Robert Simpson The Essence of Bruckner An Essay

THE ESSENCE OF BRUCKNER
Austrian Na.tional Library

Anton Bruckner in 1896
An essay towards the understanding of
his music
by
ROBERT SIMPSON
LONDON
V I C T O R G OLL A N CZ L T D
1 967
© Robert Simpson 1967
Printed in Great Britain by

The Camelot Press Lui., London and Southampton
To
JASCHA HORENSTEIN
who interprets Bruckner with love and authority
C O NTENTS
Preface 9
I Emergence II
II Symphony No. 1, in C minor 29

III Symphony No. 2, in C minor 45
IV Symphony No. 3, in D minor 64
v Symphony No. 4, in E flat major (Romantic) 81
VI Symphony No. 5, in B flat major 102
VII Symphony No. 6, in A major 123
VIII Symphony No. 7, in E major 142
IX Symphony No. 8, in C minor 159
x Symphony No. 9, in D minor (un.finishetf) 179
XI Reflections 195
Index 203
PREFACE
T HIS BOOK ATTEMPTS to consider Bruckner through the ears of

a composer ; I am no musicologist, nor biographer, nor (in the com
mon meaning of the term) critic. It is my belief that the inner processes
of music reveal themselves most readily to another sympathetic
composer, and since Bruckner's music has moved and fascinated me
for some twenty-five years, I feel at last able to try to describe some
of the things I have found in it. It has been a great pleasure to see the
progress that Bruckner has made in the English-speaking countries
since the war, for I have only too vivid memories of the bad old days
when it was nearly impossible to find anyone who would look
seriously at his scores. Naturally welcoming the change, I am still at a
loss to explain it, for the music is the same ; though I am now more
critical of it than I was in the days ofrash youth, it is the same innocent
grandeur that still excites my admiration, and I have never been able
to fathom why just as many people should not have appreciated it
then as do now. Such qualities do not alter with time or fashion ; we
hear airy theories about climates of opinion, but where do such climates
originate? Not, I think, in the mass of music lovers, who tend to react
to what they are given and who learn to accept most of what is offered
frequently and regularly enough, provided it is not too unkind. I
suspect (to use no stronger a word) that it is the purveyors of opinion
in the press who are mainly responsible. Concert promoters were
unwilling to risk Bruckner while most of the critics were hostile to
him, while the public were continually being told that it was a waste
of time to go and hear him. Now that the "climate" has changed (in
other words, now that all the old journalists are dead or retired, and
new ones have taken over with different views), the risk is no longer
serious and the number of Bruckner performances is rapidly increasing.
We can only hope that the present incumbents will have long and
preferably silent lives.
In the chapters that follow I have not hesitated to use previously
published material of my own wherever I have been unable to find
better words; all such matter is here revised, and elaborated or clari
fied. The largest such portions are the chapters on the Seventh and
IO THE E S S E N C E OF BRU CKNER
Eighth symphonies, the former originally written for Music Review
and the latter for Chord and Discord, the magazine of the Bruckner
Society of America ; both have been somewhat expanded. Other
passages and expressions will also be found in a booklet I wrote for the
B.B.C. in i963, again sometimes changed, I hope for the better, and I
have occasionally drawn on various programme notes. But most of
the book, by far the greater part, is entirely new.
Chearsley, October 1966 R. S.
CHAPTER I
EMERGENCE
T HE STRANGE CASE of Anton Bruckner almost defeats the imagin

ation. If we consider the stories of his legendary personal naivety, his
primitive provincial background, his total lack of general culture, his
constant failure to grasp even moderately intelligent ideas about life,
either in writing or in conversation, his absurd gullibility, his helpless
shyness, sometimes resulting in quite appalling obsequiousness, his
curious mania for counting objects, and many other evidences of his
inadequacy in the eyes of the brilliant and often derisive intellectual
circles of Vienna, we may well wonder how such a creature could have
become an artist of any kind. But that he should have been a composer
of works so immense, so original, and so controversial as to have
aroused the highest devotion and hostility in opposite musical camps,
may seem incredible. In this study I do not propose either to recount
stale anecdotes or to attempt an explanation of the extraordinary
phenomenon ; Bruckner's music has suffered too much because his
critics have known more about his pathetic life than was good for
their artistic judgment, and my chief purpose is to examine the musical
mind that gave rise to the only thing left to us-the music itscl£
During the course of this book we shall have to scotch some old
wives' tales, and will do well to start with the one that tells how
Bruckner suddenly became a composer of genius at the age of forty,
or thereabouts. Now it is true that his first masterpieces, the D minor
and E minor masses and the First Symphony, were all written at that
time, in the I 86os, but it is too often asserted that everything he wrote
earlier showed no more than average ability, and sometimes less than
that. He was in fact twelve when he began to compose, in 1836; this
was a year after he had been sent to Horsching (near Linz) by his
schoolmaster father to study organ and composition under his cousin
]. B. Weiss, and even then he was considered to show more than usual
promise. I am not going to embark on biographical detail that is
available in other books, but we should take note that by the time he
was twenty he had written two and a half masses and a number of
smaller choral works, and had already proved himself a brilliant
organist with striking powers of improvisation. At twenty-five, in
12 THE ESSENCE OF BRU CKNER
1 849, he wrote the Requiem in D minor, a work that could well bear
revival, showing an artistic restraint blended with a quiet boldness that
would do credit to any promising composer of that age. Most of his
early works are church music, resulting from his education at the
monastery of St. Florian ; this superb Baroque building, one of the
largest and finest in Europe, dominates the country near Linz. Ansfel
den, the village where Bruckner was born in l 824, lies almost under its
shadow and Windhaag and Kronstorf, the small places where he taught
in local schools, are not very far away; even in Vienna, where he spent
the last twenty-eight years of his life, Bruckner was never mentally
away from St. Florian, and that is where he now lies, in the
crypt below the great organ with which he cast a spell upon so many
hearers.
It was at the organ that his timidity fell away from him ; the caution
we find in his early written music was not, we may be sure, to be
found in his improvisations, and it is certainly significant that he wrote
no organ music of any weight. The instrument became a function of
himself, and he rarely wanted to play composed music on it, whether
his own or others' ; in his Upper Austrian dialect he is said to have
remarked, "Let them as has no imagination play Bach and Mendelssohn
-I'd rather let go on my own" (or so one might attempt to translate).
There is a deep psychological reason for this, and it is naturally con
nected with his timorous attitude to composing itself. In the organ
loft he was virtually unseen, and free ; orchestras and choirs consisted
of other people, and had to be written for-knowing he would have to
commit his thoughts to them in permanent form he became, in a deep
sense, shy, both of them and himself. He was also dimly aware of such
people as smart intellectuals of the type who were later to make his
life a misery in Vienna; encounters of this kind did nothing to improve
his confidence. It took him many years to overcome this special per
sonal difficulty (indeed, it may be said that he never quite conquered
it), and the noble patience with which he learned to understand it is
definitively expressed in nearly all his mature music.
One of the reasons for the legend about Bruckner's "sudden"
flowering from mediocre talent into original genius is his astonishingly
protracted assiduity in technical study. While studying counterpoint
and theory with Simon Sechter between 1855 and 1861 (ages 3 1-37), he
composed scarcely a note besides exercises ; this was Sechter's strict
rule, and Bruckner, docile and impressionable as always, concurred.
One cannot help wondering if Sechter would have been as successful
EMERGENCE 13
in thus fettering another composer who intended to study with him
Schubert ! But Schubert was himself thirty when he decided to have
these lessons, so Bruckner's late resolve was not without precedent.
Not that Bruckner had by this time done anything remotely compar
able with Schubert's miraculous achievement ; but it is wrong to
underestimate the quality of some of the music he wrote before the
artistic celibacy imposed by his teacher. Simple and even primitive
though some of it is, it is sometimes highly personal, and the first
extended work, the D minor Requiem, is unmistakably by Bruckner.
In 1849 he was appointed sub-organist at St. Florian. He was still
undecided (in fact, until 1853) whether to become a musician or a civil
servant, and it is not hard to imagine this odd little man leading a Bob
Cratchit-like existence on a high stool. (It is perhaps more difficult
to imagine a Cratchit composing Bruckner's Requiem.)
This work is austerely scored for solo voices, chorus, and an orchestra
of three trombones, strings and (believe it or not in 1849) organ
continua, with the replacement of one of the trombones by a horn in
the Benedictus. The very beginning , with its plain choral writing con
trasted with mysteriously restless syncopations in the strings, is already
characteristic. At this stage Bruckner knew little of Beethoven's
orchestral music (he did not hear the Ninth Symphony until 1866),
probably none of Schubert's, and it is doubtful if he was at all familiar
with Haydn's or Mozart's, though it is likely that he was acquainted
with the church music of the two latter masters, whose influence can be
felt throughout his choral works, even near the end of his life. Haydn in
particular may be discerned in the planning of all his masses with the
exception of the E minor, and the Requiem has something of the
simplicity and directness, as well as the severity, of some of Haydn's
early and middle-period symphonies. There is a notable economy in
the writing that throws finely into relief certain bold strokes, such as
the placing of the polyphonic Quam olim Abrahce in the impressively
unexpected key of F minor, or the touching string of solos and choral
responses accompanied by unpretentiously expressive string figuration
in the Agnus Dei. Any musician looking at this score without knowing
the composer would be bound to find it curiously individual, though
he might well have difficulty in determining its period. For 1 849 it
seems archaic and provincial-but such objections are no more valid
than the claims of the present-day avant-gardiste that anything not of
next week must necessarily be outmoded. Choral societies of limited
resources wanting an unusual work of no great technical difficulty
14 THE ESSENCE OF BRUCKNER
will find this little Requiem surprisingly rewarding and larger organiz
ations could (as Hans-Hubert Schonzeler has suggested) pertinently
place it and Bruckner's Ninth Symphony in the same programme
the beginning and the end of the real Bruckner. Certainly nothing
could be better calculated to dispel the idea that he wrote no valuable
and typical music before he was forty.
The next five years between 1849 and 1854 show a marked develop
ment in Bruckner's skill as a composer. He wrote a number of choral
pieces, large and small, with and without orchestra, most noteworthy a
Magni.ficat and Psalm 1 14, showing increasing fluency in handling
traditional techniques with flashes of personal insight, and culminating
in a full-scale mass, the Missa solemnis in B flat minor. There is nothing
mediocre or tentative about this strong and clear work; in some ways
it is a worthy and simpler successor to Haydn's masses, and it is curious
to contemplate the absence, as late as 1 854, of any marked trace of even
Beethoven's or Schubert's influence. Taken on its own terms, however
(and we should never do otherwise with any composition), the music
is often of excellent quality. It is sometimes remarked that the opening
of the Kyrie anticipates that of the Ninth Symphony by its rise and fall
of a minor third, and it has been suggested that the theme in the
symphony (see Ex. 3 (a) on page 183) is a deliberate quotation of the
mass, but such conjectures are of no real importance beside the interest
of the B flat minor mass itsel( We should inevitably be disappointed
if we expect this minor third to produce in the mass anything remotely
resembling the kind of music we find in the Ninth, but there is nothing
to prevent us enjoying the ease and, often, beauty of Bruckner's
classical invention in the early work ; at the age of thirty he was already
an experienced and more than talented composer, with a natural gift
for counterpoint, a sympathy for voices, and an unobtrusive skill in
blending chorus and orchestra. In construction the work, though not
perfect, is admirable, and a study of it should provide an obvious lesson
to those who think Bruckner congenitally incapable of cogent designs.
He had learned plenty about the modes ofprogression and the forms of
classical music, and would have had no difficulty whatsoever in perfect
ing this knowledge had he so chosen; one of the elementary things
we have to learn about him is the fact that all his later constructional
difficulties arise from his own originality, not from incompetence in
orthodox procedures. If his symphonic development had stuck to the
lines laid down cautiously but competently in the Overture in G minor
and the Studiensymphonie of 1863, he would no doubt have written
EMERGEN CE 15
some excellent, blameless, and even powerful works, and would have
been spared the disastrous mistakes of, say, the Third Symphony. But
he had the courage to follow his own instinct with all the consequent
tribulations and crises, artistic and personal.
The B flat minor mass was the last major work before the long period
of abstinence under the stern eye of Sechter. This period is sometimes
commented upon with amazement that any natural composer could
so silence himself for so long. If one looks carefully at the music
immediately preceding it-this mass and such things as the F minor
Libera of the same year-it is easy to see how Bruckner could have been
dissatisfied with his own growing facility. He was certainly not
expecting his originality to be fostered by Sechtcr, but he needed a
fallow period. Something must already have been stirring within him,
though he scarcely knew what. He must have been more than vaguely
aware that it was something significant, and his instinct told him that
the only sure way to uncover it was to exorcise traditional habits by
practising them to the point of exhaustion. It is probable that Sechter
unknowingly brought out Bruckner's originality by insisting that it be
suppressed until it could no longer be contained, and that Bruckner
himself collaborated in this ruthless regime out of instinctive know
ledge of what would eventually happen.We must not forget that his
greatest psychological difficulty was in committing music to paper ;
in the organ loft he had no problems and, no doubt, improvising must
have been a solace and an outlet for his creative urge during this time
of nearly seven years. It must, in fact, have been a vital complement
to his skull-cracking technical paper work ; while he was laboriously
mastering every conceivable aspect of theory, considering with painful
thoroughness the very nature of the sounds of music, their constitutions
and relationships, he must often have retired with relief to the organ
keyboards, there to rediscover these sounds in new relationships.We
may well wonder how many of the typically Brucknerian ideas of the
later symphonies originated during this period.
At the end of this heroic labour Bruckner was examined at the
Vienna Konservatorium, with the object of a diploma that would
qualify him to teach harmony and counterpoint. Herbeck, one of the
examiners {and afterwards one of Bruckner's most loyal friends),
exclaimed "He should have examined us !" But Bruckner was still far
from satisfied. Seeking instruction of a kind he could not get from
Sechter, he took lessons in orchestration and orchestral composition
from Otto Kitzler, and it was for him that he made his first symphonic
essay, the F minor symphony of 1 863, still deliberately curbing his
own individuality. It is a well found piece of work, sometimes showing
the influence of Schumann, as does Dvorak' s C minor symphony of
two years later, sometimes inclined to stiffness of movement, and
somewhat less freely imaginative than the Overture in G minor that
slightly preceded it. It is more than a mere exercise, though Bruckner
never regarded it as anything else. The time of release was now close
at hand. Kitzler had introduced him to the music of Liszt and Wagner
and he became fascinated by its harmonic independence and the
richness and power of Wagner's orchestration. At the end of his time
with Sechter, Bruckner remarked that he felt like a watchdog that had
snapped its chain ; now he was ready to explore the fields.
The new expressive power of Bruckner's music is at once evident
in the beginning of the D minor mass of 1 864. He has not lost contact
with the Haydn tradition, as the plan of the whole clearly shows, but
the mysterious groping harmonies with which this work opens are all
his own, and the mass as a totality has a fresh blunt strength. There
are few moments of uncertainty anywhere in it, and its confident
breadth and scope must have surprised anyone who knew only
Bruckner's gauche exterior, but must only have confirmed the impres
sions of those who had heard him play the organ and who realized that
at last he had found a way to put some of his grandest ideas (with which
they had long been familiar) on to paper. The more we consider the
supposed abrupt emergence of Bruckner as a creative genius, the
clearer does it become that it was not lack of ideas that caused the
delay, but difficulty in recording them. (It would be wonderful to have
tape recordings of Bruckner's organ extemporizations ; on the other
hand, we should perhaps be thankful that such devices did not exist
in his day, for he might never have bothered to write anything down.)
The Mass in D minor, with its trenchant choral writing and its
certain treatment of the symphonic orchestra, its dramatic force and
its frequent contemplative depth, was at that time the strongest of its
kind since Beethoven, with the exception of Schubert's great Mass in A
flat. It and Schubert's underrated masterpiece (a much finer work than
his later Mass in E flat) are both equally neglected, and when we have
given Schubert's work full recognition, we should turn our attention
to Bruckner's D minor, which is overshadowed by the two masses
that followed it in quick succession. The three mature masses of Bruck
ner occupied him between 1 864 and 1 868. All of them underwent a
certain amount of revision, but not of the desperate kind that was
EMERGENCE 17
subsequently suffered by some of the symphonies. The changes made
in these choral scores were usually prompted by the composer's own
practical experience of conducting performances, and not by the advice
of the group of friends who wanted to "improve" the symphonies
and who found him all too acquiescent to their views. Bruckner had
more opportunities to conduct his church music than his symphonies ;
he was not a good conductor, but frequent contact with orchestras
might have given him greater assurance in resisting the kind of pres
sures that caused him such trouble in later life. In the following chapters
we shall examine, in such detail as is really necessary (but no more),
the nature of these pressures in the revisions of individual symphonies,
but the student of the masses will find with relief that there are few
such snares for his judgment. Those in D minor and E minor, as well
as the Linz version of the First Symphony, are evidence of a confidence
that Bruckner was rarely to recapture. There is but one later period
of the kind, the eight years from 1 875 to 1 883, during which the Fifth,
Sixth and Seventh were composed, the least revised (by him) of all his
mature symphonies.
For the past eight years before the composition of the D minor mass,
Bruckner had been organist at Linz Cathedral. As we have noted, he
had written almost nothing during this time, travelling regularly to
Vienna to see Sechter. Now at the end of his Linz period came the
three masses and the First Symphony, all of which were performed
there with encouraging results. Of these four works, the two most
remarkable are the Mass in E minor (No. 2) (1 866) and the symphony.
The latter will be analysed in the next chapter, and the mass would
equally well bear close discussion. It is the most restrained and profound
of the three, and has no soloists and an orchestra of wind only, and is
the fruit of Bruckner's intense study of sixteenth-century polyphony.
Its extended passages of a cappella writing and its comparatively austere
harmony give it a much more strongly liturgical character than its
companions, yet it is still essentially a concert work. The Sanctus, with
its magnificent unaccompanied canonic growth to a climax, is based
on a line from Palestrina ; though it is hazardous and difficult in per
formance (the slightest loss of pitch means disaster when the brass
enter), it is perhaps the finest single movement in the whole of
Bruckner's early maturity. We can learn much from it by realizing
that if he had conceived its idea in later life, he might well have
treated it as an element in a vaster design ; the opening of the Ninth
Symphony is one such element, and comparing that with the Sanctus
18 T H E ES S E NCE OF BRUCKNER
of the E minor mass can be of assistance in grasping the time-scale of
the symphonies.
The terseness of such a work as the E minor mass should have a
salutary effect on critics who find Bruckner's symphonies diffuse.
Through such comparisons they may eventually come to appreciate
the terseness with which he later treats passages as large as whole
movements of the mass, the forms of which are simple but often subtle.
Some are naturally dictated by the text, such as that of the Kyrie,
opening with beautiful climbing harmonies that float over a tonic
pedal and lead eventually to a more active middle section (Christe
eleison); the whole movement should ideally be a cappella, for the
wind parts are optional here, but it would be a first-rate choir that
would take the risk of being corrected in pitch by the bassoons at the
beginning of the Gloria. Other movements have finely organized
structures independently of the text, for example the Benedictus, one
of the most searchingly thoughtful parts of the mass, in a delicately
poised sonata form, fully worked out. For succinct expressiveness,
it would be difficult to surpass the melodic line of the Cruci.fixus, in
which every single phrase is perfectly concentrated upon the meaning
of its words, the whole forming an exquisitely balanced completed
melody:
Ac!Asio
lf£l!rSfflJ d I
er45unc:lo
= l�d - I &d·?ffie r I WI d -I
Cru - - ei • fi - - 1<11$, eru - • - • ei • - Ji · - xus
---==-- ====-
�
&;ir· c&J f>rol?1¥1UT'I" 1rlt r'lt1r1ar ..- I

e- no
t;i - 4111 - - bis eub Pon - l:i • o p,· - la. - - to
tl're r : I 1id J
pct66�
"firQJf d I a+�- J I J
et · - - . - 'Se - - pul • - - - tus ei;t
- I
It is perhaps not often thought that Bruckner might have made a

