, Die Brüder Schalk und Anton Bruckner (Tutzing, 1988), p. 267.
42. See, for example, Nowak, foreword in Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke, Band IV/2: IV. Symphonie Es-Dur (Fassung von 1878/80), Studienpartitur, n. p.
43. On this date, Bruckner wrote to Arthur Nikisch: "The Fourth Symphony has gone off via Gutmann to print in Leipzig" (Die 4. Sinf. ist zum Drucke durch Gutmann nach Leipzig abgegangen) (letter dated 20 June 1888 in Steffen Lieberwirth, "Anton Bruckner und Leipzig: Einige neue Erkenntnisse und Ergänzungen," in Bruckner Jahrbuch 1989/90, ed. Othmar Wessely [Linz, 1992), p. 285).
44. It seems reasonable to surmise that in early 1887 Löwe copied an initial draft of the third version that was subsequently reworked and partially discarded. If this is the case, the extant Stichvorlage of the finale (i. e. , pp. 101-42 of A-Wst 9098/c) may well be the only surviving portion of Löwe's original copy.
45. On the important role of metrical numbers in Bruckner's compositional process, see Timothy L. Jackson, "Bruckner's Metrical Numbers," this journal 14 (1990), 101-31.
46. This archive was closed for renovations from 1992 through early 1995, and for this reason I have been unable to study the orchestral parts.
47. See Haas, "Vorlagenbericht," pp. xxiv-xxviii. The revised version of the New Grove article on Bruckner similarly attempted to isolate the version of the symphony performed in the composer's presence in 1888 from the first printed edition. In the work-list of this article (Deryck Cooke, rev. Hans-Hubert Schönzeler), these two texts are artificially separated. The version performed in January 1888 is identified as "revised version 1887-8; first performed: Vienna, 22 Jan. 1888; slight rescoring of 1880 version. " The first publication is identified as "version by F. Schalk and F. Löwe (1889)";
48. see Cooke, "Anton Bruckner," The New Grove Late Romantic Masters, p. 56.
49. Gutmann's printed parts were first used in a performance in Vienna conducted by Joseph Schalk on 15 June 1892; see Göllerich and Auer, Anton Bruckner 4/3, pp. 237-42. They were preceded by a second set of hand-copied parts prepared for the second performance of the symphony's third version on 10 December 1890 in Munich under Franz Fischer, Levi's assistant.
50. On 11 December 1890, Levi reported to Bruckner that "the first rehearsal had had to be ended because of the wholly defective parts" (Leider, mußte die erste Probe unterbrochen werden wegen der gänzlich fehlerhaften Stimmen) and that he had had new parts prepared by a local copyist (see Bruckner, Gesammelte Briefe, neue Folge, ed. Auer, p. 322).
51. Presumably, these parts served until the appearance of the printed parts. Indeed they may well have been used to prepare the printed parts: on 18 April 1891, Bruckner wrote to Levi and asked him to send these new, corrected parts to Gutmann (Gräflinger, Anton Bruckner, pp. 347-48).
52. It is found in Bruckner, Frommes Österreichischen Professoren- und Lehrer-Kalendar für das Schuljahr 1887/ 88 (A-Wn S. m. 3179/2).
53. These two lines refer to wages paid to Katharina Kachelmaier, Bruckner's housekeeper.
54. "Bitte Sie sehr, Herrn Löwe auch meine Bitte um den Zettel zum Finale zu sagen. Möglichst bald erwartet das Finale mit dem Zettel" (emphasis in the original)
55. (quoted in Schalk, Breife und Betrachtungen [Vienna, 1935], p. 72).
56. James Hepokoski, "Overriding the Autograph Score: The Problem of Textual Authority in Verdi's 'Falstaff'," Studi Verdiani 8 (1992), 36.
57. In addition to his "Vorlagenbericht," Haas discussed these matters in the preface to his study-score edition of the Fourth Symphony, Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke, 4. Band: IV. Symphonie Es-Dur (Originalfassung)
58. and in "Zur Originalfassung von Bruckners Vierter Symphonie," Der Anbruch 18 (1936), 181-83.