good song writer, but a passage like this makes one pause over such a
possibility. There is no evidence that he showed much enjoyment of
poetry, but when he sets words he is unfailingly observant and sensi
tive, whether or no there is any truth in the story of his reply to a poet
EMERGENCE 19
who complained of word repetitions in one of his male voice pieces,
"You didn't write enough words".
Not long after the completion of the Mass in E minor, Bruckner
had a nervous breakdown. No doubt it was partly a delayed after
effect of his long-drawn period of unrelenting study, and it may also
have been exacerbated by disappointment at his failures to obtain
various posts in Salzburg and Vienna. But he was in any case prone
to nervous disorders, from which he suffered all his life. After three
months' rest and treatment at Bad Kreuzen, he was able to resume
work, and began the third of the large masses, in F minor. It is possibly
the most celebrated of the three, and is planned on a grand scale,
expansive as the E minor is concentrated. Its composition occupied a
year, September 1 867 to September 1 868. It makes use once more ofthe
full symphony orchestra as well as solo voices and is the obvious
successor to the D minor, which it exceeds in grandeur and spacious
ness. It is not so profound as the E minor, though it is more immediately
impressive. Its melodic invention is spontaneous and appealing, and it
has many monumental passages, such as the splendid and original
fugue on In gloria Dei Patris, or the wonderful treatment of Et vitam
venturi with its indescribably grand punctuations of Credo, credo by the
full-throated chorus. The orchestral writing, though it has not the
striking individuality of that in the First Symphony, is beautifully
calculated against the choir and the soloists, and contributes vitally
to the expressive and dramatic moments in which the work abounds.
Most musicians would probably say that this is the greatest of the
masses, though I cannot escape a strong preference for the more subtle
and intimate E minor, which I find more consistently deep. Comparing
the two settings of the Benedictus, that in the E minor seems to me more
penetrating than the extremely euphonious but slightly lush one in the
F minor (which, incidentally, must have strongly influenced Mahler
in the slow movement of his Fourth Symphony). But I would not
willingly do without either work, for between them they show the
remarkable range of expression of which Bruckner was capable in his
field.
There is one other major work that properly belongs to the Linz
period-the unnumbered D minor symphony that Bruckner sub
sequently christened Die Nullte (No. "o"). It must have been begun
before the official No. 1, but was completed after it, in 1 869. Bruckner
was rather harsh in discarding it, for it is in many ways a fine work, but
it is not hard to sec why he did so. I suspect that the earliest part of it
is the Andante, an often noble piece, but wanting in inner tension and a
sense of climax; the Finale, too, may be partly of earlier origin, with
its punctilious fugality and its slightly incongruous second theme
(which, however, shows surprising energy in the recapitulation). The
First Symphony is much more advanced than either of these move
ments, and its boldness received not a little harsh criticism when it
was played (under Bruckner himself) in Linz in 1 868. As always, he
was disturbed by such strictures, and thought he had better produce
something less aggressive next time. Although the facts are not certain,
it seems likely that he returned to the Andante and Finale (and it may be
that the Scherzo, too, is earlier than No. 1) , revised them, and put them
into a new symphony. Internal evidence suggests that the first move
ment of No. "o", at any rate, is later than any part of the First Sym
phony, for it shows distinctly the influence of Beethoven's Ninth,
which Bruckner did not hear until 1866 when No. 1 was virtually
finished. The manuscript of Die Nullte shows all the movements dated
at different times in 1 869, with the first movement definitely latest,*
but it is of course possible that parts of the symphony may simply
have been revised at that period. Whatever the facts, there can be no
doubt of the remarkable quality of the first movement. The effect
of Beethoven's Ninth on its opening and on the chromatic ground
bass in its coda is obvious, but the piece as a whole has an utter origin
ality of design and texture that plainly foreshadows the Bruckner
to come. For all its individuality and force, the First stands very much
alone among the symphonies ; this movement, on the other hand, is
the beginning of a gigantic process that was to produce a whole succes
sion of typical works. It begins with one of those characteristic nebulae
Bruckner became so fond of, and we find the definitive form of this
one at the opening of No. 3 . Here, however, the cloudy opening is
used for its own sake, not as a background or preparation for a clear-cut
theme or themes, and its figuration is itself the thematic source
material. When Bruckner showed the symphony to Otto Dessoff
in Vienna (in the hope that he would perform it) his confidence was
once more shattered by the blunt question "Where's the main theme?",
and this may finally have caused him to discard the work.
But there are many things in this first movement that Bruckner
should have been proud of-the fine purity and translucence of the
scoring, the beauty and spontaneity of the melodic invention (if
* See Hans F. Redlich: Bruckner's Forgotten Symphony "No. o" (Music Survey,
Vol. II, No. 1) (1949).
EMERGENCE 21
Dessoff could find no main theme, he could scarcely have complained
about the wonderfully flowing and refined second group), and the
perfectly realized, subtly calculated structure. The development, too,
is unusual in growing for a long time from the simple cadence at the
end of the exposition-not in any obvious way, but with cunningly
oblique transformations of the material into seemingly new shapes that
proliferate with total unpredictability, yet make a beautifully coherent
and natural flow of ideas. At the beginning of the coda there is string
writing of great originality, evocative of a fascinating atmosphere that
Sibelius would have recognized. I can find no fault with this masterly
piece of music.
The rest of the symphony is not on this level, but that is not to say
that it is not worth hearing. If the slow movement lacks that organic
growth and cumulative sense that has become so familiar in the mature
Bruckner adagio, it also has some lovely things in it, notably the second
theme, strangely Slavonic in character, as if it had dropped out of
Prince Igor (I do not know how much Russian music Bruckner knew,
but it is odd that this symphony is the only one of all his works to
suggest its influence; the introduction to the Finale also has a curiously
attractive Slav flavour). The Scherzo, on the other hand, suggests
nothing so much as the influence of an enraged Rossini, with its
vamping crotchets and its scurrying quavers that stop precipitately (in
fortissimo the effect is as ifthe Barber had been punched on the nose by a
dissatisfied customer). Yet it is still unmistakable though by no means
mature Bruckner, with a hint of the weight to come in this part of
later symphonies, while the Trio is totally original ; though it is in G
major, its beginning, coming after the D minor scherzo (which ends
with a D major chord), sounds as if it is in D, with G major merely a
subdominant. It is full of chromaticisms that keep the ear mystified
until the end of the first part in D major, clearly meant to be a half
close on the dominant, but sounding obstinately like a tonic. This
may, for all I care, be a miscalculation, but it is so intriguing as to be a
stroke of genius, and the return of the theme at bar 37 is contrived
with such breathtaking naivety as to constitute a miracle. One could
nearly laugh out loud at the inspired gaucherie of it, while being much
moved by the poetry behind it. The Finale has a slow introduction
that recurs before the development, and its Russian-ecclesiastical
atmosphere leads into aggressively solemn (at times academic) contra
puntal junketings, Allegro vivace, during which Bruckner is not likely
to be offended if we fail to keep a straight face. The second subject is
like something too unwieldy for Schubert to have been able to cram
into one of his Italian overtures (in the restatement Bruckner is very
unkind to the cellos). The development investigates the contrapuntal
possibilities of the main theme with much dust and smoke, and in the re
capitulation the elephantine ballerina of a second subject unexpectedly
thunders into a splendidly stormy coda. It is altogether a cumbrously
diverting piece. The symphony as a whole does not deserve its neglect;
all of it is enjoyable, and the first movement is a masterpiece.
From now on Bruckner's chief interest was to be the symphony;
from time to time he wrote small choral works, but no more masses,
and it was not until the Te Deum of 1881 that he returned to music for
soloists, chorus, and orchestra. Some commentators have suggested
that the reason for this was that Bruckner's new conception of the
symphony was as a kind of substitute for or derivative of the mass; this
idea is, I think, a little facile. It is true that the apparently sectional
nature of some of Bruckner's larger symphonic movements could
easily enough be interpreted as reflecting the changes of character and
pace in some wordless Gloria or Credo, but this view would not only
take too narrow a view of the range of expression encompassed in the
symphonies, but would also ignore fundamental musical and structural
differences between the two kinds of work. I do not intend this objec
tion in a generalized sense (i.e. that for any composer the problems of
composing a mass are basically different from those involved in a
symphony, though that is also true), but with particular reference to
Bruckner's own artistic development. When he turned from composing
masses to symphonies it was because he began to evolve a new type
of musical motion. All his work up to 1 868, both ante- and post
Sechter, was firmly in the classical tradition, with one solitary excep
tion, the Mass in E minor. Although this was composed in 1 866, before
Bruckner had come under the influence of Kitzler's enthusiasm for
Wagner, it already shows an incipient new sense of slow movement,
ostensibly derived from the comparatively static music of the sixteenth
century, but in reality adumbrating something else. We have already
noticed that the Sanctus of this work is like the kind of vast crescendo
process which Bruckner was able later to absorb into a larger whole;
typical examples would be the openings of the Finale of the Fourth
Symphony and the first movement of the Ninth, and the codas of most
of his mature first and last movements. This type of composition is
radically opposed to the athletic treatment of tonality and innate
dramatic fluidity of the classical sonata-symphony, and is also basically
EMERGENCE 2J
against the kind of music Bruckner himself was composing. The
masses in B flat minor, D minor, and F minor show a steady advance
in mastery of the type of mass already made familiar by Haydn,
Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, a type far more closely allied to the
classical symphony than are Bruckner's symphonies to his own
tradition-based masses. Any one of these three masses will show, almost
at a glance, that its sense of movement is classical, and it does not take
much more than a glance to show that the E minor is fundamentally
different. The E minor is often construed as a ddiberately archaic,
retrospective work, Bruckner's tribute to Palestrina and Company,
but it is really the first hint of the later composer. While its Gloria and
Credo retain a contact with the world of classical music, its Kyrie,
Sanctus, and Agnus Dei pay lip-service to an older world while entering
a new one, and the subtle Benedictus holds a fine balance. So far for
ward does the Sanctus look that not only does it foreshadow later
processes by Bruckner himself, but we can also find something very
like it in Sibelius's Seventh Symphony. For many years I was under
the delusion that the E minor was really the last of Bruckner's masses
and that the numbering had somehow gone wrong. The facts seem
to refute this, but I shall never be surprised if someone finally proves
them to be otherwise.
The next influence to impinge on Bruckner was Wagner's. This, too,
stirred something instinctive in him. It did not greatly affect (certainly
not very much at first) the colouring of his music or the shape of its
themes, but Bruckner felt at once the enormous and unprecedented
slowness of Wagner's processes. These were aimed at creating musical
designs large enough to embrace whole acts of stage dramas.
Bruckner's interest in the stage proceedings was minimal (he is reputed
to have asked, at the end of Die Walkiire, why they had set fire to
Briinnhilde), but the majestic deliberation ofWagner's invention and its
growth into vast forms fascinated him. Inevitably we find him picking
up Wagnerian touches of harmony or instrumentation, and occasion
ally a typical gruppetto or appoggiatura will betray its origin. But
Bruckner was probably the first composer to be successful in transfer
ring this kind of slowness to pure instrumental music, at least as a
pervasive principle. In Beethoven we can find almost everything (the
slow movement of the Hammerklavier sonata is as slow as anything in
Wagner, and that of the A minor quartet dwarfs the achievement
of Bruckner's E minor mass in the way it blends radically opposed
currents), but in no composer earlier than Bruckner can we discover a
consistent exploration of the problem. It became his life's work,
leading him to the invention (or, rather, evolution) of new forms, to
occasional disaster but also to the creation of a type of symphonic
finale that, when it is successful, is unique. In his hands the symphony
developed peculiar new characteristics that no one hitherto has success
fully imitated. It can be argued, of course, that as the Haydn or Beet
hoven mass is derived from the classical symphony, so Bruckner
evolves a new type of symphony from the classical mass, but this is to
omit the vital factor of a kind of movement inimical to such a theory
and to obscure the fact that Bruckner's symphonies, far from being
instrumental corollaries to his masses, are a decisive break with the
tradition they represent.
This chapter is not the place to summarize the nature of the Bruckner
symphony. As we shall find out in the ensuing analyses, generalizations
of that sort are apt to be misleading, for the symphonies separately
attempt or achieve different solutions to the common problem of how
to create coherent instrumental forms on such a time-scale. But it is
as well to note in advance that the problem was not solved all at once.
The First Symphony does not tackle it, for Bruckner had not yet cut
free from classical tradition ; no doubt he himself would have explained
the E minor mass of the same year purely as a glance back to an even
older tradition. Nor does Die Nullte break away; it shows the tremen
dous effect the opening of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony must have
had on his imagination, and it proceeds on lines that, though they arc
highly individual (at times to the point of idiosyncrasy), distribute and
convey tensions of basically familiar kind. But there is in the first
movement of this symphony a calm spaciousness that breathes a new
atmosphere. Bruckner is already scenting the air of new country
through an open window, out of which he will soon attempt perilously
to climb. The descent is hazardous, but he makes a promising exit with
the last movement of No. 2, without realizing how far it is to the
ground, and swings crazily on the rope in No. 3 . In the Finale of the
Fourth he slips again, not quite so dizzily, for he is nearer te"a firma,
which he triumphantly treads in the Fifth. After this, such errors as he
makes are no longer dangerous, though the country is not always an
Arcadia, to judge from his strange findings in the Finale of No. 6, or
the profound disturbances of No. 8, or the final agonies so poignantly
expressed in parts of No. 9.
Bruckner's slow processes have often led to misunderstandings,
especially on the part ofthose who persist in associating his symmetries
EMERGENCE 25
with those of sonata. Such critics are diminishing in number, but there
are still enough to make it necessary to deal with the point. Mis
interpretation of these symmetries can lead to expectation of the ten
sions of sonata and disappointment at their absence, or their appearance
in seemingly wrong places. A true sonata movement creates certain
symmetries, but it is a grave mistake to suppose that the presence of
roughly similar symmetries indicates an attempt at sonata structure.
In a genuine sonata movement of even the quietest kind the moment
of reprise, for instance, is a dramatic incident depending on a special
kind of tension, expressed through a fundamentally dynamic sense of
key. Bruckner always possessed this sense, demonstrated in successful
sonata movements, and on such occasions produces the right kind of
tonal tension at the right moments. It is such tensions-not the presence
of expository or recapitulatory symmetries-that define the nature of
sonata. There are plenty of sonata movements without regular or even
obvious recapitulations, and plenty of other types of music that
recapitulate. All large-scale musical designs need to create some sense
of symmetry, or balance, if they are to satisfy a normal listener's
instinct for unity. This is true even of so fluid a music as fugue, where
the denouement is properly produced at a strategic moment when the
listener's desire for symmetry has been stretched to breaking point.
In the great harmonic forms, of which sonata is the most influential,
symmetry tends to reveal itself in more broadly recognizable ways.
It is thus easily assumed that because sonata is so common it is auto
matically indicated by the presence of such symmetry. But birds and
bats, whatever the cursory glance may suggest, are unrelated. Most
extended structures that are harmonically based will tend to recapitu
late sooner or later; there will also be transitional moments and often
we will know when the end is in sight-we are then listening to a
coda. The opening of any piece of thematic music will have either an
introductory or an expository feeling about it. If, however, we insist
on relating all these elements in Bruckner to sonata form, regardless of
their internal functions, we have only ourselves to blame for the
consequences of using our eyes rather than our ears.
It is such matters as these we shall encounter in detail in the following
chapters. In the meantime there remain three works that cannot be
left out of this preliminary survey, the String Quintet and the two late
choral works, the Te Deum of 1881 and Psalm 1 50, composed in 1 892.
Apart from motets and part-songs (some of which are striking and
original, and I would strongly recommend Abendzauber, for baritone,
26 THE E S S ENCE OF BRU CKNER
male voices, and four horns, a ravishing piece written in 1 878 and
breathing the same atmosphere as the opening of the Fourth Sym
phony) Bruckner wrote in the rest of his life only these three works and
symphonies. In cold print this may not seem much, but in truth he had
set himself a gigantic task, and the fact that he cannot have fully
explained it to himself made it all the more difficult, fraught with
error and gropings. The mighty achievement of the Fifth Symphony,
despite adverse personal circumstances, must have given him greater
confidence, and it is not without significance that this and the two
symphonies that followed it received less revision than any others. The
Fifth is a work of magnificently severe and massive consistency, and it
must have been a strange task for Bruckner to follow such music
with a string quintet, requested by Joseph Hellmesberger, who really
wanted a quartet to play. Bruckner insisted that he preferred the richer
possibilities of a quintet ; he had soon after his time with Sechter
attempted a quartet, a dry and tentative affair. Chamber music had
never much attracted him and he approached this proposition with
some diffidence, though not so much hesitation as Hellmesberger
displayed when he saw the finished result-he refused to play it, even
after some revisions had been made, and it was eventually performed
by another ensemble, in which Franz Schalk played the second viola.
The Quintet has many beauties and it is only at the ends of the first
and last movements that Bruckner's need for the orchestra reveals
itself. The Adagio is one of his finest, indeed one of the most inspired
things in chamber music since the last quartets of Beethoven ; although
it is fully on the scale of his symphonic slow movements, it never
oversteps the limits of the medium. It contains two of the most beauti
ful themes Bruckner ever wrote, the first of truly Beethovenian
serenity and the second unsurpassed for sheer purity and warmth of
expression, even by Schubert, whose spirit it fmely recaptures. The
first movement is subtle in feeling, texture and structure, and the
frequent wide leaping of its counterpoint, coupled with unexpected
chromatic inflexions, creates a world of sound that is quite new. The
Scherzo (which is placed second) is one of his most endearingly
grotesque inspirations ; moderate in pace, and also full of strange leaps
and quirks of harmony and tonality, it wears an oddly dishevelled air,
for all the world as if it were a self-portrait of the awkward nonplussed
figure of the composer, trying to appear unconcerned though he knows
he looks hopelessly out of place in sophisticated Vienna. It was this
piece that was too much for Hellmesberger, who afterwards persuaded
EMERGENCE 27
Bruckner to substitute a comparatively suave Intermezzo; but this did
not oust the original so much more characterful Scherzo. Only the
Finale of the Quintet is not fully satisfactory as a piece of composi
tion (the first movement's ending is a little ludicrously orchestral, but
it can be lived down). Here Bruckner is still absorbed in the problem
of the symphonic finale of his own peculiar stamp, and forgets that the
tonal scale of five string instruments is unsuitable for such architecture.
At least, he forgets it some of the time, and that is enough to create
confusion. He starts as if to make introductory signals, to set the scene
for the kind of basically contemplative process we find in one of his
typical symphonic finales, secs that he cannot accumulate sufficient
decisive invention to make the beginning sound like a real beginning,
and lands himself with the curious sensation of seeming to start with
his "second subject" (see bar 3 3). The "main" theme is never more
than a token gesture and always seems either introductory or tran
sitional ; it is the second theme and its offshoots that have to do all the
work, including some original but rather forced contrapuntal labour
in the development. Even so, this movement has much in it that can
be enjoyed and the Quintet as a whole is one of the treasures of nine
teenth-century chamber music. The Adagio is of uncorrupted sublimity.
The experience of the Quintet must certainly have had an effect on the
Sixth Symphony, where there is a new refinement of orchestral sound,
especially in the string department.
Bruckner's last two choral works are interesting to compare with
the masses of the 1 86os. The first thing that strikes one is that there is
much less difference between, say, the F minor mass and the Te Deum
than there is between the First and Seventh symphonies (to take roughly
contemporaneous instances). Such a situation is inevitable after so long
a neglect of large-scale choral music and so intense a concentration on
orchestral. The second noticeable thing is that both the Te Deum and
Psalm 150 are compact works ; Bruckner does not show any inclination
to produce a choral masterpiece in the time-scale of the symphonies.
The sense of movement in these works is classical, though sometimes
in the Te Deum we encounter the impressively ejaculatory manner of
delivering ideas in quanta that sometimes occurs in the symphonic
finales. The non confundar of the Te Deum makes use of an idea which
became Ex. 6 in the Seventh Symphony soon afterwards (see p. 149).
The symphony reveals the natural time-scale of the idea, which creates
a slight sense of congestion in the confines of the Te Deum, resulting
in a trace of embarrassment in the slightly contrived ending, with its
rather commonplace fanfares. This is the only flaw in a masterful work
of almost barbaric grandeur. Psalm 150 is even finer, and here there is
no sign of confusion of time-scales. Even more compact than the Te
Deum, it drives with unerring force to a great climax of the utmost
simplicity and power.
Having made a rough survey of Bruckner's path, we must now go
back and examine in detail the landmarks we have so far but glanced
at. The nine numbered symphonies which embody the real develop
ment of Bruckner must necessarily dominate this book. Much more
could be written about the masses, the Quintet, and the two late
choral pieces, and we have said almost nothing of the many interesting
smaller things. But this essay is aimed toward the understanding of
Bruckner's musical mentality, and is not meant to be an annotated
catalogue. The symphonies absorbed the whole of his specially charac
teristic evolution, and it is they that have been most often misunder
stood. Anyone who can enjoy a Haydn mass should have little trouble
with one by Bruckner, but not everyone who values Haydn's sym
phonies is able to relish Bruckner's. So it is on them we must now tum
our attention.
CHAPTER II
SYMPHONY N O . 1 , I N C M I N O R
T HERE ARE TWO authentic versions o f the official No. 1 . The

original score dates from 1 865/6 (Linz) and the later revision, by
Bruckner himself, was carried out in 1 890/1 (Vienna). There are no
fundamental changes in the structure ; the basic shape remains the
same in the revision, odd bars being dropped or added here and there.
But there is a great deal of re-working over details, both in scoring
and in the substance of the music itself, and passages are actually
re-composed. The Vienna score is rarely an improvement over the
original, and often the simplicity and urgency of Bruckner's inspira
tion in Linz is ruined by fussy and frequently difficult detail. The revis
ion betrays the composer's nervousness and perhaps his state of
health. Things were not going well for him-he had not recovered
from the shock of Hermann Levi's rejection of the Eighth in its
original form, and was painfully wrestling with the Ninth. His friends
were constantly suggesting (or actually making) revisions in his earlier
works, and he became possessed of a somewhat desperate revising
mania. Of the revisions he is known to have made himself, that of the
First Symphony is the worst. Yet it is a document of deep interest, if
only because it reveals the disturbed condition of Bruckner's mind at
the time. The calm clear basses of the original are frequently made
restive, and decorative figurations that were beautiful and simple in
the earlier score were often rendered tortuous (for a typical example
compare letter J, first movement, in the revision, with letter E in the
original). Scoring, though more varied, sometimes was coarsened;
there is a peculiarly horrible instance in the final climax of the Adagio
(letter G in both scores), and disruptively nervy tempo fluctuations
were added (with especial damage to the Finale). Compared with this,
Schumann's panicky re-scoring of his D minor symphony was harm
less. It is true that the Vienna version of Bruckner's First contains refine
ments and subtleties that the composer of the Linz version would not
have thought of, but most of them are of a kind that could have been
apt only in his later works. If we want to know what the symphony is
really like we must turn to its bold, clean Linz version, and it is unlikely
that its bluntness will now strike us (as it must have done the agitated
JO THE E S S E N CE OF B R U CKNER
old man of the 1 89osJ as crudeness. Such impurities as it has are less
disturbing than the anachronisms that were afterwards imposed upon it.
The dogged opening of this symphony is not characteristic of the
mysterious breadth we have come to expect of a Bruckner beginning.
Tramping crotchets become background to a glum march-theme
pervaded by dotted rhythms. It is noteworthy that the start of the next
symphony (the so-called "No. o", in D minor) also produces a tramp
ing background-not to a theme, however, but to the kind of orches
tral nebula that itself became the normal Brucknerian opening. (This
fact alone would indicate that the opening of the D minor symphony
was written after, not before, No. 1). Notice how the main theme, at
first ambiguously suggesting A flat tonality, stretches itself, then tightens
its muscles again as it rises to the brief tutti that crashes in upon a chord
of A flat major. This composer is neither inexperienced nor amateurish:
Eic 1 '"'" 1)
Allc9ro ( (Cl I
l>�tc � !bttffl ffl I a J ijii"TI I

I (o.. } 1 I (bl 1
l .___
.,. �
,
-
.....
�· -· ......
t� J 1 §''ti 14 ,. , J f �If t§/W¥I llj/ tr ,. ,. I

-• • $e'"'l9;pN. C:N6C
"' Ql gptl!Uf5!tft!fu'
,; cresc:.
SYMPHONY N O . I , IN C MINOR 31
When the theme resumes quietly (bar 28)* the marching crotchets
underneath it are solidly in A flat. Yet the sense of C minor as the main
key is unmistakable, established by hint rather than assertion ; Bruckner
has a subtle and original way with tonality that is altogether unbump
kinlike. Make a mental note, too, of the fact that the plain repeated
chords of the start have now become thematic, derived from the string
figuration in the previous tutti (Ex. 1 (d)) :
£.c z (ba.r 2&)
ll; 1 J iJ i Jl+I1
The march rhythms vanish, and wind instruments muse upon the
figure of Ex. I (d), making a gentle transition towards E flat, open and
clear after the tonal mystifications of the beginning, and we discover
an arching cantabile; it is perhaps surprising to find how often Bruckner
is content with two-part writing :
The tutti to which this leads is based mostly on Ex. 1 (d) combined
with a new woodwind figure of which (b) becomes the definitive
shape :
EK 4: C1>ar67)
:r tflJ-1d
Mi-' � ftt_,.I 1 w
�- tt-djtftf
II"
"it f... , -·
* Bar numbers and rehearsal letters refer to the Linz score, except where other
wise stated.
In the revision Bruckner altered this figure and put it on the horns.
So far the music has been behaving in a classical manner-somewhat
rough-hewn perhaps, but not disconcertingly so. Everything has been
close-knit, and this tutti suggests that the exposition will soon come to a
vigorous end, the first stage in a movement that is likely to be short.
But the music begins to broaden unexpectedly. Is the tutti going to
sweep over into the development? There are certainly signs of modula
tion, as alien harmony invades the scene. The excitement increases.
Then comes an immense surprise. A massive new theme, majestic on
the trombones, strides suddenly into view. It is in E flat, and in slower
tempo (Mit vollster Kraft, im Tempo etwas verzi:igernd) , with a sweeping
Tannhauser-like accompaniment rising and falling in waves :
The accompaniment loses all its thrilling inevitability in the revision,

and it is a mystery how Bruckner could have brought himself to
substitute such fussy fiddlings for so magnificently simple a concep
tion.* Be that as it may, this passage has no precedent or successor in
symphonic music and, when it subsides, E flat major is once more in
control. A soft cadential phrase ends the exposition :
EK 6 (&ci.r1oa>
jj�� t]):) I Ch I gqaJJ I j

tl I
J
'Car" I
·•
Bruckner confirms this by drawing a double bar-line. The slower

pace continues. The prospects of the movement are immeasurably
extended. The quiet music based on Ex. 6 goes on for a while, moving
away from E flat. It is softly disturbed by a suggestion of the sweeping
accompaniment figure from the previous passage, and then the tutti
breaks out again, subsiding after five bars into harmony that drifts
towards C flat. In the meantime Ex. 6 (a) (which is a transformation of
Ex. 5 (a)) extends its last two notes plaintively:
* It is possible that he felt the original was too much like the figurations of
Tannhauser, but its effect is quite different.
1 -==
ere.SC: m ==- ::::=--
The harmony brightens into the dominant ofG major (bar 142). But
all the while the two notes of Ex. 7 (a) are beginning to sound vaguely
familiar, and the entry of the first theme of all {Ex. 1), by now almost
forgotten, is confirmation that Ex. 7 {a)-and in retrospect Ex. s (a)
is really Ex. 1 (c). At this point F sharp minor contradicts the expected
G major and by doing so makes a dramatic point of the whole incident.
This is subtlety, both thematic and tonal, of an order that should make
all but the most obtuse of Bruckner's detractors think twice about
condescending to him. The subtlety is consummated by the fact that
the appoggiatura Ex. 1 (c)-cum-s {b)-cum-7 (a), having done its job in
suggesting the main theme, modestly retires from the scene, at least
for the time being.
The return of the rhythm of Ex. 1 naturally enlivens the tempo, and
after a little dalliance with a new but short-lived figure (horn, bar 1 44),
the original speed is resumed (Tempo I, bar 156), and a full-scale
development of the Allegro material ensues, with powerful and abrupt
dynamic contrasts. It swings round to the home dominant at bar 193,
in hushed expectancy of the recapitulation. In a movement unmistak
ably in C minor, this is (except for one solitary bar, 16) the first use
of the home dominant, three-quarters of the way through ! And if we
look at bar 16, we see that there the home dominant is at once contra
dicted. Here, for the first time in the movement, it is confirmed.
Bruckner is no model for students, but we can all learn from him. In
the Linz score, incidentally, the tonic confirmation is finely anticipated
by a pianissimo kettledrum, a detail with which the old man seems to
have been impatient in Vienna.
The theme moves, as before, to the tutti beginning on an A flat
chord. This time the harmony turns to the sharp side, very softly
corrected by the drum on C (bar 223) {its entry is delayed in the
revision so that it coincides with the change from strings to woodwind
34 THE ES S E NC E OF BRU CKNER
-a pity, for it is thereby obscured). Now comes a counterstatement
of the main theme in the bass, but given a new direction, so that it
functions as a transition. In the revision, the old composer sees a chance
to combine the theme with its inversion {one of his favourite devices,
of course) ; the effect is excellent and the fact that it ceases after four
bars enhances the transitional character of the passage.
Now follows the orthodox "second subject" {Ex. 3) in the tonic
major, and again it leads to a tutti. On its previous appearance this tutti
behaved as if it were about to pour itself into the development; instead
Bruckner halted it with a mighty new theme. Now it is allowed its
head as it surges into a coda in which the string figuration of Ex. I (d)
takes many new forms, developed by a fascinating and spontaneous
process of gradual change. Throughout the coda the allegro is sustained
(except for two dramatic pauses) and Ex. 5 does not return. There is
no need to recapitulate a surprise which now stuns by its absence. A
proper romantic composer would have used it to crown the movement
(or even the whole symphony) with ponderous rhodomontade, but
Brucknerjustly makes it the more impressive in retrospect, at the heart
rather than the end of the piece, preferring to close with severely
trenchant formal matter. The Linz version is of great purity in this
respect, but Bruckner's revision of the coda is, in one place at least,
disastrous. Ex. 3, which has perfectly served its purpose as a lyrical
contrast whose thematic separateness is itself a complete function,
is dragged infortissimo on the trumpet Qetter X, Universal Edition) like
a brazen harlot ! Was it really Bruckner who perpetrated this red-hot
horror?
Originality is certainly one of the most notable attributes of the first
movement, but the Adagio surpasses it in this respect as well as in
depth. Like so many aspects of Bruckner, his slow movements are
uniquely characteristic, but we should beware of generalizing too
easily about them. Precisely because he is such an original, even idio
syncratic composer, there is a tendency to make "global" statements
about his music. In fact there are only a few things that are invariable
in his work. These are no more than fingerprints, heavy ones, it is
true, but not essentially any more important than the obviously
recognizable habits of a striking personality. Sometimes they lead to
weaknesses, as can all mannerisms when they become too automatic
the use of sequence, inversion, simple regularity of phrase-length, they
all can become liabilities when Bruckner nods. Yet his attention fails
infrequently, and anxiety to leave no tone unturned {if I may avoid a
cliche') is much more likely to be a source o f trouble.* But so far as
form is concerned, no two movements of this composer closely
resemble each other, and he rarely makes a move without a purpose
suited only to the matter in hand. Sometimes we have to listen very
carefully for his purpose before we can understand that something is
going on that is very different from the chance semblances of estab
lished forms our habits have led us to assume. Even the deepest and
most observant of musical minds, such as Tovey's, can be caught out.
As we proceed to examine the slow movements of Bruckner's sym
phonies in the course of this book, we cannot do better than test
against each one of them Tovey's description-"The plan of his
adagios consists of a broad main theme, and an episode that occurs
twice, each return of the main theme displaying more movement in the
accompaniment and rising at the last return to a grand climax, followed
by a solemn and pathetic die-away coda". This, of course, is not based
on an assumption connected with forms established outside Bruckner's
work, but it is, as we shall see, a rash generalization.
The very opening of the Adagio of No. I already dispels any idea of
a "broad main theme". Like the beginning of the first movement, it
shows tonal ambiguity-but much more markedly, and it anticipates
the Adagio of the Ninth Symphony in the way it seems to be searching
for a key. Dark gropings around the region of F minor climb towards
the light, sink again, make another attempt. Here is the gloomy,
fragmentary start, rising to the first outcry, whence it falls :
E>c &
�1 f tyJJ '{iJ! "A":¥ I

i:ld4,gio
&J= tie " z f Y I

>-"
£ij!t/"a I J '·-IJt"
>
·�
>
: ; 'ti-¢
c:�
I
ti\J! E il'•tflt• ff 1bf- r I r1IDtw:·•·

I I� ere .f aCW"esc.
* Bruckner was not addicted to retrograde inversions; fortunately for him.self

he left for another generation the nightmarish worry of how to leave no tone
unstemed.
THE E SS ENCE O F B RU CKNER
After the second cry (bar 16) there comes a consolatory phrase, like a
calm chorale. It is in a clear A flat major, and this is the tonic the mwic
has been seeking :
EM 9 (bArjS')
ti ff - �� J I J r @ I djJ tt
,,- -
The air has cleared, and Bruckner moves with a quiet deliberation
until he arrives at a chord of B flat major (bar 30). Above a flowing
accompaniment appears a fine curving melody :
B flat is treated as if it were a key, and the melody is joined by

gracious counterpoints. But B flat is not here a key-it proves to be the
dominant of E flat, and in E flat the melody alights, reaching a broad
climax in a remarkably short time. The device of simultaneously
shortening and broadening a design by allowing the second group to
commence while the transition is still in progress is perhaps derived
from Schubert, another master whose subtleties have sometimes been
misconstrued as faults by the unwary. Bruckner is careful to avoid a
direct full close (the only root chord of E flat in this section is half-way
through bar 41) and the actual end of the passage is a preparation for the
next (bar 43). Although the very slow tempo has absorbed a consider
able time so far, the musical process from the beginning of the move
ment has been very concise. There are surprisingly few notes to be
actually counted, and no composer could have been more economical.
Now is the time to relax the mental tension.
The key of E flat remains as, with a change to three-four time, a
new idea flows quietly in. It is a cantabile of great beauty, in some ways
prophetic of the famous Moderato in the slow movement of the Seventh
Symphony, easeful and noble :
E11 1i (ba."44)
lM'W S1@ tim_:Jlr_i rr:L:

� d.o ce.
This beautiful aria shows signs of becoming a regular ternary form
in itself (the oboe entry at bar 60 has all the sense of beginning a middle
section) but instead it expands calmly through changing shades of
harmony and colour until its semiquavers begin to flow continuously.
The tranquillity is overcast. The flowing violin line becomes myster
ious, masking the return of the dark elements. The semiquavers
persist, to add power to the recapitulation-so there is here at least a
half-truth in "each return of the main theme displaying more move
ment in the accompaniment". But in this case there is no broad main
theme in the usual sense of the term, and the matter that fi.lls its place
returns but once. Bruckner writes a wonderful new transition to Ex. 10
(see bars 13 5-40) , which is rescored and has its climax extended as it
passes from E flat to A flat (corresponding to its original move from B
flat to E flat). In revising this climax Bruckner was clearly afraid that
the melodic lines in the strings would be swamped by the brass. His
solution is coarse and ugly, merely underlining a slight weakness
of melodic invention at this point (letter G in both scores), and the
purer sound of the original is far preferable, even if the conductor
must take care in balancing it. After the climax there is a serene coda
upon which no trace of the earlier unquiet is permitted to creep, and A
flat major rests itself.
The design of the Adagio is thus an unusual blend of ternary and
sonata forms, a sonata exposition followed by a middle section based
on new material (Ex. I I )-not a development, but the first stage of a
ternary structure that changes its nature, drifting into the sonata
recapitulation instead ofreturning to a formal one of its own. It would
be easy but wrong to call Ex. I I the final theme of the exposition,
initiating the development; considered from the point of view of
normal classical sonata, this "development" would seem to lack
momentum. As soon as one realizes that it is no development at all,
but the very opposite until it begins to behave as ifit had been a develop
ment, the full subtlety of Bruckner's idea is manifest. In order to escape
the pitfalls of faulting Bruckner with misunderstanding sonata "style",
we must ourselves be sure that we understand it. In the case of this
movement, misapprehension of this point is not fatal, but it can be in
some later instances, especially the first movement of the Seventh
Symphony and some of the finales.
Bruckner has often been accused of being a slave to the four-bar
period. The charge is not without justice, but it is by no means so
comprehensive as is usually supposed.We must, moreover, be wary of
levelling such a criticism at him whenever we find four-bar phrases
for long stretches at a time. Very frequently this kind of regularity is a
source of power. Such a piece, for example, as the mighty Scherzo of
the Eighth would be ruined by interruption of the regularity with
anything but the occasional phrase of six bars. But there arc cases when
uniformity of this kind causes stagnation, and these we shall mention
in their place. Meanwhile it must be observed that Bruckner uses
irregular phrasing far more often than is generally realized, especially
in his earlier works, while as late as the Finale of the Fifth Symphony
we find such freedom, achieved with great mastery and plasticity,
as Brahms would have been forced to admire if he could have been
persuaded to take a really good look at the music. The Scherzo of No. 1
begins with the following series of bar-periods before it settles down
into clearly recognizable groups of four-7, 2, 4, 2, 6, 4, 6. The effect
is completely natural ; the ear is intrigued, and then satisfied when the
regularity appears. In its weight and bluntness this movement is
already a characteristic Bruckner scherzo, and is based on two elements,
the arpeggiated figures at the beginning, and this simple theme, from
which the last three notes tend to detach themselves :
E!C U (bear 9)
,�1rr1iJ a 1 e& n 1 �
6chncll "kt
vm 1 & a i
>
'"f . ....._ . .
The key is G minor, rather startling after the A flat of the Adagio,
and a key that has hardly been touched upon in the previous two
movements, neighbour though it is of C minor. Bruckner is always
sensitive to such effects, and the avoidance of a tonality with a view to
its ultimate emergence much later in a work can produce marvellous
results in, for instance, the Seventh and Eighth symphonies (it must be
stressed that the magic of the device is effective whether or not the
listener understands why). This scherzo is in the classical cast with
two halves (or a third and two-thirds) the first ending on the dominant,
and both repeated, though the composer removed the second repeat
in the revision. The passage immediately following the double bar
consists mainly of accumulative repetition of Ex. 12 (a) in combination
with the arpeggio figures, while the tonality swings back to G minor
for a return of the opening. These repetitions become a little auto
matic, causing a drop rather than a rise in tension.
S Y M P H O N Y N O . I , IN C MIN OR 39
The Trio is an exquisitely original inspiration, in G major, totally
unpredictable, beautifully instrumented and with some lovely har
monic shifts. Bruckner in the role of miniaturist is not a familiar figure,
perhaps, but this and the trios of the Fourth and Fifth symphonies
show how delicately aphoristic he could be.
EK i�
. .
The revision changes a few details, not always for the better, and
adds a short link to the Scherzo reprise, which follows directly with Ex.
12, instead of returning to the fortissimo opening as in the original. The
straightforward formality of the earlier procedure is somehow prefer
able in its directness. In both versions the Scherzo is finally extended
into a forcible coda, slightly broadened, with advantage, in the revision.
Unlike most of Bruckner's finales, that of the First Symphony is a
real allegro. It is also the only one of his larger symphonic movements
that starts fortissimo, and Bruckner later found its abruptness comic,
suggesting it was like a man bursting unexpectedly through a door
Da bin if (Herc I am !). He damped down the brass and drums in the
revision, but spoilt the effect of what is by no means comic-a power
fully energetic and impressive opening. It is this movement that suffers
most in the revision, through ruinous changes of tempo, meddlesome
tinkerings with the scoring, and the occasional addition or subtraction
of bars to make irregular periods uniform. The original is in almost
every respect vastly superior, and where passages were later recom
posed the clarity and directness of the Linz score is often reduced to a
painful shambling. Compare the two versions of thefugato {Linz, letter
G, Vienna, bar 212) : the alterations not only make much of the
counterpoint ugly and forced, they compel Bruckner into a regrettable
slowing of the tempo in order to make them playable with reasonable
intelligibility. All this is symptomatic of the neurotic condition of the
composer in the last few years, and although some of the changes he
made are good, he had clearly lost contact with the feelings that
generated the original and was controlled by irrelevant ideas. If
Bruckner himself could so spoil his own work, how wary we should be
of the attempts of others to improve it !
The unspoilt Finale has irresistible impetus. There are one or two
passages of slightly academic "business", but the energy is strongly
sustained. The fierce start throws out a figure whose rhythm is more
important than its melodic shape :
r r
Its second bar soon becomes diminished (woodwind, bar 9), and the
new quicker rhythm, with a lively string accompaniment, gathers
itself together for a crescendo and a counterstatement of the opening.
Again the volume subsides quickly and the music turns away from C
minor, settling in E flat major with a new theme so full of character
that it is difficult to get it out of one's head:
EK 15(b41'36)
�� ·
� \lln.J 5 t...
li'"/ .. !i@_J I e!Jtlf l[j@ F

The Linz version approaches this idea by way of a three-bar phrase
that makes the start of the theme seem delightfully eager, and it is
typical of the revision that it squares the phrase-rhythms at this point.
The woodwind take up Ex. 15 and a tutti confirms E flat, at first rather
stiffiy but with increasing freedom as the rushing semiquavers of the
strings and interjections of the brass become less predictable. The
SYMPHONY N O . I , I N C MINOR 41
revised version destroys this effect by bringing in the rhythm of Ex. 14,
so pervasive in much of the movement that some relief from it is
desirable, particularly in fully-scored passages where it is too easily
expected. During this tutti (in both versions) one of the string figura
tions becomes important :
The fortissimo stops dramatically with Ex. 16 (b). Then in only eight
bars the four-note figure, now in quiet crotchets, makes a new cadential
theme and a full close in E flat. It contains a reference to Ex. 14 (b) :
£1' 11 (.bar S�)

\')bii
t��1 r?FAr I ff·iF -- 1 @J l 4

---.... dill'I �
fJ 1
...
This ends the exposition and, as in the first movement, Bruckner

pwictiliously draws a double bar-line. Reminding us of Ex. 14, the
last bar of Ex. 17 brings back the whole of the opening rhythm, now
shaped anew :
For a time the mood is reflective, as always at this stage in a Bruckner

finale, whether sonata principles are operative or not. Then the music
begins to march more purposefully as Ex. 1 8 is subjected to the inevit
able inversion, with a pizzicato accompaniment. The tonality moves as
far away from E flat as possible, in the direction of A minor and major,
and horns and trombones restore the erect version of Ex. 18,Jortissimo,
the strings taking up the bow in staccato quavers. A big tutti develops in
which the phrasing becomes fascinatingly ambiguous; between bars
120 and 130 a situation arises that is by no means wicommon in the
earlier Bruckner. First, a straightforward four-bar phrase (120-3) is
42 THB BSSBNCE OF BRUCKNER
put out by the brass. They begin what seems like another (124), but
in bar 125 the woodwind start a new thought (oddly like the main
theme of the last movement of Dvorak's "New World" Symphony).
The trumpets, however, have a certain loyalty to their colleagues the
horns and trombones, and although they find themselves entering
with the woodwind, they stop when they realize that the four-bar
phrase of the brass is due to finish, even though their friends, obviously
put off, have given up the ghost a bar early. Not to be outdone, the
woodwind add another bar to make theirs a five-bar phrase. The total
result is a richly active six-bar period (124-9). With the exception of the
violas (who will always tell you they are the most intelligent string
players, and who have seized on a new rhythm at bar 125), the strings
have all this time been solidly working away at quavers. At bar 1 30
the violas' rhythm becomes the means of heaving everything back to
the normality of four-bar phrasing. All this description may seem like
making a monntain out of a molehill, but it is necessary ifonly because
Bruckner's phrasing is so often criticized by people who look no
farther than the surface, or who accept old wives' tales without
question. Bruckner is frequently subtle in this matter, and if in his later
years he became more overtly regular in his phrasing, this is only a
natural result of his increasing time-scale and the immense slowing
down of the musical processes involved. It is also the basic reason why
the revision of No. 1 was so nnsuccessful ; Bruckner was no longer
able to feel spontaneously the vitality of such ambiguities and irregu
larities as we have just been examining. As it happens, he left this
particular one intact, but there are plenty of others he destroyed,
perhaps nnknowingly because his mentality, preoccupied with new
problems on a vaster scale, was now entirely different.
The drum enters with a crash Qetter E) and the music switches
violently and impressively from the dominant of E into C, at first
neither minor nor major and certainly with no tonic character. It
makes as if to be C minor, then brightens to major, only to be grandly
supplanted by the E major expected ten bars before. Again Bruckner
tends to spoil the effect in the revision by adding the rhythm of Ex. 14,
which always benefits, in the Linz version, by the restraint with which
it is used. From this climax the music fades away to a silent pause. At
this point we might expect A minor, but instead Ex. 15 floats out in
the bright key of B major. It hesitates doubtfully. The bass moves
mysteriously in upward sequences accompanied by the trill-figure and
then, after a themeless pulsing on the dominant of E flat (clarinets, bars
161-2), embarks on an inversion of Ex. 15 in C minor. An extended
treatment of this theme ensues, during which the trill-figure creates a
rustling forest of sound, mystification increasing as the keys change,
gradually darkening into the dominant of A minor. Once more expec
tations of this key are frustrated, as a vigorous contrapuntal passage
breaks out in D minor based on an octave leap, the trill-figure, and an
inversion of Ex. 16 (a). The dramatic force of this outbreak is reduced
in the revision by the insertion of one bar in the preparation to make
the phrasing more regular, and Bruckner knocks out another bar before
letter H (for the same misguided purpose) where the music drives
magnificently into C minor, which now begins to have the feeling of a
tonic. The atmosphere grows wild and stormy. During a brief lull the
drum settles on the home dominant, and with real grandeur and
tremendous energy the recapitulation sweeps in.
Wisely, Bruckner docs not allow an exhaustive recapitulation to
destroy the momentum. A brilliant incursion of foreign harmony into
the fifth bar of the theme induces a moment of thought before the next
passage (on a diminution of the rhythm, as before) begins to rise
towards a counterstatement. Before it can reach this, there is a great
crunch on combined tonic and dominant harmony (cautiously damped
in the revision), and Ex. 15 follows in C major. Not only does Bruckner
cushion this crunch in the revision by means of the scoring but again
he regularizes the phrasing, softening the shock as well as robbing
the entry of Ex. 15 of some of its freshness. The "second subject"
itselfis shortened, to be swept aside by the tutti that originally followed
it, and this in turn plunges directly into the coda with a sudden pianis
simo at bar 338, far more exciting than the diminuendo of the Vienna
score. The coda is superb. Beethoven or Schubert would have enjoyed
its electric energy and its inevitable sense of climax-indeed its rhyth
mic power and the exhilarating spin of its self-repeating string figures
recall the last movement of Schubert's great C major symphony. Now
the rhytlun of Ex. 14 comes into its own; in the original version it is
much strengthened by not having been previously overdone. A
Bruckner finale normally ends with a long-sustained passage on the
tonic chord, necessary in the huge time-scale of his later works. The
more familiar proportions of this his most "classical" symphony
enable him to produce harmonic surprises almost to the very end,
which is both punctual and abrupt, made the more thrilling in the
Linz version by some irregular periods, including a five-bar penultimate
phrase. Every single vital irregularity is removed from the revision,
44 THE ESS ENCE OP B RU CKNER
but even worse than this is the putting on of brakes thirty bars from
the end, which is thereby crippled into turbid pomposity.* It is the
early version that deserves to be played, and frequently; in this form
No. 1 is a work of outstanding character. It resembles nothing else,
even in Bruckner's music.
* I cannot condemn too harshly those conductors who, when they use the
Linz score, add to it the tempo changes of the Vienna version; these were clearly
brought in by Bruckner in an attempt to offset the wholesale regularizing of the
phrasing in the revision. To use them in the Linz version is to show a crass
misconception.
C HAPTER III
SYMPHONY NO. 2 , IN C M I N O R
As WE HAVE seen in discussing the First Symphony, the fears and

agitations ofBruckner's latter years resulted in an ill-conceived attempt
to modify the early work in the light of his after-development, forget
ting that he himself had changed so radically that irrelevancies, incon
gruities, and unspontaneous untruths would surely accrue. And there
is no solution to be found in trying to incorporate in the earlier version
what we may think to be improvements in the later ; as an exercise it
might be interesting, but it can be only an unsatisfactory compromise.
With No. 1, however, we have a dear choice between two different
widely separated versions, both {so far as we can possibly tell) Bruck
ner's own-so we must perform either one or the other. The Second
Symphony presents another poser, and the solution of this one is less
easy to decide. That it can be and has been decided almost as satis
factorily as is humanly possible (by Robert Haas) I have no doubt, but
there is room for argument, if only because no available solution can
result in perfection. I do not believe that Bruckner himself was ever
satisfied that either this or the Third Symphony had reached a definitive
form. For that matter the finale of No. 4 is in a similar way. The deep
cause is that all three works are transitional. The most tangled situation
is in No. 3, because that is the most completely transitional of them all.
The Second solves problems of Bruckner's earliest maturity, but with
an eye to the future-hence some uncertainties. The Third is itself the
beginning of the future-therefore the widespread nature ofits inequal
ities. The fourth very nearly embodies the finest Bruckner, and only
its finale has not quite arrived.
The Second Symphony was begun in London in 1 871. Bruckner
went there to play the organ, and his success prompted him to the
remark that "In England my music is really understood". Not that
any of his compositions had ever been heard there, but his powers of
extemporization must have been impressive. It is ironic to think of
the blank reception that England gave his symphonies for so many
years, until the 1950s, in fact. He finished the first draft of No. 2
in September 1 872, making changes in 1873 and 1877. His final revi
sion, like that of No. 1 , belongs to the 1 890s. It is not nearly so drastic
as the revision of No. 1, though it does contain a suggestion for an
THE E S S E N C E OF B R U CKNER
appalling new cut in the finale, as well as adding expression markings
and fluctuations of tempo. None of these things is advantageous, and
we cannot be sure how many of them represent his own real wishes, or
simply the promptings of others. If this edition can be rejected, where
then is the problem? Should we not stick to the version of 1 877? It
would be simple if in all honesty we could, but the fact is that the 1877
score was prepared with the help ofJohann Herbeck who, devoted and
selfless friend though he was, may have prevailed upon Bruckner to
make certain cuts. Herbeck died in October 1877 ; Bruckner was
deeply affected by his death, and Robert Haas suggests that it was out of
respect for his friend that he allowed the revision to stand. He did,
however, carefully keep the earlier version. Haas in his edition (Inter
national Bruckner Society, 193 8) has restored the excised passages, with
indications to that effect. So the problem is not how to make a choice
between two different editions, but whether or no to make the cuts,
or perhaps one or two of them ; a tricky matter. If we admit (as we
must) that the work is not perfect either way, why not shorten it?
Because to shorten it is to make a hash of the proportions ; to do this
is not to decrease but to increase the longueurs. To perceive the spaces
Bruckner wanted to fill satisfactorily is better than to have a work
that is too long for the space we would like it to fill. Haas was
right. The dropped passages (except perhaps one) should be restored,
as I hope now to demonstrate as we explore the symphony.
After all this harping on inequalities in No. 2, it is necessary to
describe it as a most beautiful symphony, too little known. The
uncertainties are almost confined, as we shall see, to the codas of the
first and last movements, and to one passage in the slow movement,
and they are not in themselves sufficient reason for neglecting a work
that is in most other respects clear and spacious. The fierce unpredict
ability of No. I aroused severe comment that, as always, shook
Bruckner's confidence. In the D minor (No. "o") he attempted a
smoother, calmer effect and was far from pleased. But calm, patient
spaciousness was of all qualities the one he was by nature most fitted to
express. He knew it, and the Second is the fruit as well as the expression
of his patience, gained in the composition of the three fine masses of
the I 86os. The opening has the quiet breadth that we have now come
to regard as typically Brucknerian. At the same time there is, as the
theme flexes itself, the muscularity that marks the early period. The
theme itself is of notable plasticity; its irregularity and unpredictability
are of a kind hard to find outside the works of Berlioz. After two bars
SYMPHONY N O . 2, I N C M I N O R 47
of soft introductory pulsing on a C minor third in the upper strings,
the cellos, in high register, begin a main theme of such singing quality
as Bruckner was not to find again until the Seventh. Notice the admir
able expansion of the phrase-rhythms-2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6-twenty-three
bars in all, really indivisible, and gathering momentum :
Ex .1 (ba., �)
Zi1tl'fllic h sclina.il Cb)---,
&;�� 4. J 11J.:/-· I tflfu I J@

�le tnJ -=::::. ::::=-- - :::::::--
J' Ij e
-
Although (b) is a variant of(a) it is treated in the coda as an idea in its

own right, and the other two ideas (c) and (d) have entirely rhythmic
consequences. The mixed rhythm of (d) is common in Bruckner. At
the end of the theme (letter A)* there is an overlap of periods that
subtly confirms the energy at the very moment when the counter
statement begins with the quieter, more regular opening phrases. This
invokes a warning that I do not propose to repeat too much in this book,
necessary though it often is-do not underestimate this composer !
* Letters and bar-numbers refer to the Haas score.
THE ESSENCE OF BRU CKNER
E,c (bcu· U'l
�
2
� � 7' C•l "� 6(1> a
&lit &JIJijlD JiPJll"-!M 11� .. 1

Although the key is C minor, the mood could hardly be more
different from that of the First Symphony. Here there is serene enjoy
ment of unassertive music-making, and Bruckner has succeeded in
both relaxing an& simplifying his invention. In later life he said that at
this time he had scarcely the courage to write down "a proper theme"
-referring to the way criticism of No. 1 had undermined his con
fidence and to Otto Dessoff's dismaying question about No. "o"*
but if the Second has no "proper theme", then nothing has. Basses
join cellos in the deeper counterstatcment and the violins add a flowing
line to the richer scoring as the music seems to be turning away from
the key into an orthodox transition. The rhythms of Ex. I (c) and (d)
dominate a crescendo ; instead of climbing over into a new key, however,
we find that on the other side of the hill we are in the home dominant.
A long diminuendo leaves only a few soft drum taps on G as the rhythm
evaporates. At once Bruckner begins his second group in E flat major !
It opens with a theme as broad and sweet as the rolling countryside of
Upper Austria:
Le 3 (bA.-,5)
• •
t t
* See page:20.
SYMPHONY N O . 2, I N C M I N O R 49
The rocking accompaniment turns out to be more important than
the cello tune {this symphony, like the Seventh, glorifies the cellos),
and the curious "transition" from the dominant of C through silence
to plain E flat is eventually the cause of a nai've subtlety in the recapitu
lation that I never tire of relishing. It will be described in its place, and
for the moment we must accept discountenance. Strangely enough the
momentum seems to keep going as the theme passes through various
harmonies and makes a shapely sentence. It closes into a new, purpose
ful idea, still in E flat, over a characteristic ostinato :
This is the second of five or six themes that form the second group,
a long and rich paragraph that describes a contented country full of
lively people. The rhythm of the ostinato keeps up a glorious swinging
stride and as the lungs fill with oxygen, the trumpet-rhythm (Ex. 1
(d)) joins the throng of cheerful sounds. As so often with Bruckner
in such passages, themes and figures are constantly transforming
themselves into new shapes. After letter D the ostinato disperses itself
into free counterpoints against a new sustained idea in the woodwind,
and by letter E the bass has risen to the surface to become the subject
of imitative treatment in G major. But we are not yet in any kind
of development, and at letter F still another new theme drifts in,
floating on the accumulated momentum of all that has gone before :
G major proves not to be a real key as we swing gently back to E

flat, which might never have been disturbed. So the exposition ends,
and a masterly piece of work it is, both in the unerring rightness of its
50 THE ESSENCE O F BRUCKNER
proportions and in the freshness of its music. Its close in E flat ponders,
and looks in the direction ofF minor. Now the development can begin.
Ex. 1 (a) returns, at first in F minor, then moving in a distinctly
Schubertian manner towards A flat major, where it forms itself easily
into comfortable two-bar phrases against a pizzicato accompaniment.
A crescendo evokes a tutti, around F minor, with Ex. I (a) sounding
grandly in imitation at the half-bar. Bruckner then tilts the tonality
over into G flat, and there is an unhurried yet exciting hush (bar 233).
It is as ifwe had climbed a hill ; the view is suddenly splendid yet calm,
and across wide, sunlit spaces an oboe, then a horn, sound a magical
augmentation of the ostinato. How absurd to try to describe such a
moment in a sentence ending with "ostinato" ! The crass philistinism
of the musical analyst was never more cruelly exposed. But we have
no choice ; the beauty of the music must speak for itself, and we must
attempt as well as we can to indicate that Bruckner's mind is working
behind his vision. So we must observe that the key is a soft and glowing
G flat major and that the ostinato soon recovers its normal active
measure, joined by a cheerful bassoon counterpoint. The moment of
rapt pleasure in the vista must pass, and exhilaration replaces it as we
seem to race down the other side of the tonal hill. The music goes
through A flat minor into C flat major, which turns to the minor
(B minor), to D major (becoming dominant of G), and fortissimo to a
massive Neapolitan chord of F, on the edge of A minor, with the
renewed rhythm of Ex. I (d). With a sudden pianissimo (letter K) we
arc in A minor. The ostinato is in the bass and Ex. I is trying to form in
the woodwind. There is a crescendo, but it subsides and the basses are
left with a pianissimo, in the rhythm of the ostinato, on the note B. This
becomes a major third as Ex. 3 tries to enter in G major ; it stops after
four bars, again leaving the basses with their B, which now rises a
semitone. The C behaves like a major third, and Ex. 3 starts again in A
flat. Its rocking accompaniment climbs lazily, and the tune has another
easy-going try, now in D flat. Three attcmpts-G major, A flat, and
D flat-and the first one in G makes sure that the A flat and D flat are
Neapolitan inflexions of dominant and tonic. So the music drifts
quietly on to the home dominant, and the incursion of Ex. 3 guarantees
the freshness ofEx. I , which initiates the recapitulation after a silent pause.
The countcrstatcment of the main theme takes a new course as it
grows into the expected tutti. But the tutti is shortened abruptly, and
is surprisingly twisted back to the home dominant. Why surprisingly?
After all, this is what one would expect in a recapitulation. But we
SYMPHONY N O . 2 , I N C MINOR 51
remember that in the exposition the first tutti also swung back to the
home dominant, the second group beginning straight away in E flat,
with only a silence as "transition". In view of that curious procedure,
we might expect something very different in the restatement, perhaps
a smoother but more wide-ranging transition, or a yet more abrupt
stroke, such as pausing on the dominant of A minor, then going at
once to C major. The latter idea would need some arresting new
preparation if it were not to sowid, when it arrived, too much like the
original ; but such strange harmonic procedures would be alien to the
nature of this movement. Also alien would be a smooth but involved
transition. No, we must have something similar to what happened
before, but there must still be that element of surprise that keeps the
ears sharpened, and here is the delightfully naive subtlety mentioned on
p. 49. The first surprise is the trwication of the tutti, halted on the
home dominant. Now consider exactly what Ex. 3 sowided like the
first time. We were surprised to hear it in E flat, but not properly
surprised until the second note, B flat (see bar 63), because the first
chord is G and E flat, both notes still belonging to C minor. The second
note tells us that we are in E flat. Having digested this, turn to the
restatement. There is the silence after a home dominant chord. Now
the surprise is on the first, not the second, note of the theme, an E
natural ! Bruckner's naive stroke is "obvious", but wonderfully shrewd,
and the above laboured attempt to describe it gives no idea of the
pleasure it creates. The charming surprise, moreover, is cunningly
enhanced by the irregular :five-bar period that precedes it, with a
three-bar one before that. It is such moments as these that got Bruckner
a bad name ; but it all depends on how we listen to them-the more
attention they get, the more rewarding are they.
So the second group gets under way in the tonic major. As it pro
ceeds Bruckner takes a hint from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony ; he
allows the second group to slip into the minor, in this case with Ex. 4.
Here the ostinato is wreathed in new woodwind figures, and the minor
tinge gives the whole ensuing paragraph another character. Ex. 5
appears in due course, in E major. Again, its freshness is very simply
preserved. E is to C what G was (in the exposition) to E flat, but E
major is not to C minor what G major was to E flat major. Time after
time we can find these naive but beautiful strokes in Bruckner. Ex. 4
is a little extended, and the bright E major modestly over-corrects
itself until the music hesitates on the dominant ofF minor (bars 485-7).
Now for the coda.
52 THE E S S E N C E OF B R U C K NER
It commences with a quiet but turbulent version of Ex. I (b),
forming a type of ostinato derived from the corresponding place in
Beethoven's Ninth. Ex. 1 (a) is placed rhythmically across it and (d)
cuts into the orchestra on trumpets. Although the preparation before
letter R was on the dominant of F minor, the first entry of Ex. 1 (a)
restores C minor, but not quite strongly enough to stand the strain
of a final climax. So the crescendo fades and the activity is dissipated into
a passage that sinks down again, but this time to the dominant of C.
This incident was erased from the revised score prepared by Bruckner
and Herbeck in 1877-but to begin the coda with what was originally
a re-start (at letter S} robs the end of its proper tonal foundation. The
whole point of the re-starting of the process at this point is that the
home dominant is now solidly placed at the base of the structure ; so
firm is the tonic at this stage that Bruckner is now free to make an
impressive excursion through foreign harmony, rising to a dramatic
cut-off, a plaintive reminiscence of Ex. 1, then a last C minor tutti. The
end is rendered very trenchant by a powerful irregularity in bar
grouping-2, 2, 2, 2, 5, 2, 1 . For reasons both of proportion and of
tonal security, Robert Haas was fully justified in restoring the passage
between R and S. His insight into Bruckner is always acute, and even
where Bruckner himself has sanctioned an excision, Haas's instinctive
understanding often seems to have the effect of posthumously steadying
the confidence of a nervous composer, recalling him from dangerously
cautious decisions. From a strict musicologist's point of view such an
action is reprehensible, but there is no other musicologist who has so
far shown one-tenth of Haas's grasp of the artistic problem. In this
particular instance Haas's restoration of the passage does not entirely
solve the difficulty, for Bruckner's invention is not altogether equal
to the occasion in the diminuendo before S or in the interruption at T.
But with the cut material restored the coda is the right length and its
tonal basis is sound; in my view these are decisive considerations.
In the first version the ending is at least born punctually; in the revision
it is a miscarriage.
Bruckner's control of slow climaxes finds its first mastery in the
Adagio of this symphony. This skill gave rise to a good many of his
finest pieces, not all of them official slow movements. The outline
is simple, the mood serene, and the main theme is worked into three
great paragraphs, each rising higher, separated by another theme used
as a link between them. The key is A flat, and it is never seriously dis
turbed. The calm main theme opens beautifully in five-part harmony :