59. In the preface to his study-score edition of the Fourth Symphony, Haas identified the text of the first edition as "the result of opinions of the Praktiker around Bruckner" (als Ergebnis der Auffassung der Praktiker um Bruckner).
60. "Diese vertraten einen Standpunkt, dessen Berechtigung in den besonderen, ungünstigen Verhältnissen der Veröffentlichungszeit begründet erscheint, wo auf eine wenig entwickelte Orchestertechnik, auf Afführungsmöglichkeiten mit Orchesterkörper zweiten Ranges und überhaupt auf eine beschränkte geistige Fassungskraft der Zuhörer Rücksicht genommen werden müßte, der aber heute überholt ist, weil er den wohldurchgedachten und sinnvollen Schöpferwillen umgedeutet hat und von Bruckner höchstens als unvermeidlicher Notbehelf geduldet werden konnte" (foreword in Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke, 4. Band: IV. Symphonie Es-Dur [Originalfassung]).
61. "Um 1888 habe ein Bearbeitungssystem eingesetzt, das teils mit, und teils ohne Teilnahme Bruckners Kürzungen, instrumentale Umfärbungen, Tempoänderungen vornahm, Klangeffekte einführte, Verstärkungen anbrachte und dergleichen mehr. " "Oft sei 'das Best' herausgenommen, seien Gegensätze verwischt, schöne Wirkungen zerstört worden, ein Sünderegister, das offenbar den Freunden Bruckners, Franz Schalk, Josef Schalk, vielleicht auch Ferdinand Löwe, angelastet wurde" (quoted in E[rnst] D[ecsey], "Die Urfassung von Bruckners Fünfter Symphonie," Neues Wiener Tagblatt, 15 March 1936, p. 13).
62. Paul Stefan reported that Haas explained the changes to the Fifth Symphony thus: "Bruckner sei in den letzten Jahren seines Leben unter 'Sanktionsdrohnungen' von außen her bewogen werden, seine früheren Werke zu ändem oder ändern zu lassen" ("Um Bruckner," Die Stunde, 15 March 1936, p. 4).
63. For a full discussion of this complex issue, see my "'Return to the Pure Sources': The Ideology and Text-Critical Legacy of the First Bruckner Gesamtausgabe," in Bruckner Studies, ed. Paul Hawkshaw and Timothy Jackson (Cambridge, forthcoming).
64. "Ob und inwieweit durch diesen Fund die Fragen der Authentizität der ursprunglichen Druckausgaben geklärt werden wird, wird wohl erst die genaue wissenschaftliche Untersuchung ergeben" (Orel, "Ein Bruckner-Fund," Die Pause 5 [1940], 44 [41-44]).
65. "Die von Bruckner genauestens durchgearbeitete Stichvorlage ist die jüngste bisher bekannte, voll beglaubigte Quelle für die IV. Sinfonie, sie offenbart nach dem heutigen Stande den letzten klar erkennbaren Willen Bruckners für die Textgestaltung der IV. Sinfonie, sie ist die 'Fassung letzter Hand,' für die Nachwelt der endgültige Wille Bruckners" (Orel, "Ein Bruckner-Fund (Die Endfassung der IV. Symphony)," p. 324).
66. Even in the preface of his edition of the third version score, Hans Redlich cast some doubt on the credibility of · this version: "It seems quite certain that the published score of 1889 contains a number of emendations of doubtful authenticity" (p. vi).
67. "Da die Stichvorlage von 1889 (-in Fremdschrift-) aufgefunden wurde, kann in der Gesamtausgabe demnächst der volle ursprüngliche Text wiederhergestellt werden, also mit Beseitigung de Aufführungszitaten von 1888" (Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke, 4. Band: IV. Symphonie Es-Dur (Originalfassung), ed. Robert Haas [Leipzig, 1944], p. 1).