£'1C, 6 i:'clcrlich, ct� bc�I;
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This first statement brings about no climax. Ex. 6 (b) and its inversion
float about and the music drifts almost to a standstill. A new theme
scarcely ruffies the static atmosphere :
Coming after a C major chord, this seems to begin in F minor, but

we cannot feel it as a real key. After only fourteen bars it moves again
to the dominant of F (bar 47). In the original score Bruckner now
repeats Ex. 7 with a decorative accompaniment and extends the
sentence another twenty-two bars before returning to Ex. 6. The
revision brings back the main theme at bar 48, but Haas restores the
cut passage. For two reasons I would advocate the cut here. First,
Bruckner gives us this fine decorated counterstatement later, after the
reappearance of Ex. 7, creating a welcome sense of expansion if we
have not heard it the first time. Secondly, between letters D and E, in a
passage where Bruckner's inspiration is a little torpid, a fearful strain
is put on the first horn player ; this link, moreover, ends prematurely,
giving the unfortunate impression that the horn player has died
suddenly of exhaustion, leaving an embarrassed bassoonist to fill up
the remaining bars with a feebly improvised cadenza. The later treat
ment of this passage {between letters I and K) successfully avoids this
disastrous effect. So with due respect to Haas we will this time adopt
the composer's (or possibly Herbeck's) suggestion and go directly
from bar 47 to bar 70 {letter E) for the return of the main theme.
The first four bars of Ex. 6 are now elaborated in rich counterpoint
that generates a climax before the rest of the theme calmly follows as if
nothing had happened. Ex. 7 is resumed, now gently resting on (not in)
B flat minor, and its finely scored repeat, with expressive string
arpeggios, is much more effective for not having been heard before.
With deep feeling, and a hint of the Benedictus of the F minor mass,
Bruckner comes back once more to the first theme. It is nobly expanded
in that immensely broad style this composer made so characteristic,
of which this passage is the first notable example. The violins sing a
flowing accompaniment ; the whole is big and simple, but its inner
rhythmic details are complex (and not easy to perform). For the first
time in the movement there comes a sense of emotional strain; the
serenity is disturbed. At letter M there is a sudden pianissimo and a
remarkably imaginative four bars of mystery, strikingly anticipating
the Adagio of No. 9. After this, Ex. 6 (b) is treated, and its consequent.
Slowly the activity dies out into a fine drawn coda, where spiritual
equanimity returns. Now there is a frank quotation from the Bene
dictus {see letter 0, and compare with bars 22-26, Benedictus, Mass No.
3, in F minor). This coda is completely masterly. The perfection with
which it gradually reduces the tension until the cloudless end is beyond
praise. This is a skill that no one has ever doubted in Bruckner. The
tension, however, is not eased for the horn player, nor is the end always
cloudless as he tries to control his refractory instrument in the wickedly
difficult soft phrases Bruckner's original version asks him to attempt.
The revision substitutes a clarinet, for whom the passage is easy. But
there is no replacement for the magic of the horn ; if we have heard
this propetly played, we shall be willing to put up with the risk rather
than take the easy way out. And if we excuse the horn player that
awful ordeal between D and E, perhaps he will reward us in the end.
SYMPH O N Y N O . 2 , IN C MINOR 55
Before leaving the Adagio it is worth while noting a curious difference in
periodicity between the 1 877 and 1892 editions of the coda. The
original has the following sequence of bar-groups (from bar 1 8 1
onwards)-5, 6, 8, 7 , 2 , 1 . The late revision has 4 , 6, 9 , 8 , 2 , 1 ; the
original sequence is one bar less, due to the old man's regularizing of
the seven-bar group (third from the end) into eight bars. The first
five-bar phrase, beautifully shaped in the original, is truncated to a
square four. The duet between flute and solo violin, eight bars in the
original, is surprisingly stretched to nine in the revision. It seems to me
that in every respect the original is superior ; even the eight-bar duet
passage sounds irregular and unpredictable because it comes in the wake
of 5 + 6, while its extension by one bar in the revision seems to me
merely uncomfortable, following as it docs a comparatively stiff 4 + 6,
where eight, though unimaginative, would feel natural. The form of
this Adagio as a whole, incidentally, is fairly well described by Tovey's
generalization ; only it and that of the Fifth Symphony may be said
to be so.
The Scherzo is a marked advance on those in the previous two
symphonies. The theme is terse and malleable :
it. 6
Schnell
g�, I CY r J l J J ..
.. \ Ip J J I1 J 1 I
JJ
In the original both halves of the Scherzo (and of the Trio) are
repeated, according to classical usage, but not in the late revision. I
see no point in removing the repeats, since the movement is not long,
and gains from their observance, especially as the return of the Scherzo
(when, of course, the repeats are omitted) is lengthened by a coda (as in
No. 1). Here we find Bruckner's characteristic scherzo broadening
out into clear athletic sonata form. There is no separable second group
or subject and the dominant minor is solidly fixed only at the double
bar. Rhythmically there is more regularity than in No. I , but this is a
sign, not of stiffuess, but of the sledgehammer deliberation that
Bruckner was eventually to achieve in this part of a symphony. After
the double bar he slips into A flat, the first two bars of the theme alter
nating with a soft rippling four-bar derivative ; this at first creates an
unusual pattem-2, 4, 2, 4-then the fours return as a new cantabile idea
forms in the woodwind in E major (letter C) with the rhythm of Ex. 8
in the bass. The music quietens until there is nothing but a unison B,
still felt as dominant of E-but the recapitulation bursts in with the
sudden violence ofa thunderclap. B is only the leading note of C minor,
after all !
The relaxed Upper Austrian nature of this symphony is at its most
refreshing in the spacious, rather Schubertian Trio, with its lazy
yodelling tune :
E." 9
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It makes some delectable modulations as, with a sense of infinite

leisure, it casually traces out a form of considerable breadth, and there
is something almost majestic in its glorious indolence. But eventually,
of course, the return of the Scherzo splits the enchanted ear. The coda
at the end of it is tremendously succinct and powerful.
Sonata is plainly the basis of the Finale, though its seams are cracked
by the pressure from within. This is not to say that the movement is
not successful ; it is for the most part highly efficient and eminently
poetic. But it is the first example of a type in which we see the Bruck
nerian time-scale making conventional textbook analysis not only
difficult, but dangerously misleading. In this case the preservation of
a more or less even alle�-v throughout eases matters, and the fact that
the second group {Bruckner's Gesangsperiode) is not so markedly
sectional as it is in some later cases makes it fairly readily assimilable
by an overt sonata organism. But the leisurely time-scale is still likely
to raise problems for the listener who expects a finale even so classical
as those of Bruckner's No. I and his posthumous D minor symphony.
Although the tempo is a genuine allegro the processes are more
deliberate even than Schubert's. And we must not be put off by the
fact that sometimes the music is so vigorous, producing so strong a
sense of movement, that apparent "relapses" into an easy amble are
apt to be disconcerting. We have to learn that these naively ambling
and singing passages are themselves part of a larger motion which,
once we have felt its inevitability, can be completely compelling. We
learn thereby the reward of patience, and we are composed by Bruck
ner. To mention these problems here may perhaps exaggerate any
present difficulties ; this finale is easy to enjoy, and only a certain type
of prejudiced professional ear (or, most likely, eye !) might find its
procedures questionable. Tovey's "naive listener" should have no
trouble with it, so long as he takes it as it comes and never expects
Bruckner to bestir himself too hastily. We begin with a double idea :
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The figure marked (a) is obviously connected with Ex. 1 (a) of the
first movement {the genesis must be the other way round, as the Finale
was composed first). The fragment of scale marked (b) is heard as
much in inversion as right way up, and used cunningly and often. A
crescendo sweeps to an abrupt and formidable theme :
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The striding tutti suddenly stops with a great thump, as if it had run
into some sort of hard object. There is a silent pause. Ex. 10 starts
again. Almost as if in fear of the shock with which its enthusiastic
career was lately arrested, the music takes a more timid course, without
crescendo, and blinks hesitantly on (of all places) the threshold of D flat.
Another silent pause. Is this some kind of introduction? Clearly we
haven't got going yet. Perhaps it's wiser to think of something else
while the bruised nose is settling down. So here's a tune, and let's
make it the more distracting by having it in an unexpected key. What
could be more intriguing than to go straight from the dominant of D
flat to A major? And, indeed, what could be better guaranteed to
create a sense of movement out of these fits and starts? The tune is,
as is proper, naive and enchantingly beautiful. Already we are forgetting
that painfully hard object :
THE E SS EN CE OF BRUCKNER
Ex 1Z ( bar7'°)
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With a childlike and almost sublime unawareness of problems or

obstacles, this heavenly combination circles roWld and about, settling
eventually in E flat (bar 1 12), its simplicity not quite hiding the fact
that it knows this to be a good key to get into. It is, after all, the normal
key for the second group of a sonata movement in C minor. More than
gratified by this discovery of its delightful and soothing friend, the
aggressive Ex. I I , its nose by now having presumably resumed its
natural shape and colour, makes a grand entrance in E flat major (letter
D). If we treat the music flippantly, we must not lose sight of the fact
that this entry of Ex. I I is really grand ; the spacious conunand of the
composer over these elements is not to be argued with. The opening of
the movement is powerful and original, and the whole complex
generated by Ex. 12 is nothing less than the singing of angels. But
Bruckner might well in his simple way have described the music in
disconcertingly trivial terms, which would at least have the advantage
of being Wlpretentiously and directly connected with the liveliness of
the invention, and perhaps indicate the niively potent nature of the
forces that bind these disparate elements so surely together.
Ex. 1 1 is now turned, mostly by sequential-repetitive means, into a
large tutti, a little stiff in movement (see bars 162-5 !) but containing
two strongly dramatic moments-when the trumpets are left with the
bare rhythm of Ex. 1 1 (a) (a stroke that looks forward to the coda of the
SYMPHONY N O . 2, IN C MINOR 59
first movement of the Eighth), and when the mass of sound is sharply
cut off at letter F, by which time the harmony has been blasted in the
direction of F minor. A silence-then, starting in G flat, solellll1
chorale-like phrases turn out to be another quotation from the F minor
mass (Kyrie, bar 122 et seq.). These quietly devotional phrases prove to
be a vast cadential passage into E flat major. This is the kind of slowness
on which all else is superimposed, and we begin to understand Bruckner
when we realize that it is the movement of the earth itself that is
constant, not the flurries of activity on its surface. So the first stage of
the design closes in solemn calm, with a broad plagal cadence in E flat.
This is the first of Bruckner's really huge cadential passages ; to grasp
the scale of them is important, for they reveal the proportions of all
that has led up to them, as well as committing the composer in advance
to the scale of the rest of the movement. In them is the secret of the
mature Bruckner. If we once comprehend, for instance, that the thirty
five bars between letters H and I in the finale of the Fifth symphony
are not merely concerned with stating a new theme (the famous
chorale), but function as a gigantic cadence into F major, ending the
first great stage of the movement, we have discovered the vital clue to
the true motion of Bruckner's music. The later symphonies abound
in-no, arc founded upon-such cornerstones.
It would be insensitive to resume at once any kind of muscular
activity after so rapt a close and, as always in such cases, Bruckner
continues to ruminate quietly. A flute circles about and a trumpet
softly plays a version of Ex. I (d) from the first movement ; the outside
world is far away, but not out of reach (it never is with Bruckner,
and we should be careful about attaching too much importance to
romantic writing about his "mysticism"). The key becomes G minor
and something stirs. It is a fascinatingly ingenious new creature, a
cross between Ex. 10 (a) and (b) :
EJ1 1?1(ba.r 251)
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6o THE ESSENCE OF BRUCKNER
Its first three notes tum themselves into Ex. 10 (a) and the inversion
of (b) separates itself(bar 265) and grows a new tail :
It modulates, and in C flat the last two notes of Ex. 14 become the
basis of a new melody :
This proves to be a free inversion of Ex. 1 (a), the main figure of the
first movement, which duly appears in E flat minor at bar 280. Its
second bar is decorated as it continues to modulate :
The decoration (last bar, Ex. 16) gives its rhythm to another new
tune, in a curious kind of B major with a flat sixth that soon turns it to
the minor :
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SYMPHONY N O . 2 , IN C MINOR 61
Out of this new texture, and out of the first two notes of Ex. 10 (b),
which rises to the top in its right-way-up version, comes the first bar
of Ex. 12. Bruckner is drawing his thematic material together with a
vengeance ! One can visualize the gleam in Hans Keller's eye.
The key changes to F major as Ex. 12 takes over completely. Keys
shift about, F minor, A flat, crescendo, a pause. Then in G major comes
an inversion of Ex. 12 (a). Passing through G flat and a combination
with Ex. 1 (a), it slips back on to what is now plainly the dominant of C
(letter M). From here a long crescendo rises to Ex. 1 1 in C minor, as
pugnacious as ever, and the recapitulation is launched. The same hard
object is met with full force, followed by the same stunned pause.
Again a new start is made, with Ex. I O. The subtle difference is that
Ex. IO at this instant cannot sound like another start, for it has not led to
the last entry of Ex. 1 1 ; it therefore sounds like what it really became
in the exposition-a transition. As before, it halts on the dominant of
D flat. This time, however, Ex. 12 follows with a beautiful harmonic
twist into C major, the previous chord treated as German sixth. We
not unnaturally expect C major at this point in the restatement, but its
effect is even more striking and unexpected than the A major of the
exposition, for two good reasons. First, the transition arrived at the
dominant of D flat by the same route as before, so we associate it
with the previous turn to A major. Second (and this is a point as
naively clever as that Bruckner made at exactly the same point in the
first movement), Ex. 1 2 started its melody with a C sharp, the third
in A major, but the expected note all the same, for C sharp is D flat,
and only the soft pizzicato A in the bass betrays the deception ; in
the recapitulation, the first note of the subject (E, the third in C
major) is totally unexpected. So does Bruckner make the expected
unexpected and adds freshness where it might not be thought
possible. In the exposition the whole group moved from one tonal
pole (A major) to the other (E flat). Now such discursiveness is
unnecessary, and the paragraph is shortened and interrupted by a
massive tutti.
The powerful outbreak at letter R is completely free from the slight
stiffiei ss that at first marred its counterpart in the exposition. It expands
in a manner at once formal and unbridled into a magnificent full
orchestral sweep, mightily determined upon C minor, yet with
impetus enough to thrust its way this side and that. Ex. 1 I is forged
into a new and flashing weapon :
62 THE ESS E NCE OF BRUCKNER
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11i\jif r.-f1 tff:T.Ji!itmar rm

,v,tjitr:1f£t t1 4:tr:t1r;tt ..
But the music seems to lose sight of C minor, and the tutti explodes
in short bursts of rage, soon calmed by the quotation from the Kyrie
of the F minor mass, leading back to the home dominant. Regrettably,
the return of this quotation was removed from the revision (bars
54o-62 in the original), thus spoiling one of the most poetic strokes in
the work. There follows some softly excited play with a pizzicato
treatment of Ex. IO (b), confirming the tonal direction towards home,
and the coda begins with an impressive groundswell on Ex. IO (a), C
minor firmly seated.
Above the groundswell Ex. IO (b) is turned into an arpeggio. The
power of the music is greatly increased by the fact that it now strides
in periods of three bars before broadening to five, then four, and
tightening compellingly to a series of twos when it reaches a fierce
fortissimo. It shows signs of driving into G minor, but the drum hurls
out an imperious "No !'', and halts everything with a reverberating C.
Now there is a gap, during which wistful distant voices are heard
reminiscing on Ex. 1 and 12. Then the groundswell begins again.
This time it rises swiftly to a climax in C major and the symphony is
over. The 1 877 revision makes a bad cut in this coda; the whole process
from the first inception of the groundswell to the end of the reminis
cent passage is removed, rendering the C major climax at the end even
more maddeningly premature than the revised ending of the first
movement. We may justifiably regret that Bruckner did not think of
something more convincing than those reminiscences as a means of
bridging the gap between the argument about tonality (ended by the
drum at bar 63 8) and the final onset of the C minor groundswell at
letter Z. But there must be a gap here ; to start the groundswell again
immediately without thinking about the matter would be crass, and
Bruckner was right to feel it so. He did not solve the problem, and it
would be wrong to attempt to solve it for him with either a rude cut
or a politely sophisticated transition. We must put up with things as
SYMPHONY N O . 2 , IN C MINOR
they are. In the I 892 revision (which I have almost ignored in this
analysis) there is an insane proposal to cut the whole of the recapitu
lation. Now that we have considered the structure of the movement
and some of its many subtleties, I hope it is not necessary to comment in
detail on suggestions of this nature.
CHAPTER IV
SYMPHONY N O . 3 , IN D MINOR
OF ALL BRU CKNER 'S symphonies the Third poses the most
problems, textual and structural. Its opening, cautiously anticipated
in No. "o", opens new prospects ; but the work often falters. It is so
far the grandest and most individual Bruckner symphony, but it is
much less successfully constructed than Nos. 1 or 2. No version is
satisfactory, and the last score of 1 888-9 (purporting to be the com
poser's own revision, so far as can be ascertained) is in some respects
an even sadder piece of interesting butchery than the final score of
No. I. The history is as follows. The very first version dates from 1 873,
altered somewhat in 1 874, and has never been published. At this time
Bruckner was more obsessed with Wagner's music than at any other
time in his life, and the symphony contained a number of deliberate
quotations from, mainly, Tristan und Isolde, Die Walkiire and Die
Meistersinger. This was the version Wagner saw and of which he
accepted the dedication; Bruckner sent him a fair copy of the 1874
score. A further revision (1876-7), with the direct Wagner quotations
removed, was performed in 1 877. Herbeck was to have conducted it,
but died, and Bruckner had to direct the performance himself. It was
the most frightful experience of his life. He was not an expert conduc
tor, nor did he possess the kind of personality that could overcome a
lack of technical skill by winning the understanding of the orchestra.
The playing was {presumably) inadequate, the audience left in large
numbers during the symphony, and many of those that stayed did so
to laugh or hiss. At the end only a handful were left, and to complete
the poor man's utter humiliation, the orchestra walked off and left
him alone on the platform. If Bruckner had enjoyed the confidence of
a Napoleon he might have been upset by all this ; how it must have
affected his nervous, retiring nature is beyond imagining. Fortunately
for him, the publisher Theodor Rattig had been at some of the
rehearsals and, undeterred by the fiasco of the concert, offered to
publish the work.
In 1 878 the score was printed, together with a piano duet arrange
ment by Gustav Mahler (then seventeen) and Rudolf Krzyzanowski.
The score contained alterations in which Bruckner, shattered by the
SYMPHONY N O . 3 , IN D MINOR 65
failure of the work, acquiesced only too easily. (An unadulterated
publication, edited by Fritz Oescr, was issued by the International
Bruckner Society in 1950.) The Rattig edition aroused very little
interest at the time, and the symphony seems to have been shelved.
In 1888-90 Bruckner returned to it again, somewhat reluctantly,
pressed by Franz and Joseph Schalk. He had recently experienced
another severe disappointment, the rejection of No. 8 by Hermann
Levi, the cause perhaps of most of the agitated revising of his last years.
When Mahler heard that No. 3 was being revised again he implored
Bruckner not to do it. The composer, always impressionable, changed
his mind again and told the publisher he wanted the old score to be
reprinted. In the meantime, engraving for the new version had already
been started, and fifty new plates had therefore to be destroyed, at
considerable loss to the long-suffering Rattig. The Schalks now
returned to the fray, and the revision went ahead, Bruckner's change
of mind being "vetoed personally" by Joseph.* There is no doubt that
the ferocious cuts and new transitions in the Finale of the 1 890 version
are the work of Franz.t Bruckner accepted them, and it has been argued
that therefore they are sacrosanct. But in the state of mind he was in at
that time (and often at other times, too) Bruckner would have accepted
almost anything. I have no wish to attack the Schalk brothers and some
of the other friends who advised Bruckner. Most of them were
brilliant, experienced, and sincere musicians who wanted only to
help. But they were too close to events to see the problems clearly.
Mahler may have been wrong in asserting that the 1878 score was not
in need of attention ; he could, however, see that the vacillating con
fusion of the composer was increased rather than eased by the chorus
of willing assistants, and he was right to propose that matters
be left alone. There must have been some animosity between him
and the Schalks and this, too, cannot have improved Bruckner's
peace of mind. Ultimately the blame can be only Bruckner's, for
not resolutely dismissing all these distractions. The responsibility was
his alone.
The result is that we are faced with two published versions and must
choose between them. To try to achieve a compromise between them
is useless because the faults of 1878 are mostly made worse by the
emendations of I 889, and where the later score makes really interesting
* See Leopold Nowak's preface to the 1890 score, published under his editor
ship by the Bruckner Society in 1958.
t See Nowak's preface, referred to in the previous footnote.
66 THE ESS E NC E OF B RU CKNER
changes, they are by the composer of the Eighth Symphony. The score
of 1878 is stylistically purer, and though its construction leaves much
to be desired, its weaknesses arc exacerbated, not propped, by the
crude remedies of the later version. Wc shall consider both, though not
in minor detail ; that would demand a book in itself, and who would
read it?
In September 1 873, Bruckner took the Second Symphony and the
first draft of No. 3 to Wagner, and begged permission to dedicate one
of them to him. At first patronizing, Wagner suddenly was impressed
by the opening of the Third. The next day poor Bruckner, still bemused
by having actually been in the Presence, was unable to remember
which symphony the Master had chosen and had to write Him a note,
asking Hirn. Wagner confirmed that it was the one with the trumpet
theme, and always referred afterwards to "Bruckner the trumpet".
Despite his lofty amusement and the fact that he really did very little in
a practical way for Bruckner, he had a genuine respect for the curious
Austrian and once remarked that he was the only symphonist who
approached Beethoven. If one looks at the opening of the Third
Symphony, it is not hard to see why he thought this. There is an
influence behind it far stronger than Wagner's-the mysterious
beginning of Beethoven's Ninth. The two openings are not really
similar, except superficially in atmosphere, but a comparison between
them can be revealing in that it shows Bruckner's very different time
scale and the originality with which he is able to accept so mighty
an influence. Beethoven's opening embodies a single idea, the rapid
formation of a classical allegro theme out of fragments drawn with
immense and increasing energy from a mysterious hush. It happens
very quickly, and we arc not long in doubt that this is a classical
allegro of unprecedented power and mobility. Bruckner's beginning is
also in an awed hush. Looming dimly through a deep mist of floating
figurations is a broad and simple trumpet theme :
Eic i (ba.I' 5)
�<r<Ki�s i5I:. I'll&�.. 1¥..ws�. lllicl"c.-ioao
l>P+� 1 ,1.
T,. I
J l 0 1 - J JJ I � l!r*rl 0�
With marked gradualness a climax is built. But there is no question
of fragments forming a main theme-we have already, before even
the crescendo, heard a complete theme, so what is to happen at the end
S Y MPHONY N O . 3 , I N D MINOR 67
of the crescendo? The answer is a completely different theme, in massive
unison, followed by a soft inverted question:
alt 2 (bcu· '5i)
>- '41.l --...:..
1· � � i>-.
£7tt1 f; _..t> l��.
fag._. I
r--
Notice the silent pause after the first phrase of Ex. 2. Bruckner knows
that he could not now, even ifhe wished (which he does not), establish
an allegro tempo. This is an altogether different scale. We shall find the
same situation, with even more enormous proportions, in the opening
of Bruckner's Ninth Symphony. It may seem at first sight a strange
paradox that Beethoven takes sixteen bars before we are made aware
of a thematic entity, while Bruckner in both the Third and the Ninth
produces one after only four bars. But the presence ofa complete theme at
an early stage can only delay matters, and so Bruckner in No. 3 has to
use thirty bars before reaching the climax, and in No. 9, sixty-two.
Ex. 2 is not quite unprepared ; its first two notes are anticipated by a
repetitive figure in woodwind and horns as the crescendo mounts. Its
fortissimo phrase is now repeated, but impressively harmonized ; each
time this phrase appears in the movement it is given more remarkable
harmony. The soft questioning is then extended sequentially, and a
sudden burst thrusts towards the dominant, where the process begins
again. Here is another notable difference between Bruckner's and
Beethoven's procedures. Beethoven starts with an open fifth (A and
E), revealed as the dominant of D minor when the main theme
emerges and, after a tutti, resumes the opening in the tonic, which then
turns dramatically to B flat major when the theme crashes out for a
second time. Bruckner begins in the tonic, not an open fifth but plain
D minor, and there is no ambiguity ; he then reverses Beethoven's
tonal order by making the counterstatement start from the dominant.
This, too, shows the gulf between Beethoven's muscular athleticism
and Bruckner's statuesque juxtaposition of masses. The counter
statement is not exact ; Ex. I is not permitted to complete itself (there
68 THE ESSENCE O F B RU CKNER
are limits, even in this time-scale !) and the harmony is more mobile
as the crescendo rises in twenty bars to Ex. 2 (10 bars less than before).
With Ex. 2 there is a powerful wrench into dissonant harmony in a
sort of B flat minor ; but it is insecure, and the quiet companion phrase
is even more questioningly uncertain of its direction. But it does seem
as if we are to go into B flat. Instead, at bar 101* a German sixth is
unexpectedly resolved into F major, and the second group begins with
a complex of lyrical ideas, pervaded by the mixed rhythm of twos and
threes of which Bruckner is so fond:
Both (a) and (b) are equally important and it is a pity that they arc
scored in such a way that their outlines easily become confused; they
frequently cross when the tone colours of the two lines are insuffi
ciently contrasted, so that they defeat each other. This is a common
fault in the scoring of this symphony and is symptomatic of a desire for
fussy detail, betraying unsureness in the work. Bruckner was probably
aware that he was entering new territory and his nervousness is
evident in a thousand details as well as in the structure itsel( Partly
consequent upon the superfluity of detail and partly upon the type of
faulty scoring we have just observed, this Gesangsperiode fails to sing as
broadly as it ought. (There is, incidentally, an abominably coarse
alteration at bar 159 in the 1 890 score.} There are exquisite moments in
passing as this section modulates freely about, but I have yet to hear a
performance in which a real continuity ofline is established. Eventually,
however, it gathers itself together and the key of F is confirmed by a
splendid swinging theme, imperiously masterly in its breadth and
power :
* Bar numbers refer to the 1878 version, edited by Fritz Oeser.

SYMPHONY N O . 3 , I N D MINOR 69
The music sweeps into a grand chorale-like passage and a climax on
the dominant of A, with a version of Ex. 1 in imitation between
trombones and horns. Is this vast exposition going to end, after all, in A
major and not F major? So it seems as everything falls away in that
direction, though not without suggestions of C major, the dominant
of F. Just as the question appears to be settled in favour of A major
(bar 24I), however, there is a marvellous cadential return to F major,
and the exposition ends in sublime calm.
So far it is all (with some reservations about the first paragraph of the
second group) great music, the finest and most compelling Bruckner
had yet composed. No wonder Rattig was impressed at its rehearsal,
and it says much for his generous faith in the composer that he was not
put off by what must have been a chaotic event. There is no loss of
grandeur as the development begins in quiet mystery with a tum to F
minor (bar 26I), then a resumption in that key of the fascinating
opening. Dark modulations are questioned by Ex. 2 (b), moving
towards a pause on the dominant of A (bar 297) . In A minor a pizzicato
inversion of one of the opening string figurations serves as background
to a plaintive treatment of Ex. 2 (a) which becomes more and more
insistent as a climax is built up. In the 1878 score a lively new figure
is brought in (violins, bar 323) ; it was removed in 1889 and the whole
crescendo rescored with a gain in clarity but a loss in interest. In both
versions the culmination is a huge unison delivery of Ex. 1 by the full
orchestra in D minor.
This is where Bruckner's serious troubles begin. Neither in 1 878
nor in 1890 were they solved though, as we shall see, he found the way
out in the first movement of the Ninth (completed, significantly, after
the attempt to revise No. 3). The old accusation, that Bruckner made
the fatal mistake of sticking haplessly to sonata form when the matter
in hand was unsuitable for it, is here not without justice, though I
would prefer to apply the stricture in a slightly different way. Although
the time-scale of this movement is very broad and shows few signs of
the kind of action characteristic of sonata, it can still, up to the point
we have reached, be construed as an immensely slow but coherent
sonata scheme. If one gets used to the slowness and the way the music is
delivered in large quanta, so to speak, the great length ofthe second group
can be accepted as a proportionate expansion of the vast opening. Even
the fact that much of this second group is built of small four-bar bricks
is not really a serious obstacle, since it is possible to feel them accumulat
ing momentum once we have got rid of classical preconceptions. Any
70 THE ESSENCE OF B RU CKNER
doubts as to the scale of Bruckner's intentions are finally dispelled
by the entry and subsequent direction of Ex. 4, which once
more fills the great sails and gets the ship under way after a nearly
becalmed period. What follows is obviously a development, yet
surprisingly terse under the circumstances. Up to the entry of Ex. 1
at bar 341, in the tonic, we have the following proportions-exposi
tion, 256 bars, development, 83 bars. At the top of an imposing crescendo
we find Ex. 1 being declaimed in the unmistakable home tonic with the
majesty of the full orchestra. What more natural than our assumption
that here is the recapitulation?
Anyone who knows how difficult it is to compose (as contrasted
with the ease of writing plausible newspaper criticism) will understand
that the development has not hitherto created sufficient momentum
of its own to carry such a statement as this. Bruckner himself knows
this, but is unable to see a convincing way out of the difficulty. The
trouble is that Ex. 1 is itself static and square, and brings matters to a
halt. To carry such an idea with the sense of forward movement
vitally necessary would require a far bigger head of steam than the
development has so far generated. Things are made worse, moreover,
when the sense of dead weight is made finally unmanageable by the
continuation in stolidly square phrases with no more movement in
them than in the average national anthem. The fatal mistake is that
Bruckner has it fixed in his head that he wants his real recapitulation
to begin with the mysterious opening of the movement. The intended
function of the fortissimo version of Ex. 1 in the tonic is threefold :
(a) to bring back a sense of the tonic at a point before things have
got too far for it ever to be restored satisfactorily, (b) so to provide a
solid tonal background for the official recapitulation, which he has
decided will begin 80-odd bars later, and (c) to mark the central climax
of the development and hence of the movement as a whole. Unfort
unately the intentions and the reality do not coincide because the
problems of momentum in a sonata movement on this scale and with
this kind of slowness have defeated the composer at this stage in his
development.
As if Bruckner realizes that there is now but a faint hope of saving
the situation, he plunges on with the tutti beginning at bar 341, rather
desperately whipping up the rhythm of Ex. 1 in half then quarter
diminution, with forced modulations. The 1890 revision interposes a
piano at bar 373 and rewrites the rest of the tutti in the style of No. 8 ; this
is momentarily impressive, but no more successful in dealing with the
root problem. In both cases the music finds itself stamping up and down
in the mud, is unable to proceed, and stops. The 1878 version then
brings in a worried reference to Ex. 2 (b) followed by a bit more
frustrated stamping in A flat minor (2 bars) ; further sequences on Ex.
2 (b) lead to F major and a glance at Ex. 3 and a scarcely explicable
resurrection of the theme of the first movement of the Second Sym
phony(no doubt it would be possible to discover some ingenious thematic
connection here, but it could bring no blinding revelation of larger
purpose, sufficient to make everything else convincing. It would rather
seem to me that Bruckner's nerves had finally got the better of him).
From here there is a solemn descent to the home dominant and the
official recapitulation. The 1 890 score has a cut in the foregoing passage,
going straight from the first halt in the big tutti to the reminiscence of
Ex. 3 ; this is worse-the original at least lets us down in stages, but this
amounts to an incontinent collapse.
The recapitulation provides few surprises. How can it when it has
been robbed of the energy that alone can generate them? There is,
however, one magnificent stroke, yet another harmonization of Ex. 2
(a) (bar 459-61) so powerfully original as to make one catch the breath.
There is no counterstatement of the first group, and the second begins
in D major at bar 481 , culminating as before in Ex. 4 (bar 547). Towards
the end of the paragraph the two editions diverge again in preparing
for the coda. That of 1878 constructs a well-proportioned tutti that
arrives at the home dominant by way of fine modulations (see bar 557
et seq.) . The 1 890 alteration starts at bar 559 (the revised movement is in
fact a couple of bars longer than the original) and the tutti now amounts
to two short four-bar bursts in F major and A major which sound
comparatively unmotivated. In the coda itself only details are changed
and it begins impressively with touching homage to Beethoven's Ninth
in the form of a chromatic basso ostinato. The crescendo rises soon to ff
and the bass strides formidably downwards to a B flat, then A, then
G sharp, on which last a diminished seventh is raised, and cut off.
Ex. 2 (b) intervenes with a final question, then the last D minor tutti
breaks out. Bruckner increases the tempo in an attempt to give it
greater impact, but the fact is that without the momentum that was
lost half-way through the movement nothing has had real spur, and
the end has a hollow ring. He has entered a new world, but has not yet
found his way about it.
The slow movement contains two fine themes and the beginning
of another. The abortive one, unfortunately, is the first which, after
the noble first four bars rather loses its way, drifting into a series of
haplessly romantic one-bar sequential repetitions, made the more
tedious by the somewhat cloying insistence on an appoggiatura, formed
from (d) (which is itself not an appoggiatura) and combined with a
derivative of (c). The key is E flat major, a striking effect after the pre
vious D minor movement, which has not exploited large-scale
Neapolitan relationships to any great extent. But its beauty is marred,
I think, by its obscuration so soon by the feverish and highly coloured
harmonic changes that follow from the ninth bar, almost mawkish in
character. With deadly insistence the one-bar phrase wails and batters
its way to a fortissimo of pedestrian fervour, once interrupted by a
calm thought that reminds us we are still listening to Bruckner :
E.x 6 (bo.r Z.O)
This takes over, and flows into an inorganic cadential link that
confirms the original E flat. Then with a change to triple time and a
more active tempo comes a new theme of real Brucknerian quality,
a blessed relief:
B flat major is its key, and its wide tonal range does nothing to
undermine the fact. It is counterstated with beautiful syncopated
decorations in the violins, but hesitates before the expected close. In
G flat, slower (misterioso), there follows a simple theme, chaste in
feeling :
�"I
£ i\ 'r r c IJ J .,, � I pr t? 14 ''LJ
�
' -
·
1!!P ----= ===-
It is treated at some length, not quite coherently, first falling into

extensions of its semiquaver figure that are just a little automatic. The
keys change with more than a suspicion of the haphazard, and a forte
contrapuntal development of the two crotchets of its second bar is
narrowly rescued from academic stagnation by the return of Ex. 7,
starting in C major with the air of "As I was saying before we got into
this muddle". The blood begins to circulate again and a rich paragraph
grows to a quiet climax with Ex. 7 given almost a full statement in E
flat-in the 1878 score. In the revision Bruckner must have felt that
this E flat major unduly forestalled the return of the main theme, and
he made the passage stop short of it, merging rather clumsily into a
gauche transition. I do not feel that the return to the tonic and the first
theme are spoiled by hearing Ex. 7 in E flat ; it docs not at that point
sound like a tonic, yet it serves to place it in the ear. The actual tran
than
sition of 1 878 is not very well organized, but though too long, it is
harmonically more interesting that of 1890. So, after the meander
ing and intermittently inspired and beautiful middle section, we return
(perhaps with some trepidation) to the opening.
This is where Bruckner, in an Adagio, may normally be expected
to raise a climax. One shudders to think of those wailings and batterings
and of the hideous heights to which they might be goaded if a similar
but bigger bug now bites the composer. Luckily he builds on the main
theme a crescendo of genuine majesty, ending in great blocks of sound
separated by Ex. 6. In 1890 he added to these blocks a trumpet line that
Oeser is quite right in describing as not among his noblest inspirations.
Was it Franz Schalk' s, I wonder? The coda is solemn and peaceful, of
fine draughtsmanship, including an oblique reference to the "sleep"
motive from Die Walkure.
The Scherzo is the first that Bruckner begins pianissimo. In most
74 THE E S S E N CE OP B RU CKNER
other respects it belongs, however, to his earlier rather than his late
manner, and there are three main thematic germs in its opening
section :
The figure (c) grows from both (a) and (b). The first part ends on the
dominant (the movement is in D minor) and after the double bar turns
into B flat major with Ex. 9 (a) used as accompaniment to a graceful
new Liindler:
'htf 1 f' 1 r--�ybffi r r 1 t

E• iO(,bc&.. ,1)
rr 1 t� 1
t;tf. r
Cl"U�
�
j;& fi) I r _... _.. I

A cloud comes over it and we return to D minor for a restatement
that ends in the tonic. The Trio is another Liindler, in A major ; there
is a distinct whiff of Austrian beer :
The slight tipsiness of this music becomes downright alcoholism

at the end of the first section, where it reels, rooted to the spot, with
hiccuping one-bar repetitions. The same condition obtains at the end.
SYMPHONY N O . J , IN D MINOR 75
If this Trio is played with gusto it has much gaiety, though it suffers
severely from congestion. The texture is frequently muddled and over
loaded, and the effect is bound to be sometimes messy however much
care is taken to clarify it in performance. To play it slower than the
Scherzo makes it insufferably windy, yet at the pace it demands the
detail must inevitably get blurred. This is simply a roundabout way of
saying it is not well written.
With the Finale we return once more to insoluble structural prob
lems. Against racing string quavers in the formation-
the brass attack the tonic from an acute angle with a blazing theme in
the same rhythm as Ex. I :
E7- 1?. (boa..- 9)
,.
Trb bt
,,, ltd· JI S
This is an exciting start, and it comes in two waves, the second ending
in the tonic major and dying away. As it does, we begin to wonder if
it really is the tonic, not a dominant. But it would be odd indeed to
go full pelt into the subdominant so early in the movement. Bruckner
evades the issue, and it is sheer delight when the second theme appears
in an unexpectedly radiant F sharp major. Here we discover the famous
double theme which is the subject ofa conversation recorded by August
Gollerich, Bruckner's pupil and first biographer. He and the composer
were walking one evening past the Schottenring when they heard the
gay music of a ball from inside a house. Nearby was the Siihnhaus,
where lay the body of the cathedral architect Schmidt. Bruckner said,
"Listen ! There in that house is dancing, and over there lies the master
in his coffm-that's life. It's what I wanted to show in my Third
Symphony. The polka means the fun and joy of the world and the
THE ESSENCE O F BRU CKNER
chorale means its sadness and pain." The polka and the chorale are
combined, the latter forming a rich and solemn background on the
soft brass to the former on the strings :
Even in this felicitous inspiration there are traces of that unclear

writing which seems to dog this symphony. The crossing of the two
violin parts and the A sharp of the violas create a difficult situation, not
solved even by judicious adjustment of the dynamics :
Despite Bruckner's remarks, the predominant effect of this passage

is of an easy-going cheerfulness, and it proceeds with charming casual
ness in four-bar phrases as he knowingly avoids full closes and inserts
a six-bar period here and there ; a square self-completing tune would
have been fatal. Eventually he finds himself comfortably in an orthodox
F major (bar 125), and towards the end of the section the flowing
harmonic accompaniment in the wind (which has long given up trying
to be a chorale) is beginning to assume the rhythm of the second bar of
Ex. 1 3 . Suddenly there is the powerful and severe interruption of a
third theme :
Against this impressively disjointed unison the 1 878 score has what
Erwin Doernberg well describes as a "firm connter-unison" in the
brass, in a rhythm that eventually gives rise to frank derivatives of
Ex. 1 3 . In 1 889 only the fag-end of this was left in the subsequent
diminuendo, depriving it of point. The quick diminuendo on the dominant
of B flat minor turns aside to a C major that is really the dominant of
F, where Ex. 16 develops soft transformations of itself. But it soon
blazes up again into a tutti, which is sensibly relieved, in the 1890
score, of a not very successful interruption in the form of a momentary
hush. The tutti breaks off on a chord of G flat which proves to be the
flat supertonic in F major, where soft cadences on the horns make a
settled close.
As in the first movement Bruckner has produced a huge stretch
of music that can just be construed as a sonata exposition. This one,
however, is even stranger, because it is, as it were, thrown out in
chunks, great slabs of contrasting musical masonry placed in blunt
juxtaposition with airy gaps between them. There is something
fascinating about this method which, in the mature Bruckner, is by
no means crude or amateurish. Its essence is deeply opposed to the
sonata principle of continuous muscular tonal action ; it is like Stone
henge compared with the settlements in which its makers lived. In
this early example of Bruckner's genre, the achievement is not always
pure ; there are a few mud huts among the colossal stones.
Soon the matter of Ex. 1 3 returns in a weighty and stormy develop
ment, eventually subsiding on the dominant of C after Ex. 1 from the
first movement has been hurled in with all possible force (bar 34I). As
in the previous large tutti near the end of the exposition, the action
THE ESSENCE O F B RU CKNER
is clarified and given greater continuity in the I 890 version ; many
details are re-written and the whole passage is invested with greater
harmonic strength. But both versions are left with the same problem
-how to make a recapitulatory climax? In the first movement the
entry of Ex. I in D minor without sufficient momentum behind it
created an impossible situation. Its appearance at this juncture in the
Finale was a temptation Bruckner would have done well to resist. There
is certainly far more momentum now than there was in the first move
ment, perhaps enough to carry even this obstinately square theme, but
the abrupt introduction of its plain diatonicism into a development
getting its driving force from chromatic inflexions, added to the fact
that it nails down the dominant of a foreign key, is more than the
momentum can support. There is a horrible finality about this theme,
almost as embarrassing when it is insisting on a dominant as when it is
affirming a tonic. So everything grinds to a halt, like a steamroller
encountering a road-block. The driver can only get out and have a
look round and, if the steamroller is not too badly damaged, try to go
some other way. The regrettable thing is that Bruckner, the driver,
put the infernal road-block there himself. He could have had a clear
road and driven his vehicle with a fine head of steam uninterrupted to
D minor.
Instead he has to get out and inspect the damage ; the machine is
bent, alas, and can henceforth go but by fits and starts. So it is for the
rest of the piece. Once the vast slow momentum of a Bruckner
movement is broken, there is little hope of recovering it. Revising
cannot help, at least not the kind of revising Bruckner carried out in
this case. The only thing for him to have done would have been to go
back to the point where the impetus was lost, or perhaps a little before
it, and compose afresh to the end. And no one else could have helped
him-certainly not the friends who proffered advice while he fiddled
feverishly with the works. And cuts are no good-if a machine crocks
up, you will never get it to go by hacking lumps off it.
Let us, however, abandon these diverting analogies and get back to
the music. We have collapsed on the dominant of C and must do what
we can. In C minor a mournful version of the chorale with pizzicato
accompaniment potters gloomily about until, in the I 878 version,
Bruckner violently kicks it out of the way with the very passage that
should have come as the climax of the previous ill-fated tutti-the
recapitulation of Ex. 13 in D minor. Why then cannot we make a cut,
and graft this on to the previous tutti in place of Ex. 1 ? Because it would
mean redirecting the harmonic trend for some considerable time before
letter S (where Ex. I entered) in order to ensure the security of the
tonic, and only Bruckner could have done that. It would be possible
to find a place where a join could be made without too much internal
surgery, but it would not be composition, and I sincerely hope that
no conductor who might have been given this book as a present by his
worst enemy will get the idea of attempting it.
The 1890 revision makes far worse nonsense than that. From the
abortive doodling with the chorale it goes direct to the recapitulation
of Ex. 14, and the crass tautology that results has to be heard to be
believed. In the 1 878 version the two things are at least decently separa
ted by the big tutti at bar 379, and cannot form the kind of incestuous
union that was later perpetrated, presumably by Franz Schalk. And
in the earlier score the proportions are roughly right, even if the
construction is ramshackle.
After the recapitulation of Ex. 14, which begins in A flat major
(bar 433), the rest of the movement really does go by fits and starts,
as if the composer knows that there is no hope ofrecapturing momen
tum. But his sense of proportion is still active, and he knows exactly
what time he is due to arrive at the end. In the 1878 version we have a
phenomenon rather like that of a bus driver who, though he is early,
is determined to arrive at the terminus on time and who therefore
hangs about at each stop. I am well aware that this somewhat dismal
analogy does not fit with the previous one of a steamroller that must
arrive late because it has injured itself in an argument with a road
block. If we want to return to that one, we might observe that the
steamroller could have gone much farther more easily if it had
remained in good working order. Strangely enough, there is something
rather impressive and powerful in the massive ejaculatory last few
minutes of this symphony in its earlier version,* much more acceptable
than the crude truncation of the later piece of butchery, in which the
triumphant blaze of D major on Ex. 1 comes with all the bombast
and prematurity of a victory forecast by a notoriously horizontal
heavyweight. In both versions the end is preceded by an empty fanfare,
not mitigated by the fact that an augmentation of Ex. 1 3 is present
to give it a semblance of respectability, and containing a dreadful
penultimate dominant thirteenth, but the ending of 1 878 is at least
punctual, even if the journey has been rough. The Third is the weakest
* Though it would be hard to find a good excuse for the arbitrary quotation
of Ex. 3 at bar SSS ·
Bo THE ESSENCE OF BRU CKNER
of Bruckner's numbered symphonies; if I have seemed to treat it at
times unkindly, I hope also to have made it apparent that its flaws are
of the kind inherent in a characteristic work of discovery as well as
that it contains many beauties. Without it the later masterpieces could
not have existed.
C HAPTER V
SYMPHO NY N O . 4 , I N E FLAT MAJ O R

(Romantic)
T o T u RN TO the dean lines and structural mastery of the first three

movements of the Fourth Symphony is a great relief after the com
plications and uncertainties of No. 3 . In the Third Bruckner was
struggling to understand certain instincts of his own that ran counter
to his experience and knowledge of the sonata-symphony. Only a
faint glimmer of the truth emerged, and the work suffers from a kind
of artistic schizophrenia. The difficulty occurs again in the Finale of
No. 4, but the solution is nearer. He was trying to find a new type of
Finale of such extraordinary nature that he fully achieved it only twice,
in the Fifth and Eighth Symphonies, each very different from the other,
but both sharing an essence hard to describe. We shall attempt to
describe it in due course ; meanwhile we must observe how Bruckner,
for the time being turning his back on these intractable matters, made
a new attack on pure sonata composition in the first movement of the
Fourth, attaining a skill and sureness, a simplicity and depth of ex
pression, unprecedented in his work. It is as if he felt he could not win
mastery in one field without first confirming it in the other.
Like its companions, the Fourth went through various vicissitudes.
Its earliest version was written between January and November 1 874
(while Bruckner was also making the first revisions of No. 3). During
the next three years the Fifth was being composed and the Third
revised for the second time. These tasks completed, Bruckner returned
to No. 4, making a new score between January and September 1 878.
But in December of the same year he wrote an entirely new scherzo
(the one we are familiar with now) ; then between November 1 879
and the following June he totally recast the Finale. This is the version
(1 878-80) published in 1936 by the International Bruckner Society
under the editorship of Robert Haas, and later reprinted with small
amendments and corrections by Leopold Nowak. The first published
edition, however, was issued by Gutmann in 1889. It contains
an immense number of alterations in scoring and considerable cuts in
the Scherzo and Finale, carried out, so far as can be divined, in 1 887-8.
Bruckner must have acquiesced in this, but nearly all the changes bear
the stamp of Franz Schalk and Ferdinand Loewe, who saw the work
through the press. The orchestration is made more Wagnerian, the
clean-cut character of the original is fogged by mixed colours and
tempo changes, and the cuts make nonsense (Tovey approved of the
one in the reprise of the Scherzo but it seems to me crude and insensi
tive). One can find many similarities between these changes and those
made in the first publication of the Fifth Symphony, which Bruckner
is known not to have supervised. The only version of No. 4 that is
more or less above suspicion is that of 1878-80, which is the one I
propose to deal with here.
The Fourth is the only one of Bruckner's symphonies with a title,
and we need not take that too seriously, for it has little more signi
ficance than the amusingly na'ive "programmes" to the symphonies
with which the composer was wont to entertain his friends. His
explanations were always ex postfacto, and the music itself renders them
trivial. Exactly what Bruckner meant by "romantic" may perhaps
be guessed from the picturesque terms in which he afterwards described
No. 4 {medieval town, dawn, knights, hunting scene, etc.) ; the music
is so much more than this ! On the other hand, nineteenth-century
romanticism, with its accent on emotional egotism inflated into a
tormented would-be humanism, has nothing to do with Bruckner,
who could not understand or share the postures of his time. It was this
kind of romanticism that lay behind the falsifications of his scores,
and in so far as the title of the symphony may have encouraged the
more exaggeratedly subjective type of conductor {such as Furt
wanglcr, for instance), it can have been nothing but a disadvantage
to the work. If we define romanticism as a flight from reality (an over
simplified but not meaningless way), we can find nothing in this
symphony so romantic as some passages in the Ninth, where the des
perate and ailing composer seems to be trying to reach beyond the
grave. No. 4 is an eminently salubrious work. Bruckner is really
romantic only when his artistic vision is insufficiently focused to allow
him to be realistic about his aims ; it is then that we find him tending to
employ harmony and scoring typical of a lower and more egocentric
plane, as for example in the opening paragraph of the Adagio of the
Third Symphony, with its drearily moping appoggiature and blatant
modulations, or in a few passages in his late music. We had better
forget the title of No. 4 ; it leads us away from the music.
The beginning is magically beautiful, and I do not propose to try to
rival the many attempts there have been to describe it in poetic terms.
SYMPHONY N O . 4, IN E FLAT M AJOR 83
It is one of the deepest and most instantly compelling symphonic
openings since Beethoven :
E1t 1
Notice the superb bass line from bar 12 onwards, and the airy effect
when cellos and basses cease in bar 19, where the woodwind take over
the theme. The horn follows them with echoing imitations ; passing
through rich shades of tonality, the music slowly opens out. Bruckner's
favourite mixed rhythm of two and three adds life to it and becomes
the basis of a splendid tutti, affirming the key of E flat :
E-. � (lia.r51)
,-- '� 1. 1 1
,...- 3 _.,
t
tf. ! , � �! Ii ' Ii
H JbI:_f,_f -f
_- -
, ,�
This opening is even broader than that of No. 3; it takes fifty bars
to reach the first tutti, as compared with thirty in the other. Yet it is
far more economical thematically and moves with greater certainty.
Harmonically it is more active and the remarkable breadth of the horn
theme establishes a majestically deliberate sense of movement from the
very start. There is no trace of stiffness in the use of four-bar phrases,
THE E S S ENC E OF BRUCKNER
which develops a huge quiet swing, and the fact that the tutti maintains
the same great stroke means that in spite of the activity we can still
feel the calm rhythm of Ex. 1, like the regular motion of a ship with
variously animated life on deck. Stiff periods can be a nuisance in
Bruckner (as we shall find in parts of the Finale of this work), but here
they are a deep unifying factor, the easy swell of the sea on which the
ship sails.
The tutti lasts for twenty-two bars, first turning into the minor and
moving to C flat major. A characteristic progression culminates on
the dominant of B flat, the normal and expected key for the second
group. English readers will be familiar with Tovey's essay on this
symphony in Volume II of his Essays in Musical Analysis* and will
remember the mild and friendly fun he makes of Bruckner at this
point:
"The orthodox critic has no right to complain of a shock to his

habits of thought until he is confronted, not with an innovation, but
with a stiff archaic pause on the dominant of B flat, the most conven
tional key that can be chosen for the second group of material. The
stiffuess is not accounted for by the fact that that group here begins in
D flat instead; such evasions are as old as Cherubini's Overture to
Faniska. And when Bruckner begins his second group and catechizes
children with it in four-bar sequences ranging easily round the har
monic world, no wonder our musical Francis Jeffreys said (and in
London continue to say) 'This will never do !' But this will have to do ;
for we are at the parting of the ways ; and Bruckner has no theoretic
labels with which to disguise his simplicity."
The first observation to make about this is that Tovey is right in

suggesting that the orthodox critic might be startled by Bruckner's
formal marking of time on these F major chords at the end of the first
tutti. But they are most noticeable because in the context Bruckner
has so far established they are unorthodox, the last thing we expect.
On the other hand, they are natural enough, carried rhythmically by
the general pulse ; as with all things that combine naturalness with the
unexpected, they are striking. In any case we remember them, whether
we smile or not, which is what the composer wants. Now consider
the continuation. Is the beginning of the second group in D flat really
an "evasion"? An effect it has which no one can deny is that of making
* Oxford University Press.
SYMPHONY N O . 4 , IN E FLAT M AJ O R 85
us remember all the more vividly those chords o n the dominant o f B
flat. Try starting the next theme in B flat, and see how rapidly the
impression of the previous four bars fades, becoming merely a formal
gesture that has served its purpose. This is obvious enough, and there
is no need to belabour the point. But it is important to Bruckner that
the dominant of B flat should imprint itself on the mind ; and a simple
means of ensuring this is more efficacious than an involved one. He
has his reasons, and they are not confined to a period of eight bars ;
they are concerned with the whole of this second group, which is about
to have a long debate with itself as to whether it is to be in D flat or
B flat. The average listener who neither knows nor cares what key the
music is in must be assured that it is these very events that are, if he is
enjoying the music, keeping his ear engaged, whether he realizes it or
not. So here is the start of the second group, full of rustic charm yet not
undignified, with two combined elements in the first phrase :
Because there can be no question of any counterstatement of the

immensely broad opening, Bruckner has actually saved space, so that
the second group can begin after 74 bars, as compared with 100 in No.
3. Of the two contrasting figures {a) and (b) in Ex. 3, the upper one,
with its attractive bird-call, seems at first the more important, but it is
the flowing counterpoint (b) that eventually exerts more influence. A
new figure, more assertive, is soon heard :
\')I I�l- .t M]T;