68. "Er unterschrieb nicht, denn sein Original soll gelten, aber 'für spätere Zeiten'" (Nowak, foreword, Anton Bruckner Sämtliche Werke, Band IV/2).
69. Bruckner's failure to sign this Stichvorlage has been cited as a sign of its inauthenticity by several other scholars; see, for example, Franz Grasberger, Anton Bruckner: zum 150. Geburtstag: Eine Ausstellung im Prunksaal der Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Vienna, n. d. [1974]), p. 32.
70. See also Nowak, "Neues zu Anton Bruckners 'Romantischer'," Österischische Musikzeitschrift 8 (1953), 163
71. rpt. in Nowak, Über Anton Bruckner: Gesammelte Ausätze 1936-1984 (Vienna, 1985), p. 26;
72. and van Zwol, "Bruckners Vierte Symphonie," pp. 28-29.
73. See, for example, Erwin Doernberg, The Life and Symphonies of Anton Bruckner (London, 1960; rpt. New York, 1968).
74. "The Original Versions of Bruckner's Work," pp. 113-24, which paraphrases arguments made in the 1930s by Max Auer, Fritz Oeser, and Robert Haas.
75. Also compare the similar attitude in Robert Simpson, The Essence of Bruckner (rev. edn. London, 1992).
76. Cooke, "The Bruckner Problem Simplified," pp. 59-62.
77. In the 1960s and 70s, Nowak guarded the Bruckner manuscripts in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek quite jealously. It may be that Cooke was not permitted to study them. Hans Redlich, for one, was denied access to these sources,· see Redlich's prefatory essay to his edition of Bruckner's Mass in F Minor (Edition Eulenberg no. 961) (London, 1967), p. 40.
78. Redlich, preface to Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 4 in Emusic flat sign Major (The Romantic), ed. Hans F. Redlich (London, 1955), pp. v-vi.
79. Haas, Anton Bruckner (Potsdam, 1934), plate IV, following p. 128.
80. "Redlich did state that Haas never mentioned the 1890 date. See Redlich, preface, Bruckner Symphony No. 4, n. 12, p. ix.
81. See, for example, Richard Osborne, "The Gramophone Collection: Bruckner," Gramophone 69 (August 1991), 33-36, which closely follows Cooke's lead.
82. Jerome McGann, A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism (Chicago, 1983; rpt. Charlottesville, 1992), p. 42.
83. On this point, see Peter Shillingsburg, "An Inquiry into the Social Status of Texts and Modes of Textual Criticism," Studies in Bibliography 42 (1989), 60.
84. Miroslav Cervenka, "Textologie und Semiotik," in Texte und Varianten: Probleme ihrer Edition und Interpretation, ed. Günter Martens and Hans Zeller (Munich, 1971), p. 144.
85. McGann, A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism, p. 75.
86. John Sutherland, "Publishing History: A Hole at the Centre of Literary Sociology," Critical Inquiry 14 (1988), 584.
87. As is evident, Bruckner's desire to revise the first version of his Fourth Symphony in 1877 prompted him to cancel the performance that Bilse had planned. In 1888 Bruckner stuck to his plan to revise the Third Symphony despite Gustav Mahler's counsel not to do so (see Leibnitz, Die Brüder Schalk und Anton Bruckner, pp. 132-36).
88. In 1889 Bruckner insisted on revising his First Symphony, even though this decision forced him to cancel a planned performance by the Vienna Philharmonic and threatened to cost him a substantial sum. This episode is recounted in Clemens Hellsberg, Demokratie der Könige: Die Geschichte der Wiener Philharmoniker (Zurich, 1992), pp. 272-73. I am grateful to Dr. Hellsberg for bringing this story to my attention.