EK. 4(bar 87)
�I ][ b=>-. b
twf t ttcr 17 �I
� ��
I do not much mind if anyone cares to derive it from the inverted
form of Ex. 2. From its initial D flat the tonality drifts through a series
of dominants as far as E major {really F flat), returning to a suspended
{6/4) form of D flat at bar rn7. The A flat in the bass falls to F as a
crescendo develops, and a tutti on Ex. 2 thunders out in B flat major.
Bruckner is beginning to show his argument. The tutti is checked on E
flat {now the subdominant of B flat) ; at bar 1 3 1 there is a hush, and
excited mystifications. Another crescendo brings about a resumption
of the tutti in D flat ! It results in a steep descent to ppp on a diminished
seventh that cannot be convincingly resolved on to either D flat or B
flat. Nothing but a unison F is left (bar 1 5 1). Is this going to be the
dominant of B flat? We cannot tell as the strings rise chromatically.
The doubts are grandly resolved by the brass-with chords of D flat
followed at once by a German sixth in B flat, in which key Ex. 3 makes
a gentle cadence, extended by quiet chromatic figures to what is clearly
the end of the exposition. Without the orthodox critic's pain the whole
process would have been impossible. It is a small price to pay.
The development commences in reflective mystery, the chromatic
string figures alternating with a plaintive reference to Ex. 1. The key
of B flat begins to sound like the dominant of E flat when there is a
magical drift into foreign harmony, a chord that proves to be a German
sixth in F. In F major (a bright key in the context) developments of
Exx. 1 and 2 softly begin (bar 217). The tonality brightens still more,
into A major (bar 219). Then with a beautiful crescendo Bruckner
swings the music clean across the harmonic firmament to E flat minor
and a stormy tutti on Ex. 2. An intervening pianissimo does not inter
rupt its sweep before it eventually closes magnificently in B flat major.
Despite this tutti in E flat minor and B flat there is no sense of fore
stalling the recapitulation ; the approach to E flat minor through A
major makes sure of that. In the first movement of the Sixth Symphony
Bruckner makes an astounding approach to his A major recapitulation
from E flat, but that is another matter, to be considered in its context.
It is interesting to compare, however, the situations at this juncture
in the Third and Fourth symphonies.
It will be remembered that in No. 3, half-way through the develop
ment, the first theme was brought in on the full orchestra in the tonic
key; the effect was disastrous because all momentum was thereby killed,
an accident from which the movement as a whole never fully
recovered. We may well imagine the fatal results that would have
ensued in No. 4 if Bruckner had, at bar 253, suddenly delivered the
horn theme of Ex. 1 fortissimo on the full band.* But he has learned his
lesson, and bases the central passage of his development on the material
that is by nature most active, namely Ex. 2. He therefore achieves his
* The rhythms and tempi of the two themes are not dissimilar, so the com
parison is facilitated.
S YMPHONY N O . 4, I N B FLAT M AJ O R 87
object of placing E flat and its dominant in the ear at a strategic moment
without losing momentum. Indeed, momentum is positively increased
by this tutti, and its last chord of B flat is given great impetus by the
quickening and tightening of the harmony in the previous bar.
As the grand reverberations die away, Ex. I is heard high in the
light vault of B flat major, and as if this key evokes distant memories
and responses, there is a change to C sharp major, which is only our
old friend D flat in disguise. The notation at once recognizes the fact
and Ex. I is formed into a wonderful modulating chorale, perhaps the
finest and most inspired passage in the whole of Bruckner up to this
time. The scoring of this in the Gutmann edition of 1889 is a model of
how to ruin glorious music. In the original the brass chorale is accom
panied by a nobly striding counterpoint in the violas, strengthened
by clarinets and bassoons. One could perhaps understand an editor or
conductor suggesting that the addition of cellos might further support
necessary, but it would do no worse than slightly spoil the half

this line, which has the full-throated brass to contend with; it is not really
perceived perspective effect characteristic of Bruckner. But to tum it

into a pizzicato, to add triplets rippling prettily up and down in the
flutes and oboes, to make the horns play pulsating harmonies ! Bruck
ner surely cannot have committed such a crime.
For the second time in the development, the tonality travels from
one side of the universe to the other, this time from D flat to G major,
where the chorale falls to rest. In G comes a new slow transformation of
Ex. 3 (b), modulating with deep feeling round to the home dominant.
The recapitulation opens with Ex. I, now enriched in octaves and
with a tranquil counterpoint on the flute. Muted violins are added in
the 1 889 publication, creating a sultry atmosphere where there should
be sweet fresh air. At first the modulations are as before, but with new
phrases on cellos answering the woodwind, and there is no crescendo
this time (in the original score), so that the tutti breaks out suddenly.
Bruckner did not forget the crescendo, and the late revision was not
merely supplying a missing dynamic; in the original at the point where
the crescendo began in the exposition, he marks the restatement pp
sempre. Now the tutti changes its direction at the last minute ; the mas
sive formal half-close, instead of being on the dominant of B flat, is on
that of A flat.
Again this "stiff archaic pause"* is responsible for a subtlety. In any
sonata movement of such basic simplicity and clarity as this, to stand
* It is not, to be strictly accurate, a pause.
88 THE E S S ENC E O F BRU CKNER
o n the threshold o f the subdominant a t an advanced stage in the design
is to suggest that the end is not far away. A flat is the subdominant in
this case. It is too early to close into it, but the mere suggestion of it is
than
enough to render the restatement of the second group organically
active rather merely static, symmetrical, and possibly redundant.
It now has some natural resistance to work against ; it operates under
the shadow of a suggested impending denouement, which its function
is to delay till the proper time. But it must do it with tact, for nothing
must disturb the majestic progress of this essentially calm movement ;
there must be no tonal technicolor. So Ex. 3 enters in B major, which
bears exactly the same relationship to the dominant of A flat as, in the
exposition, did D flat to the dominant of B flat. B in this context is,
of course, really C flat. This time the continuation of Ex. 3 traces a
different series of keys ; in the exposition it passed down a succession
of dominants, now it rises by minor thirds, from B (bar 437) to D
(bar 445), then to F (bar 459). The next stage should be A flat ! But
we are not to be caught out. The purpose of this section is to avoid the
subdominant. Instead, with poetic, hesitating circumspection, Bruckner
slips back to the first region, B, now frankly written as C flat (bar 469),
which shows that after all it is not really a key, but only a flat sixth. It
falls to B flat, the home dominant, and a crescendo brings in the tutti
that appeared at the corresponding place in the exposition, but now in
the tonic. It is shortened, falls away into C minor (the first time we
have heard this key definitely stated, amazing in an E flat movement
of these dimensions), and the coda has begun.
Ex. 1 is combined with running woodwind figures that may or may
not be distantly related to similar earlier ones in the movement, or
even to Ex. 2-1 can imagine one or two of our enthusiastic themati
cists triumphantly dredging up this, for instance :*
E>e.S Cbo.r 511)
utQ& nijhi
tt LEx fZb I
Not that it matters much ; it is not initiated in this form, and takes
many others. Through all this Bruckner keeps up an impressive rock
ing accompaniment, definitely grown from the string figuration of the
previous tutti. A shift to D flat prepares a powerful burst on G flat,
* But see Ex. 17 on p. 1 1 3 !
S Y MPHONY N O . 4 , I N E FLAT MAJ O R 89
rising to A flat (but not the subdominant, only supertonic in G flat).
From A flat, with a return to pianissimo, the music rises in semitones,
and Ex. 1 enters in a glowing E major at bar 533. When it slips into
A flat major at bar 541 we know we are at last in the subdominant, and
the end is in sight. With a perfect sense of architecture the last climax
affirms the tonic, with Ex. 1 given a majestic fortissimo setting for the
first time in the vast movement. True, it is only the first phrase of Ex. I ;
but Bruckner has learned {certainly unconsciously) from the mistake
of the Third, and knows that this phrase, played in this way any earlier
in the piece, would have dangerously impeded momentum. Its func
tion at the fmish is {and I almost refrain from mentioning the fact) to
stop the movement. This first movement is a masterpiece of serene
grandeur, fmer even than Tovey thought, and easily surpassing any
thing Bruckner had done before.
The Andante has something of the veiled funeral march about it, as
if it were dreamt ; sometimes we seem close to it, even involved, some
times we seem to see it from so great a distance that it appears almost
to stand still. It is hard to explain subjectively the uncannily poised
nature of this movement, caught to perfection when Bruno Walter
conducted it ; some performances can be soporific, when the delicate
and original atmosphere and the singularity of the structure are not
exactly perceived. Impatience is always damaging to Bruckner's
music-here it can be fatal. The point unfortunately has to be illus
trated by yet another disagreement with the greatest of writers on
music, Tovey. To quote him again :
"The defence of Bruckner, still necessary in this country, would

defeat itself by attempting to claim that there is nothing helpless about
the slow movement of the Romantic Symphony. . . . Bruckner's
difficulty, this time a real inherent dilemma, in even his most perfect
slow movements is, first, that his natural inability to vary the size of
his phrases is aggravated by the slow tempo, and secondly, that the
most effective means of relief is denied him by his conscientious
objection to write anything so trivial and un-Wagnerian as a symmetri
cal tune. Consequently his all-important contrasting episode is as slow
as his vast main theme. The result is curious : the thing that is oftenest
repeated and always expanded, the vast main theme, is welcomed
whenever it returns ; while, as Johnson would have said, 'the attention
retires' from even a single return of the episode . . . in the Romantic
Symphony the difficulty is almost schematically exhibited by the
90 THE ESSENCE OF B RU C KNER
structure of the episode, which consists of no less than seven phrases,
all ending in full closes or half-closes, all four bars long except the last
but one, and all given to the viola with a severely simple accompani
ment of pizzicato chords in slow march time. There may, for all I
know, be Bruckncrites who consider this the finest thing in the sym
phony ; and it so obviously 'will never do' that to criticize it on Jeffrey's
lines will 'do' still less."
Luckily Bruckner does not now have to be defended in Britain so

fiercely as when Tovey wrote that in the period between the wars. We
no longer have to say, with him, "I forbear to quote the next two bars
lest the enemy blaspheme". But it is still a pity to show the enemy cause
for blasphemy where none exists. Tovey's criticism is more Jeffreyan
than I think he knew, for it is based on an a priori principle such as he
often and rightly deplored. It is his formula for the typical Bruckner
slow movement (quoted on p. 3 5), and his assumption that there is an
"episode".
In tonal symphonic music on the scale of Bruckner's we must always
test the thematic organization against the tonal, to discover if a just
equilibrium exists between the two elements, each of prime import
ance. Themes are always more easily noticed than tonalities ; a theme's
tonality is its condition, determining its feeling, or sense of direction, in
relation to the whole scheme. The whole of the first part of the Andante
of the Fourth begins and ends in C, and it contains three thematic
ideas, all contributing to a total effect of quiescence. Herc they are:
E" 6
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SYMPHONY N O . 4, I N B FLAT MAJ O R 91
The first is a plain marching tune with a subdued accompaniment

of muted strings. The tonic C minor is obscured but not banished when
this leads to Ex. 7, a mysterious chorale of deep solemnity whose
harmonic shifts are too constant for any new key to establish itself.
Dying away, it is succeeded by the quietest idea of all, Ex. 8, a cantilena
of violas, almost still, with the distant tread of remote pizzicati.
Beginning in C minor, but dimly lit by gleams of other keys, it settles
at last in C major, the first real close in the movement so far. This last
is the theme Tovey describes as "the episode". In fact it is the final part
of a cortege, viewed, if you like, from a very distant fixed point, so that
its movement is scarcely perceptible. To take an astronomical analogy,
the stars do not appear to move (relative to each other) in the sky
because they are so distant. With precise measurement over a period of
time, however, some do in fact show what is known as "proper
motion" ; it is very small, but it is detectable. It will be a long time
before the position of Sirius in the sky is noticeably different, but it
will be so. The vast opening section of this Andante also has its proper
motion, for the C major in which it ends at bar 83 has a slight tendency
to be the dominant of F minor. We need not be surprised at this,
because in a minor key the tonic major is very likely to sound as if it
might lead to the subdominant.
The change, through D flat to A flat, that follows this section shows
at once the real effect of a clean change of key (bar 93). Starting in A
flat, action now becomes apparent, and fragments of Ex. 6 are
developed with new shapes, building a big climax that subsides on the
home dominant in readiness for the restoration of the quiescence in C
minor. If Bruckner were always a clumsy composer, he would now
have a symmetrical recapitulation, and the attention would
undoubtedly retire. There is indeed a restatement, but treated in a very
individual manner ; Bruckner now reverses normal sonata methods.
The opening paragraph is certainly expository, but because it has only
one tonal centre, it has no movement. Nevertheless, this does not
preclude further activity of a developmental kind, for no sense of form
has yet been achieved ; the music has no alternative but to go on, and
92 THE E S SENCE OF BRU CKNER
with contrasting action. This action creates tension, after which noth
.
ing can be exactly as it was before-so flat symmetry is out of the
question. If the recapitulation is not to be static, it must therefore
move just a little more than the "exposition", and so it does. Ex. 6
enters as before in C minor, the chorale is omitted {since it would give
the impression of flat symmetry at the very moment when variance
is required), and Ex. 8 follows, not beginning in C minor, but in D
minor, ending in the major at bar 186. So the composer's surprising
solution has been to deal with the necessary restatement as if it were a
primitive kind of sonata exposition ; its end left open, a coda grows
perforce. Bruckner moves gravely back to C minor and on the main
theme slowly piles up a tremendous mass of tone before letting it die
impressively away with oblique references to Ex. 7 and Ex. 8. This
coda is what he has all the time been aiming at, and it would have been
impossible if the "exposition" had moved tonally, leaving the recapi
tulation to remain static.
Such a scheme as this is true to itself, and has no precedent or
successor in Bruckner's or anybody else's work. It can be adversely
criticized only by the stratagem of omitting vital factors from con
sideration, or failing to observe them. In either case the criticism
amounts to special pleading for its own limitations. If, for lack of
patience or any other necessary condition, we miss the essential atmos
phere of the music, how can we be expected to analyse it correctly?
Tovey is almost always reliable in these matters, which iswhyitisa pity
to have to argue with him rather than with the kind of unimaginative
mass of pedantic prejudices that so often was the just target of his wit.
The next movement is the first great Scherzo by Bruckner. His
favourite mixed rhythm dominates it :
EJC . 9
Se� ':'""a -:'
':rt ' 1 tr r r r 1 r
p
At such a quick tempo this rhythm is often inaccurately played, and
the failure of concentration that causes this also reduces the energy
{and consequently the significance) of the music. The key is B flat
major, and the opening is a strong and formal-seeming accumulation
of dissonant harmony on a tonic pedal, the crescendo running into a
wonderful shock :
SYMPHONY N O . 4, IN E FLAT MAJ O R 93
The trumpets thrillingly answer the challenges with tonic and

dominant, but the reaction is pensive, a subtly transformed version
of Ex. I O :
This flows into quietly running triplets derived from Ex. I O (a) ; then
Ex. 9 settles purposefully down to build a spacious but terse crescendo
to a blaze of fanfares in F major. It completes the exposition. The
development, with reduced tempo, drops into a mysterious G flat,
at first answering the inversion of Ex. 9 with the questioning Ex. I I (a).
G flat becomes A ; the same thing happens, with Ex. 9 imaginatively
overlapping its own inversion in soft horn and trumpet. Ex. I 1 {a)
and its inversion now assume control, soon introspectively reaching
E minor, the remotest possible key from the original tonic B flat.
It becomes major (bar 120), then cellos sing warmly through E flat
and thence to the home dominant. The tension rises and the recapitu
lation starts at bar 163 ; it contains delicate tonal changes that make all
the difference to its inner life (compare bar 195 et seq. with Ex. I I , and
bars 206-- 1 1 with 46--5 1). The scoring, too, is often finely altered.
The Trio is the simplest Bruckner wrote ; nothing could be more
amiably rustic than its tune :
E1d.Z
l'lldtt .&u �hneU .k.ti�lls -sc.hlc�11d.
t�i� jfiJ J JJ J!te f§-

n-a j]?%3
94 THE E S SENCE O F B RU CKNER
But nothing could be less rustic (or more amiable) than the
exquisitely judged tonal side-slips that distinguish its second half. In
the original version the Scherzo is repeated in full ; in the 1889 publica
tion there is a cut from the bar before Ex. I O (so that the crescendo is
abruptly cut off) to the low G flat at the start of the development.
Tovey finds this "extremely effective", but I must confess deafuess to
the virtues of following an abortive crescendo on a tonic pedal by a
reflective development section in a different tempo. Nor do I much
care for the cautious diminuendo that leads to the Trio in this version ; the
latter seems the more memorable for the strong contrast of the original.
In the Finale, problems loom again. The Third Symphony showed
Bruckner groping after a new type of finale ; the difficulty was not
only one of scale and proportion. In classical symphonic music the
artistic problem has always been to fmd a last movement that will
somehow arise naturally from the combined effect of the first three,
that will be accurately informed by the resultant of three (or sometimes
two) different forces. Many romantic composers, mistakenly claiming
Beethoven as mentor, have taken the easy way out of this profoundly
taxing problem by substituting facile emotional progression for organic
growth, so that the finale can seem to be the obvious dramatic con
clusion, triumphal or despairing as the case may be (it is always one or
the other with such composers !). The kind of finale Bruckner is
aiming at in the Third and Fourth symphonies is still only dimly
perceived, and it is very different in nature from everything else that
was being done by others at the time ; I do not think it has been
achieved since, if indeed it has even been attempted. Not being a very
articulate or consciously analytical man, Bruckner probably never
tried to explain his aims to himself, except in purely emotional and
religious terms ; nevertheless we can see in his work the stages by which
his instinct crept nearer its goal.
The energy of the classical fmale is a resultant force. The rhetoric
of a romantic finale is an emotional and sometimes brainless reaction.
Both are after-effects ; they arc not necessarily summings-up, but they
are the conclusive upshot of previous stimuli. The type of Bruckner
fmale we are discussing is neither resultant nor reaction ; nor is it a
summing-up. It is not an after-effect, nor any kind of conclusion. The
immense climaxes that end the Fifth and Eighth symphonies may
seem to render these statements absurd. Such climaxes, however, far
from being driven by the accumulated energy of a vividly muscular
process (as in the classical symphony) or by the warring of emotive
SYMPHONY N O . 4 , IN E FLAT M AJ O R 95
clements (as in the purely romantic work), are rather the final intensi
fication of an essence. A Bruckner symphony is, so to speak, an
archeological "dig". The first three movements are like layers removed,
revealing the city below, the fmale. Or they may be regarded as layers
of consciousness, as it were peeled away to show their origins, if such a
thing were possible. Bruckner's finale is intended (unconsciously
and how else could it be?) to form the bedrock of the symphony,
its background contemplated, its essence crystallized, the sky through
which the earth moves-choose what metaphor you like. Such a
phenomenon is inevitable, because the first three movements do not
generate the kind of energy that propels a classical fmale, or delineate
the sort of emotional drama that precipitates a romantic catharsis. This
is the basic reason why, as Tovey puts it, "you must not expect Bruckner
to make a finale 'go' like a classical fmale". Equally, we must not expect
him to provide impassioned rhodomontade or theatrical fireworks.
So remarkable a concept could not easily be grasped by the com
poser ; failures were as inevitable as the search itself. In the case of the
Third Symphony the imperfections of the previous movements were
an added complication ; the foundations on which they rested were in
part shifting sands, uncovered in the Finale. No such serious inequalities
undermine the first three movements of the Fourth, and the chances of
finding solid rock in the Finale are much higher. But Bruckner's skill
in this deepest kind of excavating is not yet fully developed. In the
finales of both Third and Fourth, however, we can sec a sign that he is
aware of the nature of the problem, even though he has not yet felt
it clearly enough to attack it from the right quarter. Both these move
ments begin with a massive paragraph that ends in the tonic key. The
finales of the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth symphonies all
begin with monolithic statements of this kind, ending either in the tonic
or on the home dominant. The absolute character of these movements
is laid plainly down at the outset. The Finale ofNo . 4 opens impressively
in B flat minor with the object of facing slowly in the tonic direction
after the key of the Scherzo. Bellatrix and Betelgeuse gleam low in
the East as a mysterious configuration climbs clear of the horizon :
Ex 15
&.�!:, d.Hi, nidU: zo sdi11&ll '"
·�,n,1nW-WfffilMD·
THE ESSENCE O F BRUCKNER
More stars peep from the dusky sky. Excitement grows as Orion's
belt and sword (the rhythm of the Scherzo) dimly appear. At last Orion
himself stands awesome, brilliant across black space, splendid, com
plete :
E flat is established, and although D minor storm clouds pass across

the constellation, the bright stars reappear. A feature of the cloud is
this shape :
As we return towards E flat the rhythm of Ex. 1 from the first

movement is heard (trombones, bar 63). A grand climax dies away in
E flat major after Ex. 1 has plainly emerged in the horns. The music
has not moved ; instead it has made the conditions for a contemplative
process. A thoughtful idea in C minor follows in slower tempo :
With a change to the major na'ivety prevails. We will not, like