89. Franz Liszt reportedly commented on such problems in the brass. After the performance of the first and third movements of the second version of the symphony in Sondershausen on 6 June 1886, August Göllerich, who was a pupil of both Liszt and Bruckner, wrote: "In the first movement of the coarse and under-composed Emusic flat sign-Major Symphony, Liszt's wholly heterogeneous nature took exception to the armor-plated triplet theme on the 'brutal horns'" (Die ganz heterogene Natur Liszts stieß sich im ersten Satze der derb und zu wenig ausgearbeitet gebrachten "Es-Dur Symphonie" bei dem geharnischten Triolenthema an den "brutalen Hörner") (Göllerich, Franz Liszt [Berlin, 1908], pp. 155-56).
90. Bruckner himself conducted the first performances of his First, Second, and Third Symphonies. The first performance of a Bruckner symphony conducted by someone other than the composer was the premiere of the Fourth Symphony in Vienna, on 20 February 1881, under Hans Richter. The first performance given outside of the composer's presence was the second performance of the Fourth Symphony in Karlsruhe under Motti, on 10 December 1881. See the list of performances in Göllerich and Auer, Anton Bruckner, 4/4, pp. 232-60.
91. The two most important German exponents of Bruckner's works were Hermann Levi and Arthur Nikisch. Levi was obviously closely associated with Bruckner. Nikisch was personally acquainted with Bruckner's interpretive approach; he had been won over to Bruckner's cause when, at seventeen, he played second violin in the first performance of the Second Symphony, conducted by Bruckner on 26 October 1873. See Steffen Lieberwirth, Anton Bruckner und Leipzig, Anton Bruckner Dokumente und Studien 6 (Graz, 1988), p. 17.
92. Donald H. Reiman has discussed the importance of the distinction between public and private sources; see his "Public and Private in the Study of Manuscripts," Text 6 (1994), 49-62.
93. "Für mich steht es außer Zweifel, daß alle Änderungen der Druckvorlagen gegenüber der Handschriften die Billigung Bruckners hatten. . . . Es ist gewiß, daß die gennanten Dirigenten Bruckner Ratschläge mindestens zu Instrumentationsänderungen gaben, auch zu Änderungen der Tempo- und der Stärkebezeichnungen. Aber es waren lediglich Ratschläge, und wenn sie sich in den bisher geltenden Drucken finden, so bedeutet das, daß Bruckner sie angenommen hat. Freiwillig angenommen- denn ich kann bezeugen, daß es unmöglich war
94. Perhaps it is worth stressing that such collaboration was by no means unheard of during the late nineteenth century; think, for example, of Brahms's Violin Concerto and Liszt's symphonic poems. These three instances- Brahms's concerto, Liszt's symphonic poems, and Bruckner's symphony- have one important common denominator: in each case, a composer who performed only on keyboard instruments and who had begun to write orchestral music only relatively late in his career sought assistance in instrumentation from musicians more expert and experienced in such matters. Note too that in each case collaboration only occurred after composition was relatively far advanced and aimed primarily at making a work suitable for practical performance.
95. Stephen Mailloux, "The Rhetorical Politics of Editing: A Response to Eggert, Greetham, and Cohen and Jackson," in Devils and Angels: Textual Editing and Literary Theory, ed. Philip Cohen (Charlottesville, 1991), p. 130.
96. As late as 1939, the year before his death, Donald F. Tovey was unconvinced by the claims of the Gesamtausgabe. See his comments in "Retrospect and Corrigenda," in Essays in Musical Analysis, Volume VI: Supplementary Essays, Glossary and Index (London, 1939), p. 144.
97. Tovey, "Bruckner: Romantic Symphony in E Flat Major, No. 4," in Essays in Musical Analysis, Volume II: Symphonies (II), Variations and Orchestral Polyphony (London, 1935), pp. 77, 74.
98. Kurth, Bruckner (Berlin, 1925), II, 625, 622-23.
99. Simpson, The Essence of Bruckner, p. 93. In the original edition of the book, this passage read: "But to turn it into a pizzicato, to add triplets rippling prettily up and down in the flutes and oboes, to make the horns play pulsating harmonies! Bruckner cannot have committed such a crime" (p. 87).