Tovey, forbear to quote the second two bars of this theme, and will,
moreover, join the enemy in blaspheming heartily. Alas, this is not
merely na'ivety-it is triviality. For twenty-five years I have tried to
persuade myself that there must be something else, some redeeming
SYMPHONY N O . 4, I N B FLAT M AJ O R 97
subtlety behind this crackjaw platitude ; at last, compelled to go into
print, I must admit ignominious defeat :
It is all very well to say, as do romantic Brucknerites, that much of

the fascination of this composer is due to his ability to contrast the
sublime and the bucolic, the Austrian mountains and the simple
peasants, etc., etc. It is sometimes true, though I suspect that in many
cases the observation is prompted by a sentimental love of the
picturesque, for it rarely discriminates between cases like this one
and more successful examples such as can be found elsewhere in Bruck
ner. When Mahler appears deliberately to cultivate the banal we often
hear the same argument, frequently indiscriminate. Like Bruckner,
Mahler is not always the master of difficulties of this kind, and advo
cates would do him more service by trying to find out where and why
this is so. The successes are then so much more impressive.
The fault here must certainly lie not only in the poor little theme
itself, but in the placing of it. Bruckner might have got away with it,
and with some humour, at the tail end of a section, but its discovery
immediately after the grave Ex. 16 has the effect of an empty cigarette
packet picked up in Pompeii. It is surprising that Tovey did not reserve
his strictures for this part of the symphony. The continuation has
charm,
E" i& Cbcu- i09)
tt:}f19 f J l t4 it $- I
but now the fussy two-bar periods become tiresome. We must accept
that this Finale is not going to move in the conventional sense of the
word, that in fact a great static quality is its positive attribute ; but there
is movement of a vast and quiescent kind that Bruckner has now
temporarily lost. Orion, hitherto majestic in the sky, seems to be
catching flies.
THE ESSENCE O F B RU CKNER
From the C major at bar 105, Bruckner toddles to two more recita
tions of the nursery rhyme, sitting down in A flat (bar 125) and in F
(bar 1 39). F turns out to be the dominant of B flat, and all this nonsense
is abruptly swept aside by a magnificent tutti, beginning in B flat
minor (bar 155). If only the composer had allowed Ex. 16 to flow out
into the broad paragraph it promised to be, how inevitable would
this tutti have seemed ! A new theme on the brass strides in combina
tion with Ex. 1 5 and the tutti moves authoritatively to the dominant
of B flat. Instead of the expected resolution, however, G flat intervenes
with a reflective and highly original treatment of Ex. 15 with more
new figures. G flat being only a flat sixth, it is not long before D flat
drifts back, this time tranquilly in the major.
So ends the first stage of the movement. Despite the lapse between
bars 105 and 1 55, the proportions are now becoming apparent.
Imagine the whole so far, those fifty bars filled out with a cogent
paragraph of great seriousness and beauty based on Ex. 16; we would
have a mighty expository passage of ample variety and irreproachable
grandeur, informed with a tremendous slowness of motion in travelling
from E flat to B flat via C minor. It is not the progression of sonata
music, but is more like a huge slow swing round part of a tonal orbit,
different themes in different keys taking their places like the various
constellations along the line of the ecliptic. In the Finale of the Eighth
Symphony Bruckner found a wonderful way of gradually swinging
back again from this point, not dissimilar from his method in the first
movement of the Seventh. Here, however, his touch is far less sure,
because he has not yet shaken off the confusing influence of sonata.
The origins of Ex. 17 may well lie in a nervous feeling that the sup
posed sonata movement needed speeding up at that moment, Bruckner
not yet nnderstanding that he was composing something utterly
strange ; instead he stopped the real motion.
The tempo of the opening comes back, and Ex. 13, inverted, begins
to rise from key to key. This is a beautiful passage, and a gradual
crescendo mounts towards C sharp minor, then A major, a new melody
trying to form in the woodwind, exquisitely adorned by pizzicati.
But instead of new and rich developments, Ex. 17 breaks in loudly
on the brass in G flat major, answered squarely by the strings in G
sharp minor (only a supertonic reply despite the notation). Alas
sabotage again. The promising flow is stemmed ; once more the music
shuffies along two bars at a time, with desultory treatment of Exx. 17
and 18, and soon peters out on the dominant of F (bar 268). In F minor
S YMPHONY N O . 4 , IN E FLAT M AJ O R 99
i
Ex. 16 tries to remedy the situat on. But it now has no roots, and no
sense of being carried by a momentum larger than its own. So it
tends to wander in ever-tiring sequences, first of two bars, then of one,
and finally stagnating on the dominant of A (bar 291).
Such stagnation, however, can only arouse expectation. Something
must happen, because obviously at this stage in the piece it cannot
possibly be nothing. So there is almost an air of tension, and it is
shattered by a sudden fortissimo in C, Ex. 1 3 rising by semitones in a
tutti even grander than the previous one. Again this might have been
the culmination of a fine stretch of development from bar 203 ; instead
it has to be a rescue operation. But for the time being disappointments
are forgotten in an expanse of stormy music of masterly authority. The
pitch rises from C to D flat, D, E flat, E and then, as the gigantic
rhythm broadens still more, by whole tones through F sharp to A flat
as Ex. 1 3 expands into the full Ex. 14. It bursts the bounds of A flat,
crashing over into alien harmony as it falls steeply away into D major
(bar 339) in what may be termed a polar modulation of great power,
and one of the few moments in this symphony that faintly recall
Wagner.
Now follows an extraordinary passage. Everything is in fragments.
The D major fades into a strange augmentation of Ex. 15, apparently
on the dominant of A, but leading to a mysterious inversion of Ex. 14
in D minor with a pulsating accompaniment. Its last chord, instead of
being D minor, is B flat, which is not at once recognizable as the home
dominant. Not much could be more remote than E flat. But over a
long B flat drum roll, scraps of Ex. 14, some of them weirdly minia
ture, joined by echoes of the Scherzo, collect themselves together,
seeming to huddle expectantly on what is now decidedly the dominant
of E flat.
Bruckner obviously sees this fantastically original inspiration as a
tense preparation for a sonata restatement, for in the original version he
follows it at once with Ex. 14 in E flat on the full orchestra. But some
thing is seriously wrong. The fragmented passage feels very much like
an aftermath of the previous tutti, not like a preparation, and the state
ment of Ex. 14 in E flat at bar 383 lacks the momentum that ought to
be behind a recapitulation. It seems like an afterthought, or perhaps an
appendix to the previous tutti. Conviction leaves it as it labours its
way to the dominant of F sharp, then falls silent. Something is wrong.
What?
As in the earlier unconvincing parts of this movement, the mistake
100 THE E S S E N C E O F B RU CKNER
is rooted in the confusion between sonata and what Bruckner is groping
after. It is not that recapitulation should be out of the question-any
large form is bound to need recapitulatory elements at some time or
other. The error lies in the composer's not having consistently felt the
larger momentum that renders sonata strategy irrelevant. Conse
quently some passages are of the wrong kind {Ex. 17 et seq.) and some
turn up in the wrong places {the fragmented section, bars 3 39-82).
This last would have been perfectly deployed as a dissolving element
before matters are finally gathered together in a great coda. Imagine
it (or something like it) preceding bar 477.
Movements like this can arouse one's sympathy for Bruckner's
friends who wanted to help him get things right. But how could they
be expected, so near to the event, to see what he was really trying to
do? At this stage he can have had little idea himself, and would cer
tainly have been incapable of explaining to anyone. It is obvious that
the tutti at bar 383 is both laboured and redundant. But chopping it
out is no remedy, which is what happens in the 1 889 publication. In
the original it is followed by Ex. 16 in F sharp minor, on whose domi
nant it breaks off; in the "revision", with the tutti cut out, Ex. 16 enters
in D minor immediately after the fragmented passage, the whole trend
of which has been to modulate away from D minor to the home
dominant. A drunken surgeon attending to a lame centipede could
scarcely get into a worse muddle.
But Bruckner himself does not improve matters when Ex. 17 enters
in D major at bar 43 1 (we are now back with the original version).
Ex. 1 8 follows; this time the succession of tonalities is not the same, but
there is little to be done about the two-bar merry-go-round. At bar
449 there is an attempt to cover the stllfuess of Ex. 17 with rich lyricism,
but it makes no difference. Then the mood changes to solemnity as the
rhythm of the first bar of Ex. 17 is combined with Ex. 15, and a
crescendo rises. There is a hush, and a genuinely impressive fall to the
home dominant.
The coda is, after all this, one of Bruckner's greatest culminative
passages. It would be greater still had it arisen from the kind of process
he was later to master. But though it must begin with little tension to
set it off, it is nevertheless superlatively fine music. Listening to it is
like walking through a mighty cathedral, as Ex. 1 3 is intoned with
wonderful hushed deliberation. A horn forms a long, fine line of
melody, trumpets sound from on high. Then the harmonies begin
gloriously to change as the final crescendo swells. The end is magnifi-
SYMPHONY N O . 4 , I N E FLAT MAJ O R IOI
cently conclusive, and one is briefly convinced that, after all, the Finale
must have been a masterpiece.*
* In the most recent publication of the Bruckner Society, edited by Leopold
Nowak, an amendment has been made to the fmal tutti, giving the main figure of
the first movement to the horns. This is based on a manuscript found in New
York and represents Bruckner's own fmal wishes-but there is, I think, still a
strong artistic case to be made for the restraint of the original (as shown in Haas's
edition), in which the rhythm of the theme is present, but not its actual notes.
C HAPTER VI
SYMP H O NY N O . 5, I N B FLAT MAJOR
S o o N A FTER FINISHING the first draft of No. 4, Bruckner began

work on the Fifth, starting with the Adagio in February, 1875. His
circumstances were difficult; he had very little money-only the fees
from his ill-paid teaching at the Konservatorium in Vienna-and his
work was not arousing much interest. He was not at home in the
sophisticated capital and was regretting having moved from Linz,
where he had been happy in a sympathetic atmosphere. Herbeck had
found him a post as piano tutor at a seminary for women teachers,
but he was victimized after two students had complained that he had
insulted them. Redlich is probably right in suggesting that "it seems
likely that his rough peasant dialect and rural manner had caused a
regrettable misunderstanding",* but the press did not interpret it in
that way. Bruckner's innocence appears to have been proved, but not
before he had suffered much. He was consigned to the men's section
with a lower salary, and soon afterwards the job was abolished. He
was forced to borrow money, and was unsuccessfully looking for
work abroad. He wrote to Moritz von Mayfeld, "My life has lost all
joy and enthusiasm-and all for nothing. How I wish I could go back
to my old post !" All these dismal facts perhaps give added poignancy
to the D minor oboe theme in the Adagio of the Fifth, the first part of
the work to be written.
The whole symphony was done by May 1876. He retouched it in
1878, but not again after that, and its first publication was supervised
by Franz Schalk during the composer's last illness in 1896. Schalk's
wholesale re-orchestration of the work, his ruinous truncation of the
Finale, and his introduction of an extra brass band at the end are now
history and need not be detailed here ; it will be difficult enough to
confine an analysis of the authentic score of this colossal symphony to a
single chapter. It must be said, however, that since Bruckner is known
not to have approved (or perhaps even seen) Schalk's score, and since
the alterations are all very similar to those made in some of the
other symphonies, we should be very suspicious of claims that "the
Master gave his blessing", etc., etc., in those parallel cases. Nearly all
* Bruckner and Mahler (J. M. Dent).
SYMPHONY N O . 5 , IN B FLAT M AJ O R I OJ
such changes are totally uncharacteristic of Bruckner ; this should be
the real test.
Apart from the unfinished Ninth, No. 5 was the only one of Bruck
ner's symphonies of which he never heard a note performed. Schalk
conducted it in Graz in I 894, but Bruckner was too ill to attend-just
as well for him, perhaps, though he would in any case have been
unlikely to put his foot down over the matter of the alterations. He
had hopes that Schalk would give a performance in Vienna, but this
did not happen. Ferdinand Loewe did so two years after the composer's
death. If Bruckner could have heard a fine and successful performance
of his own score of this, one of his very greatest works, it might have
made all the difference to his confidence in later years. Who knows
had he been spared the futile revisions of the first three symphonies
near the end of his life, he might have finished the Ninth.
It has often been noted that this is the only Bruckner symphony to
begin with a slow introduction. The obvious reason for this is Bruck
ner's normal slow pace. A less obvious reason is that all the other
symphonies do have brief introductions. In Nos. 4, 7, 8 and 9 these
preambles are slower than slow-they are tempo-less tremolandi,
spanning the space between silence and Bruckner. Nos. I , 2, 3, 6 and
the posthumous D minor symphony begin against rhythmic back
grounds that are not less introductory because they set a tempo. It is
Bruckner's nature to begin with an intake of breath; whatever caused
his personal diffidence also brought about the magical beginnings of
most of his symphonies. The last movement of No. "o" has a recurring
slow introduction, but it is more decorative than organic. That which
opens the Fifth is made to spread its influence over the whole sym
phony, tonally and thematically. It would be fascinating to know the
composer's mental processes during the formation of this symphony.
We do know that he began with the Adagio in D minor, but not how
clearly he was conceiving it as part of a work in B flat major. Whatever
the truth, there can be no doubt that the beginning of the work could
well have been (and very nearly is) an introduction to a symphony in
D minor. In that case it is likely the Adagio and Scherzo would have
been in different keys ; both are in D minor. So it is probable that B
flat was predetermined. Perhaps it was mere depression that made
him write first the bleak opening of the slow movement.
The first movement of the Fifth Symphony is an altogether singular
piece. There is something fascinatingly introductory about the whole
of it, in relation to the rest of the symphony. This is caused by the fact
104 THE ES S E NC E OF BRUCKNER
that it is in reality a search for a tonality ; it is one of those movements
that presents a very odd appearance if we persist in looking at it purely
as sonata form, but as soon as we use our ears rather than our eyes the
entire process is clear and the piece seems only half the length. Sonata
is plainly its ancestor, but is no more than a background to events.
As always with Bruckner, it is wise to trace these events from point
to point, and see where they lead. First, noble and mysterious counter
point grows in B flat major over an ostinato :
E." 1
Rd.as"•o (stv-i11gs)
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Inflexions of the minor darken the music as it hesitates on the

dominant. Silence-then a great burst of tone on G flat major:
Again silence, and now a blaze of brass, like a mighty organ, with
another stunning change of harmony, into A major (with a G natural
that makes it sound like the dominant of D) :
SYMPHONY N O . 5 , IN B FLAT MAJ O R 105
No symphony ever opened like this. Another silence, and with the
added force of the timpani Ex. 2 is thundered forth on B flat major. As
before it ceases abruptly, and again the brass deliver the paean of Ex. 3,
now on the dominant of A. Silence.
This magnificent and unique opening, with its great blocks of sound
confronting each other on different harmonic pedestals, separated
by open spaces, has already set up a vast momentum, slower than
Bruckner had hitherto conceived. The silences should not really be
such, for Bruckner certainly has in his mind's ear an immensely
resonant cathedral acoustic. Such music as this can be ruined by the
dryness of modem concert halls. Now comes another change. The
previous dominant of A is confirmed (the first time we have been
granted an expected tonality), but there is a new tempo, Allegro. The
bass of Ex. 3 is now informed with quiet energy, there is a crescendo,
and the orchestra seems like an expectant crowd as the A pedal becomes
itself a dominant. The apex of this passage is an abrupt return to adagio
and a massive expansion of Ex. 3 on the dominant of D, a sound of
extraordinary power and depth.
So it sounds as if D is the goal, despite the opening in B flat. The high
A dies away into the vault, and drops to D. The tempo changes back
to allegro. But the D is made part of a B flat major chord, changing to
minor as a new theme forms beneath:
The previous appearances of B flat at the beginning and at bar 23
have not been sufficiently prominent to give security to this B flat
minor after the tremendous preparation for D, and it proves to be a
characteristic of this movement that whenever B flat is not tonally
on firm ground it tries to establish itself by turning to the minor. This
gives the whole movement a minorish quality, though the official
key is major. Confirming the insecurity of B flat, Ex. 4 at once goes to
C sharp minor (really D flat minor). A new figure attaches itself,
immediately undergoing transformations :
Such continuous thematic mutation is another typical trait of this

symphony. Meanwhile the tonalities are slipping downwards with
an increasing sense of bewilderment, reflected by a crescendo. The
dominant of B flat minor is reached at the last moment and Ex. 4
follows in a defiant fortissimo. Still the key is far from fixed, and the
tutti falls away with B flat now strangely and somewhat affrightedly
behaving as dominant ofE flat. Energy leaves the music, and its ripples
die out. B flat is by no means a tonic yet, and has gone too far towards
its subdominant for its own safety. The tendency has to be offset by a
move in the opposite direction. In F minor a hesitant new pizzicato
idea slowly assembles itself:
E" 6 (ba.do1)
SYMPHONY N O . 5 , IN B FLAT M AJ O R
It is a tentative F minor, and even more so when sustained phrases
quietly join the pizzicato. The atmosphere is mysterious and remote,
E" 7(bci.-�)
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similar to that of Ex. 8 in the Fourth Symphony (see p. 91), and move
ment is reduced to a minimum although there is no actual change of
tempo. The burst of allegro energy that has passed is no more than a
surface agitation above a vast slow current measured by the intro
duction. There is a slight flicker as a hint of D minor seems to touch
ancient instincts (bar 125), but it is nothing, and the music's face is
impassive as it turns away to D flat. Around this key soft woodwind
figures hover above long and beautiful suspensions in the horns. But
they tum eventually back to the dominant of F and, sphinx-like, Ex.
6-7 resumes. Now there is a rise in feeling as the key returns to F minor,
on the dominant of which the music once more hesitates. Another new
theme appears, but in D flat, warmer and more active :
Notice the bass :

� 9 ("41" i(,1)
':f ir;J) jJ I J
1' 6 6 .A
With great dignity and easy carriage Ex. 8 swings forward to a D

flat majorfortissimo on the rhythm but not the shape of Ex. 9 (bar 1 77).
Another stride finds A major (bar 1 81). It is the dominant of D, and
with a sudden piano the music begins to move purposefully in D minor.
Is this, after all, the real direction? But no-D minor is edged aside
in a crescendo that culminates in a powerful unison theme, strongly
rhythmic :
108 THE ESSENCE O F B R U CKNER
E<K. io ci..a.- i�>
This sounds and behaves like a new idea (which it is) but it evolves
directly from the diminished rhythm of Ex. 9. It also hammers at first
at B flat but then turns its attention to G flat, on a chord of which a
climax insists. We could, even now, be going to B flat, for the G flat
is plainly a Neapolitan flat sixth. It would be a simple progression, and
it looks almost inevitable :
'-"· ii
tr '-' I Ii
But instead there is a chord of D major, instituting the marvellous
transformation of the chord of F major from a dominant in bar 209
to a tonic in bar 221. Examine this passage with great care ; it is one of
Bruckner's most beautiful miracles. Notice also that Ex. 9 has under
gone yet another metamorphosis. So we reach the first full close, after
224 bars, and it is in F major. Our routiniers will of course say that this
is only the proper dominant at the end of a sonata exposition. True,
and we have also now heard all the themes. But what an astounding
journey if we understand the real nature of the terrain it has traversed.
The movement has not yet succeeded in fixing a tonic, and must
continue, for F major is but a brief resting place. The tonality moves
quietly out of the magic circle of F, hovers on a chord of E major,
and the music seems to stop and look round. Perhaps an approach can
be made from a new direction ; try a key that has not been heard before.
So the Adagio returns, now in C major, and the slow counterpoint of
the opening is played softly on horns with the ostinato below. It evokes
Ex. 2, still in C major. Ex. 4 enters questioningly, allegro, in C minor.
More doubtfully, the Adagio begins again in the strings, at first in the
subdominant of C minor, but brightening slowly. The ostinato becomes
seraphic as the woodwind take it up ; the strings climb to the heights.
The direction is E flat major, and there is no more radiant moment
in the whole of Bruckner. Again Ex. 2 is the culmination. It breaks in
on B flat, which sounds like the dominant of E flat ; but the arpeggio
SYMPHONY N O . 5 , I N B FLAT MAJOR 109
i s o f B flat minor, with the instant effect o f banishing the serene E flat.
But B flat tonality is asserted, and the allegro starts again with Ex. 4.
The theme is in canon with its own inversion ; this creates another
tonal disturbance, and the last two notes ask agitated questions.
The answer is a massive delivery by the full orchestra of the canon
by inversion, launching a developing tutti of such formidable majesty
as is scarcely to be found outside Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
Although there are passages of quiet, the whole process that follows
has the force of an indivisible tutti, and its general aim is towards the
establishment of B flat as a real key. Ex. 4 is combined with many
versions of itself in many ways and at bar 283 is joined by the mighty
Ex. 2. At intervals there is an insistence on B flat, each time stronger ;
the first is at bar 287, the second at bar 303, after a mysterious hush,
with a new and powerful figure, at first on horns :
Ev. 12 (bcu·!O'S)
llf}=-y. 1y2z1�w ..J1#

r �
At least it seems new, but it is in fact naturally thrown off by Ex. 2,

and it infuses immense energy as it accelerates into notes of half the
value with another drop to pianissimo. Now we are definitely on the
dominant of B flat. The storm breaks afresh with huge descending
lightning strokes (now the connection between Ex. 2 and Ex. 12 is
absolutely clear). B flat topples over into G minor (bar 323) , and is
dramatically interrupted by the still small voice of Ex. 6, in distant
solemn harmony on horns, in D minor. Trombones join the horns as
the harmony turns unexpectedly into D flat. The whole orchestra
then batters in fury at the door of B flat with Ex. 12 reduced to plain
octave Fs. Again the strange quiet undermining influence of Ex. 6-
this time from the remote distance of A minor ; it shifts its tonality
perplexedly, and it is as if something totally different were happening
in another world. B flat seems lost and forgotten. Suddenly the brass
blaze out with Ex. 3-in D? No, in B major, then A flat minor. The
effect is electrifying, but B flat is obliterated by these alien tonalities.
There is nothing to do but try to gather the remnants of the shat
tered army, and quietly but determinedly a crescendo is built on the
quickened bass of Ex. 3, on the dominant of B flat, in the manner of
the passage in the introduction at bar 3 1 . It is a multitudinous, defiantly
I IO THE ES S ENCE OP BRUCKNER
repetitive crescendo, and marches into Ex. 4 in B flat minor. So we have
at last reached B flat, and, moreover, with the only sustained dominant
preparation so far in the movement. But it is a very different arrival
from that anticipated, and although B flat is stronger than hitherto,
it is still far from being an undisputed tonic. Inevitably its grip loosens
as other keys, D flat, C, E flat, overrun it again. There is a puzzled halt
on the dominant of G. In making use of such terms as these to describe
the tendencies of the music, I hope I shall not be misunderstood :
it must not be supposed, for instance, that it is Bruckner who is puzzled.
In the Third Symphony and the Finale of No. 4 he is often so ; here he
is the master.
Now we have entered a crucial confluence in the movement. It will
be remembered that in the Finale of No. 4 the tutti beginning at bar
383 was inadvertently made to seem like a redundant aftermath of a
previous larger tutti because Bruckner, confusing his instinctive pur
poses with those of sonata, had almost arbitrarily introduced an official
recapitulation. In the grand design we arc now considering he masters
the effect organically. The passage starting at bar 347, building a
crescendo on the dominant of B flat and rising to the main theme in B
flat minor at bar 363, with subsequent tonal instability and a halt at
bar 380, is indeed the aftermath (rather than the climax) of the gigantic
development so dramatically interrupted by the horns at bar 325.
Bruckner is now achieving a marvellous interpenetration of streams.
The soft incursion of Ex. 6 at bar 325 begins a process of infiltration,
resulting in the breaking up of the continuous and seemingly irresist
ible force that was possessing the music. It takes the conviction out of
the last massive attempt of this force to set up B flat, an artistic stroke
with a purpose (as opposed to the embarrassing redundancy caused at
bar 383 in the last movement of the Fourth).
The reason is that it is still too soon to establish B flat beyond all
doubt. The movement is not only searching for a secure tonic, it is
evolving a form with proportions and symmetries that cannot be
truncated. In fact the two prime elements (the quest for a firm tonic
and the creation of balanced structure) are organically interrelated. If
there had not been this interpolation of Ex. 6, and if the tutti had been
allowed to storm its way without hindrance to a climax in B flat
(major or minor), the tonic would still not have been fully secured
because the great slow momentum of the whole would have been
forgotten in the excitement-and the safety of a tonic is always
fundamentally a matter of momentum. The rider is safe only if the
SYMPHONY N O . 5 , IN B FLAT MAJ O R III
momentum of the horse is controlled. Bruckner has not forgotten this.

He knows that matter so prominent as Ex. 6 and its consequences
(i.e., the whole complex from bar IOI to 223) cannot be subsequently
ignored and, moreover, that its motion is basic to the design, the
motion that has to be preserved whatever storms may lash the surface.
But if it is to be recapitulated in any form, it must have a new function
connected with the tonal development ; while it creates thematic
symmetry it must also help to control the inner growth of the music.
So the next entrance of Ex. 6 (at bar 3 8I) is in G minor, not far away
from B flat major, and we may as well notice how Bruckner avoids
the recapitulation of his "second subject" in the tonic. Ex. 6 has entered
in stages, causing the great storm to vanish in bursts ; again it takes calm,
abstracted possession. There are few more profound or original large
scale incidents in symphonic music.
The first appearance of Ex. 6 in F minor at bar IOI was corrective
to a tendency of B flat to slip down to its own subdominant. Now in
G minor (with Ex. 7) it is preparing the ground on which a conclusive
establishment of B flat can be raised. With the mysterious detachment
that is its fascination it leads eventually to Ex. 8, now in E flat, the
home subdominant, and the warm blood begins to circulate once
more. This is the proper place to feel subdominant leanings, towards
the end. As before, the bass of Ex. 8 generates Ex. IO; this time the
music pulls back abruptly on the dominant of G minor. There is a
pause, and then we hear the quiet throb of Ex. I (a) (in allegro tempo) in
B flat minor, which immediately sounds like a tonic as Ex. 4 piles
itself over the ostinato. Soft questions are asked on the dominant (are
we really getting there at last?), answered in the affirmative by the full
orchestra (bar 477). The theme is repeated, inverted, in F sharp minor,
but there is now no argument, only a sudden hush and an invincible
crescendo to a serenely formal peroration in B flat major, the first time
we have properly heard the tonic major since the music began. And
so ends this wonderful movement. It is always the Finale of this sym
phony that gets the publicity, as they say, and the first movement is
much neglected by commentators. But it is one of the subtlest and most
powerful of Bruckner's creations. It has not been possible to go into its
fascinating textural details, and I hope the reader will find endless
pleasure in discovering the myriad ways in which the themes are
combined with themselves and each other (especially Ex. 2 and Ex. 4).
Bruckner's counterpoint is naive, but it is enormously imaginative and
always amazingly clear ; together with his skill in transforming themes
II2 THE E S S E N C E O F BRUCKNER
it constitutes, s o t o speak, the movement's muscles b y which i t traverses
its tonal territories with such mastery.
After the complexities of the first movement, the Adagio shows a
broad and essentially simple outline, and it conforms almost exactly
to Tovey's formula. Like most of Bruckner's slow movements, it has
intricate inner detail, especially in the cross-rhythms which characterize
the parts based on the main theme. It begins austerely, with quiet
pizzicati:
This adumbrates the theme itself, on the oboe, at first making a

disguised unison with Ex. I 3 :
EK 14- (.ba,. 5)
It is like a bleak chorale prelude. The melody brightens towards F

major, then droops away (bar 13). Falling sevenths are prominent in it ;
they dominate large stretches of the movement :
Eit 15 (bo... 15)
lfbfill 1f7ftt�ir r tritr �
The last example ends on the dominant of F minor, but the strings,
with warmer harmonies and more elaborate cross-rhythms, continue
in C, then move towards B flat minor, around which is woven a
beautiful chain of falling sevenths, threaded by light quavers in the
violins. It all comes to rest on a chord of F major that still feels like the
dominant of B flat rather than a key in its own right. But instead of
B flat major or minor, however, there comes one of the world's great
melodies, in a noble C major :
SYMPHONY N O . 5 , IN B FLAT M AJ O R 113
E,.. 10 (bo.r M)
lltj@ !it 11 J' J fJ I

J
_
_
:::.:._:....- �
J. I J J
c.-ese
IJ. J' Fl
_.
ilt <I @JD I JJJ 41 I r t�r.,9' I ffi .-1

A curious detail is that we first hear this theme in a modified form,
simply because the violins cannot go below G; the second phrase
(bar 35) shows the shape from which it never subsequently deviates.
It is finely extended and contrapuntally developed in a very spacious
paragraph, during which this figure should be noted :
The music floats through various harmonic regions, returning faith

fully to C major twice-at bar 55 and at the climax with a 6/4 chord
at bar 65. But C major is not clinched and a soft A major intervenes
(bar 67). This proves to be the dominant of D minor when the first
subject returns in the tonic, enveloped in flowing violin phrases. The
falling sevenths become salient as modulations are gravely unfolded
(these sevenths here and elsewhere in Bruckner have evoked compari
sons with Elgar, but I find nothing in common between Elgar's
splendiferous use of this interval and Bruckner's solemn simplicity
of mind). Soon a fortissimo breaks out and tension mounts, becoming
surprisingly explosive as pp and ff alternate in half-bars. Needless to
say, the theme goes through a number of free inversions, and the
falling-seventh figure is still identifia.ble even when it becomes rising
sixths. The air is full of tragedy during this passage. It is cut off, and
despondent fragments wander through a tonal limbo. They seem to be
groping for E flat, but what appears to be a dominant seventh of E
flat is magically interpreted as a German sixth in D major, in which
key Ex. 16 returns with wonderful consolatory effect.
It flows through new modulations, again reaching an earnest and
1 14 THE ESSENCE OF BRU CKNER
beautiful climax, which now leaves the music suspended on the home
dominant, whence it descends by way of a long sequential treatment
of Ex. 1 7 during which all colour and warmth drains slowly from the
music. Unsympathetically performed, this passage can have unendur
able longueurs ; perfectly controlled, with a diminuendo such as may
admittedly be achieved only with the finest orchestras, it can create
an unforgettable atmosphere. For wise advice on the performance of
this symphony, incidentally, I would commend an article A Performer's
Rights by Stanley Pope in the 1963 issue of Chord and Discord;* this
conductor has himself demonstrated on many occasions how to
manage to perfection such passages in Bruckner.
At length the main theme comes back in D minor, accompanied by
elaborate but chaste string ornamentation, mounting in Bruckner's
inimitable and awe-inspiring way from climax to climax. The whole
paragraph is like the nave of some great severe cathedral, far more
Gothic than Baroque, with fine dark avenues of arches {the violin
figuration) and mighty shafts {the descending sevenths). But it docs
not, like some other such passages in Bruckner's slow movements,
reach a final towering apex; it dies away impressively into a brief, grey
ending.
The stony greyness remains with the beginning of the Scherzo,
which also is in D minor, and employs a fast but exact version of Ex.
13, with a new and coldly energetic theme bearing down upon it:
!6 (lio.r &')
r� . �·
EA
��i�
t'! i 1puilBor r 1r ct1 r wwt
.
This is one of Bruckner's most gigantic and fantastic scherzos : A

formidable inhuman power is directly faced with heedless gaiety:
E"' 19 (bear 2!1)
'�'\)I t�•r r r I ��

(8cdc11l:cnd. la.ngtl41T1C:t')
r....
-t+.. � •
&= 11ecqrr rirbrT fr
,
• • � 9
::::==-- crcse c.f'llSC

p
The simple Land/er is introduced in F major without transition
immediately after Ex 1 8 has driven in a quick crescendo to the dominant
* Published by the Bruckner Society of America.
SYMPHONY N O . 5 , IN B FLAT MAJ O R
of A, where it comes to an abrupt halt. Thematic continuity is main
tained by the use in Ex. 19 of Ex. 13 (a) as a kind of basso ostinato, while
the second violin line later becomes important in the main Molto
vivace tempo ; so perhaps the gaiety is not entirely heedless after all.
But there is no denying the extraordinary gulf between the two chief
characters in the drama. Here Bruckner has certainly succeeded in
artistically encompassing the extremes his less critical admirers are apt
to emphasize at the expense of other things.
The amiable dance measure does not last long. The key changes to D
flat (fortissimo, bar 3 1), then E major (bar 39). The tempo begins to
accelerate with a new figure
while Ex. 13 (a) grows forceful again. The two clements grind with
magnificent harshness together and arc joined by a wild figuration
from the accompaniment of Ex. 19:
� - 2 1 (ba... '&)
The drum enforces the dominant of A, but when the music reaches
that key (bar 71) it is more like the dominant of D than a key in its
own right. A new combination of ideas thrusts still farther forward :
E.� 2.2 (b'"' T9)
_:._---�
1 16 THE E S S E N C E OF BRUCKNER
It succeeds in driving home the dominant of A, and the rest of the
exposition is in a breathless pianissimo, following the sharply arrested
climax of Ex. 22 with ghostly pattering crotchets recalling the descend
ing sevenths of the Adagio, ending in A at bar 1 3 1. The development
begins with a return to D minor (bar 137), the drum sticking to A
until bar 141, when its D plays dominant to G minor-so the tonality
falls by fifths. The tension is finely held and then much increased by
the sudden fortissimo in bar 1 56. C minor is screwed up to C sharp minor
by a similar stroke in bar 176. Through all this, Ex. 1 3 assumes unpre
dictable shapes, and Ex. 1 8 is deprived of its first two bars and then
inverted with the purpose (so it afterwards becomes clear) of drawing
attention to a new aspect of it:
E". 2ll (�r 17.0
lJi
Fs I
? J 1¥4 � J l i� @&!+
J
In C sharp minor there is a pause, and then the Liindler turns up again
in a bland D flat ( C sharp major), performing many polyphonic
=
tricks of the most naive kind. When, in its third bar, the violins add
Ex. 20 we can hear that this figure is that curious phenomenon a
promoted derivative of Ex. 1 8 (b), through Ex. 23. The key changes to
B major (bar 205), then minor (bar 221), then to G major (bar 225).
Finally E minor (bar 23 3) drifts to the home dominant. Ex. 1 8 opens
the fairly regular recapitulation in D minor, and the falling sevenths
from its end dominate a short but powerful coda that ends in D major.
F sharp, the major third of D major, written as G flat, opens the
Trio ; it becomes a flat sixth in B flat and this marvellous little episode
begins with a delicious surprise :
Bruckner marks the Trio "in the same tempo", but he means that
the bars, and not the crotchets, are equal to those of the Scherzo. Ex. 24
is treated with great resource and lightness of touch, as well as a delicate
humour not often met in this composer. The way the first part ends
SYMPHONY N O . 5 , IN B FLAT M AJOR 117
in the orthodox dominant, reached by hair-raisingly wiorthodox
means, reveals genuine wit. The mood is felicitously and gently
enhancing rather than disrupting the air of easy delight. This Trio
elated, and the one fortissimo passage discloses the grandeur behind it,
is unlike any other in Bruckner, who is normally reflective at this point

in a symphony. The Scherzo returns complete.
The colossal and intricate elaboration of the Finale might seem
difficult to describe, but in fact the first movement is more so. Tovey's
warning that we must not expect a Bruckner finale to "go" applies
with particular force to the extraordinary length of its preliminaries
{which go far beyond the introductory reminiscences of previous
themes that occupy the first thirty bars). When this movement does
eventually "go", it is in no wicertain manner, but it would not be
able to do so were it not for the protracted overtures. Once we have
grasped the nature of these, we can enjoy them in much the same way
as the composer must have felt them.
First comes the opening of the first movement, solemn and hushed
as before, but with a soft octave figure added on a clarinet in its third
and fifth bars. The quiet cowiterpoint this time rests on the dominant
of G, and after a silence the clarinet turns the octave figure into a short
phrase that seems, disconcertingly, almost comic, as the figure of poor
Bruckner must have appeared to smart-alecs who had no idea what
he could do :
· T
r I
Next to appear is Ex. 4, in B flat minor and turning {as it did the first
time it was heard) to the dominant ofD flat, where it breaks off. Ex. 25
picks up the last A flat. Now comes the theme of the Adagio in its
original D minor. It violently conflicts with the previous suggested
D flat, and Ex. 25 reminds it of the fact. We have heard enough D
minor in the two previous movements, and this, not the fact that the
same material begins both Adagio and Scherzo, is the real reason why
Bruckner does not now recall the beginning of the Scherzo. To do so
would be to start an argument between two unwanted keys, D minor
and the dominant of D flat. Nor is Bruckner indulging in a touching
imitation of Beethoven, who in the Finale of his Ninth Symphony
II8 THE ESSENCE OF B RU CKNER
has a philosophic purpose in drawing a harmonious theme from a
background of dissonance, considering the previous movements in the
light of this and finding that something utterly new is required.
Bruckner recalls the old themes because it is an effective way of discus
sing how to get back to B flat after all that D minor. There is no
question of rejecting the themes themselves, as Ex. 4 eventually
becomes an important protagonist in this Finale. Now he decides that
the dominant of D flat is no better than D minor ; roughly, by the
scruff of the neck, the cellos and basses seize Ex. 25 and tum it into a
terse fugue subject in B flat :
r r1J
> � ,..
But this is not, as it seems at first, a real beginning. The Jugato

becomes swallowed in a march-like formal tutti which, instead of ex
panding to symphonic proportions, soon marks time on the home
dominant. The totally introductory sense of everything so far is not
dispelled by the amiable and cheerful new idea that now spins quietly
into view in D flat:
Indeed, this rather confirms than banishes the preludial feeling of

the music, for D flat was mooted earlier. Perhaps the aggressive cellos
and basses thrust B flat down the throat of D flat with too incontinent
an enthusiasm? At least D flat had better be explored, to see where it
may lead. (If you want to hear the connection directly, join bar 30 to
bar 67, and you will find out how parenthetical the intervening passage
really is.} But the only origins of D flat lie in the instability of Ex. 4,
and its hold is slender as Ex. 27 runs happily and inventively about a
veritable circus of keys. The figure marked (a} turns into a scale that
combines with an expressive cantabile as E major assumes temporary
control :
SYMPHONY N O . 5 , I N B FLAT M AJ O R 119
E"· i?.8 (J:ia.r &3'
Then Ex. 27 returns in G major (bar 93). D flat, E , G-a series of

minor thirds. What next-B flat? There is a crescendo in that direction,
but if there is any key with which this section will have no truck, it is
B flat. Look what it did to D flat last time ! So with the deftness of a
child evading a rough playmate, the music slips away into C major
(bar 107). After passing through various shades and colours, including
a chord (not key) of G flat (bar 121), C major shows that it was the
dominant of F, for there is now a gentle full close in F major (bar 136).
The innocent D flat, in avoiding B flat, has not managed to get very
far away from it.
Now a big tutti begins in F minor, based on an augmented simplifi
cation of Ex. 25, its chromatics ironed out into plain tonic and domi
nant, combined with the inverted scale of Ex. 28. The bold square
rhythms seem bluntly to be hewing some sort of climax, but they
abruptly subside into mystery, out of which a mighty blaze of light,
in the shape of a chorale on the brass, suddenly stuns the senses from
the direction of a strange key :
As the majesty of the chorale unfolds itself, its phrases interspersed

with soft awed responses, the strange G flat major in which it begins
proves to be but part of a wonderful and immense cadence into F
major, and the music falls into a sublime calm. Horn and woodwind
instruments muse over the first line of the chorale. And then? "Now,"
says the composer after a mere 222 bars, "we can begin !" By this time
Bruckner is well out of earshot of the enemy's blasphemy, and if we
wish to enter his world and taste its rewards we must also leave the
enemy to grind his teeth in solitude. So now the Finale can "go".
Bruckner begins a beautiful fugue on Ex. 29 ; it seems to start in D
flat, and at last we hear the connection between this key and B flat.
They are at once reconciled by the fact that the first phrase of the
chorale turns from D flat to the dominant of B flat, and although the
answer is orientated to the dominant of D flat it naturally swings round
to C ; the periodic combined play of the two, subject and answer,
throws the music more and more surely into B flat. Soon the rhythm
of Ex. 25 (there is nothing comic about it now) enters in the bass on
the dominant ofB flat (bar 264) and six bars later Ex. 26 makes a perfect
combination with Ex. 29 in the frankest B flat minor. The two themes
pass through many strange and fantastic developments, combining
free inversions with themselves and each other, and the immense fugue
shows astonishing resource in harmony, naive counterpoint, instrumen
tation, and phrase-rhythms for 126 bars, becoming tense and myster
ious at bar 306 as it enters a kind of tonal no-man's-land, growing
angry, with an orchestral sound of staggering originality from bar 3 3 5
onwards. Then i t hesitates momentarily. The brief break (bar 349) is
enough to transform everything. There is a crash, and we discover
that the music is no longer fugal but that we are being carried forward
by a vigorous symphonic tutti that includes a grand combination of
Ex. 26 and Ex. 29 and reaches a climax soon afterwards. This drastic
stroke instantly solves the knotty problem of how to bring so vast a
fugue to a denouement within the scope of a larger symphonic whole.
The tutti dies away with an open fifth on G flat, leading-where? To
F major and the whole complex growing from Ex. 27, an unexpected
and wonderfully refreshing inspiration.
This passage, its internal details often subtly changed, now has
behind it a momentum it was originally without, a sense of movement
irrevocably created by the fugue. On this great tide it swims where
previously it paddled in the shallows ; only a Bruckner could have
restated the whole of an amiably indolent paragraph such as this,
giving it new buoyancy and forward motion with but slight alteration.
It is a matter of timing, and the effect, moreover, would not be possible
without the experience of the first statement, which seemed like (and
was) one of a series of static tableaux. A further subtlety lies in the fact
that the passage, beginning in F, now ends on F, the dominant of B
flat (see p. 144). But no-it does not end, for the new momentum
means that it cannot come to a stop as it did before, and with real
gaiety the music sweeps once more into a tutti.
This corresponds to the blunt formal tutti that began at bar 137, but
like the previous paragraph it now has new impetus, and it is further
transformed by the invasion of Ex. 4. From this moment everything
S YMPHONY N O . 5 , IN B FLAT M AJ O R 121
grows into a vast coda, now contrapuntal, now massively harmonic,
with myriad combinations of the themes, never losing itself in detail
but always driving towards one of the greatest climaxes in symphonic
music. The rule of B flat can no longer be challenged. With a mighty
augmentation of Ex. 25 (bar 546) that utterly obliterates any lingering
memories of the first impression made by this figure, the harmonic
tension grows magnificently until it reaches a blazing chord of G flat;
this proves to be the first chord of the chorale, which now strides
across the whole world. The end comes with a measured precision
and punctuality that mark only great composers, made possible by the
fact that the chorale does not in the slightest degree slow the music
down; the now stupendous momentum carries its enormous weight
with ease. IfBruckner had been the kind of composer the enemy would
describe, a climax of such overwhelming energy would have been
impossible to him, a fact clearly unappreciated by the conductor who
(proud enough of the effect to have perpetuated it on a gramophone
record) halved the tempo at the entry of the chorale. Poor Bruckner
-he has suffered as much from his friends as from his enemies.
We cannot leave this gigantic masterpiece without a few more
observations. The first is that it is thematically more closely integrated
(as the pundits say) than any of its precursors. Present-day attempts to
prove the unity of large works by ingenious tissues of thematic
derivations are, in my view, grossly over-valued, and stem from an
obsession with Schoenbergian note rows. The actual unity of a
symphonic composition is the result of interaction between all its
elements. I have not shown in the foregoing analysis more than a
fraction of the connections between thematic ideas in this work-the
reader will find it an almost inexhaustible quarry for such research, and
I would not like to spoil his pleasure in carrying it out for himself. But
a warning is perhaps not out of place-believe only what you can hear !
An example we have already mentioned is a reminder: Ex. 20 in the
Scherzo has no connection with Ex. 1 8 (b) until it has been heard soon
after Ex. 23. Unconscious derivations may be fascinating, but they do not
necessarily have artistic significance, and no thematic manipulations
(conscious or unconscious) can prove the unity, let alone the value,
of a piece of music. Its real unity and its value must rest on its convinc
ing mastery and subjugation of every single element it contains, themes,
tonalities, internal rhythms, basic momentum (the upshot of all the
others), as well as instrumentation, which itself can be a potent factor
in the success or failure of the architecture.
Another comment that must be made concerns the internal rhythmic
organization of the Fifth. The first movement needs its fairly regular
arrangement of bar-periods (mostly fours) because of its basic slowness
and the strangeness of its design in all other respects. The Adagio has
many intriguing ambiguities, mainly because its overall plan is simple,
and the textural intricacies (the frequent cross-rhythms) influence the
larger pulses. The Scherzo is less regular than the first movement,
which is natural because it has two tempi to cope with; it docs not
have such strange irregularities as occasionally appear in the Adagio,
which is also natural because it has to produce an inexorable effect
whenever it is fully active. The Finale is full of the most astounding
irregularities, mainly arising from the fact that Ex. 26 and Ex. 29
arc three-bar phrases, while the immense broadening into regularity
of the coda is one of the chief elements in its impressiveness. And
when the chorale stretches a vast triple rhythm over the basic quad
ruple pulse, the effect is overwhelming.
A large volume would not contain all that there is to be noticed in
this symphony, and none of it would be trivial. Bruckner has now
reached his full stature.
CHAPTER VII
SYMPHONY N O . 6 , IN A MAJ O R
T HE F IFTH , S IXTH, and Seventh Symphonies represent Bruckner's

period of greatest confidence as a composer ; apart from the unfinished
Ninth, they are the only ones in which he never made wholesale
revisions. It is therefore doubly ironic that he never heard No. 5, and
only the two middle movements of No. 6, though the Seventh was
indeed to bring him luck. The A major symphony, which Bruckner
thought his boldest, was not given its premiere until 1899 (three years
after his death), and even then Mahler, who conducted, made great
cuts in it. It is surprising that he did this, in view of his defence of the
1878 version of the much inferior Third, and in view of the fact that
the Sixth is the shortest of the fully mature symphonies. It has always
been neglected, and I have never been able to understand why, for it
has consistently struck me (apart from one or two short passages in the
Finale) as among his most beautiful and original works ; his own high
opinion of it seems thoroughly justified. Nor is it one of those con
noisseurs' pieces-the sort of thing interesting to the thoughtful musi
cian but not possessing immediately obvious originality. There are
such works (not by Bruckner, but by others-consider, for example,
Busoni's Konzertstuck for piano and orchestra, or Alkan's Symphony
for piano solo) which, though they are at a disadvantage in not reveal
ing themselves at once as truly individual things, are nevertheless
entirely so. But Bruckner's Sixth makes an instant impression of rich
and individual expressiveness. Its themes are of exceptional beauty
and plasticity, its harmony is both bold and subtle, its instrumentation
is the most imaginative he had yet achieved, and it has, moreover, a
mastery of classical form that might have impressed Brahms, especially
in its first three movements. The last is more idiosyncratic, as one would
expect a Bruckner finale to be, but it is profoundly original, and though
there are a few uncertainties, they are minimal. It has not (nor is it
intended to have) the immense impact of the last movement of No. 5,
but it is a far finer and more subtle structure than that of No. 4, and its
thematic material has striking individuality. We can take pleasure in
agreeing with Tovey-"If we clear our minds, not only of prejudice
but of wrong points of view, and treat Bruckner's Sixth Symphony
124 THE ESSENCE OF B RU C KNER
as a kind of music we have never heard before, I have no doubt that
its high quality will strike us at every moment."
The Sixth was written between 1 879 and 1881 ; work on it over
lapped with the revision of No. 4, finished in 1880. Its first publication
was not until after the composer was dead, in 1899, and the differences
between that edition and the manuscript seem to be entirely the respon
sibility of Cyril Hynais, Bruckner's pupil, who saw the symphony
through the press. They are not so extensive as might have been
inflicted by the Schalks or Loewe, but are of similar stamp, especially in
the matter of expression marks, dynamics, and tempo alterations. The
original version was published in 193 5, edited by Robert Haas, and
this is the one that should always be played. The symphony opens, as
so often with Bruckner, in mystery, but with a new device, a distinctive
rhythmic figure high above a theme that heaves darkly in the depths :
..---- •) ---...
1 --=
Although the work is in A major and has this rhythmic beginning,

we must not expect anything like Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.
The violins' rhythm is not going to be insistent, but will be absent
for long periods, to return only at cardinal points in the structure, like
a recurring motifdecorating cornerstones. Bruckner is careful to prevent
it from being too obtrusively lively, by indicating a bowing that keeps
on the string, and marking only the first note of each rhythmic group
SYMPHONY N O . 6, I N A M AJ O R 125
staccato. It is clear that he wants it to hover over the music, not to impel
it. Notice that although the key is A major when the theme enters
below, the mystery is heightened by notes foreign to the tonality in
the figure (c) ; the G is simply a flat seventh, but the B flat and F natural
are Neapolitan inflexions of the melody, and they have full-scale tonal
effects later in the symphony, after they have persistently coloured the
harmony of the first movement. The main theme now throws off a
more urgent figure :
The last bar of Ex. 2 could easily close into F minor, but the tendency
is checked by a soft settling on the home dominant at bar 21. Then a
grand fortissimo counterstatement breaks out in the old-established
classical manner. Bruckner has never done this before at the beginning
of a symphony. On the great scale he has been evolving, he has not
until now found out how to bring off this kind of counterstatement
without impossible unwieldiness. Hitherto he has (if he ever contem
plated such a device) avoided the issue either by counterstating quietly
and turning in a new direction (as in the Second and Fourth), giving
two statements of a whole crescendo process (as in the Third), or
abruptly curtailing the counterstatement (as at bar 90 in the Fifth). The
nearest previous approach to the classical procedure of piano theme and
forte counterstatement, often found in Haydn's, Beethoven's, Dvorak's
and Brahms's allegros Qess often in Mozart's), is in the Fifth, but that
proves to be only an incident in a tonal process already begun in the
slow introduction. In the Sixth Bruckner is at last able to adjust this
practice to his own time-scale, used as an actual opening, and initiating
perfect sonata of huge size, and it pleases him so much that he does it
again in the Seventh* and Eighth. The counterstatement dies majestic
ally away, again on the dominant of F (see bars 43-46) ; but once more
this tendency is repudiated, this time by Bruckner's beloved stratagem
of treating a dominant seventh as a German sixth in a new key, a
delight he shares with Schubert. So instead of F we get E minor, and
a broad theme in rather slower tempo :
* As we shall see, its function in No. 7 is not sonata-like.
126 THE ES S E NC E OF BRUCKNER
The mood is nobly contemplative, grave but not static. The texture
is exquisitely beautiful and the whole passage is notable for the com
plexity of its inner {as opposed to the grand simplicity of its outer)
rhythms. Other tonalities colour the music, the dominant of G flat
at bar 61 et seq., and an angelic new theme on the wind is finely
illumined by touches of D major and F major :
Throughout this paragraph the music is marvellously embroidered

with intricate patterns of sixths and sevenths (very different from the
sevenths so forthrightly used in the Fifth and even more different from
Elgar's), and Neapolitan inflexions abound in delicate forms. The
passing gleams of foreign keys do not really disturb E, and at bar 81
Ex. 3 swells out radiantly in E major. It fades, and a slow crescendo
begins to rise on the dominant of E {bar 95). This reaches a massive
new theme, not in E, but on its flat sixth, C, another Neapolitan
relationship :
SYMPHONY N O . 6, IN A M AJ O R 127
Inevitably the C falls to B, the dominant of E (bar 107), then comes

back again at the next piano with a new idea (woodwind, bar 1 1 1).
The triplet in Ex. 5 becomes pervasive and the music swings over alien
dominants to that of G major (bar 121) ; note this, for it is the source
of a fine and simple stroke in the recapitulation. Then G leads to C
(bar 129), A minor (bar 1 3 1) and a spacious and peaceful plagal cadence
in E major. During this process the idea that was new at bar 1 1 1 has
undergone curuUng transformations which I leave the reader to
examine at his leisure. We are now at the end of the exposition. The
extent and the nature of this wonderfully calm and elaborate second
group has shown the unwisdom of expecting propulsive energy from
the rhythm of Ex. 1 (a)-it was, after all, a mode of vibration.
Nor must we expect an immediate return to anything like strenuous
action. The development at first stays ruminating about the environs
of E major, then its supertonic, F sharp minor, twists unexpectedly
into G major with a new treatment in free inversions of Ex. 1 (b) and
(c) (bar 159). The music's muscles are beginning slowly to flex again,
though the rhythm of Ex. 1 (a) is still not in evidence. With lazy but
large stride it swings into A minor (bar 167), C major (bar 175), and
then, with a definite sense of effort, to the dominant ofD flat (bar 181).
In D flat come derivatives of Ex. 2 ; the growth in dynamics and the
rising tonalities have made tension, and the livelier rhythm of Ex. 2
now gathers itself together. All the while a continuous quaver triplet
motion has been sustained. With this, Ex. 2 now drives into a powerful
crescendo on a dissonance that soon proves itself the dominant of E flat.
In E flat Ex. 1 , now accompanied by the throb of (a), crashes out ff.
The tutti moves magisterially through G flat and A flat and then,
astoundingly, straight into A major for the recapitulation. No wonder
Bruckner thought this his boldest symphony-we shall find that one
of its chief characteristics is this startling ability to establish (without
a shadow of doubt as to its solidity) the tonic with hairbreadth abrupt
ness, and with the kind of preparation that would normally be expected
to undermine it. This A major is the opposite pole from the E flat from
which the tutti started. It is immediately prepared by but two bars
128 THE ES SE NCE OF BRUCKNER
of its own dominant seventh (bars 207-8), a chord, moreover, were it
not for the low E on the drum, we might expect to behave like a
German sixth in the previous key of A flat. But it is the drum that does
the trick. Bruckner is often conservatively classical in his use of the
timpani, and has learned much from Beethoven, who sometimes
achieves great subtleties by relying on the fact that the drum is not a
transposing instrument, and that its notes, if (as hitherto) they are
restricted to two (tonic and dominant), cannot possibly be genuinely
enharmonic. Basil Lam, in the chapter on Beethoven in The
Symphony,* has pertinently observed how that master in the first
movement of his Fourth Symphony makes the drum enter with a low
B flat near the end of the development, when the music is on the domi
nant of B natural major; on any other instrument we would interpret
this B flat as A sharp, but the associations of that note with the drum's
natural behaviour make the tonic B flat thenceforward inescapable,
and the magnificent solidity of the recapitulation is assured.
And so it is at the recapitulation in Bruckner's Sixth. As soon as the
drum enters on its low E we know, without a trace of uncertainty
and whatever the notation might look like (in this case, as it happens,
it is written as a normal dominant seventh in A), that this note is not F
flat, but E. Bruckner's stroke is amazingly abrupt, especially considered
in relation to the time-scale of the movement as a whole. It and those of
Beethoven stand alone-at any rate, it is difficult to think of another
example anywhere else in symphonic music. If Bruckner's idea were
inspired by Beethoven, is it not revealing that it should be the naive
Bruckner who saw the point? Or should we perhaps revise our ideas
about Bruckner's naivety? I think the latter, and if Bruckner thought
of it without reference to Beethoven, even more should we be careful
about underestimating him. One often meets aesthetes who point to
the superiority, the greater "purity", of the string quartet medium as
opposed to the orchestral ; but every medium has its unique possibi
lities, and this particular profound subtlety would be impossible in a
string quartet. There is a lot to be said, too, for the classical restriction
of the timpani to two or three basic notes if it stimulates a composer
to such thought. That this is one of the greatest moments in Bruckner's
music I have no doubt.
Statement and counterstatement are now reversed, the soft one
coming afterwards at bar 229. It turns to the dominant ofF sharp ; there
is now no manreuvring with German sixths, ambiguous or otherwise,
*Pelican, 1967, edited by the present writer.
and the second group follows with Ex. 3 in F sharp minor. Why not
the tonic minor? We shall see. Except for changes in the orchestration,
a slight curtailment after Ex. 4 that brings in the radiant major version
of Ex. 3 a few bars sooner, and a poetic alteration before the entry of
Ex. 5, the second group is restated exactly, with the same tonal and
harmonic relationships as before. We then find that the G major 6/4
harmony of bars 121-4 has become A major in bars 305-8. If Bruckner
has recapitulated the second group in A minor he would now be in C,
and would have to spend as long getting back to A as he did recovering
E major at the end of the exposition. After so dramatic a start to the
whole recapitulation, he needs a more or less regular restatement of the
second group, but he needs also to save space before what is going to be
one of his broadest and finest codas. Hence the submediant recapitula
tion of the second group, in a quiet environ of the tonic major, which
now can be reached as unassumingly as it was shatteringly recaptured
earlier. So as soon as the sound of A major is heard at bar 305, it is as
familiar as the view from one's own window.
Tovey rightly describes the coda of this movement as one of
Bruckner's greatest passages. I am not sure, however, that he is quite to
the point in remarking that Wagner might have been content to sign
it. There is nothing Wagnerian about the music, and certainly not
about the masterly abruptness of the return to the tonic at the end,
which is entirely typical of this symphony, and which might have
caused Wagner a few qualms. But Wagner would have fully appre
ciated the wonderful iridescent colours of this part of the movement,
perfectly described by Tovey-"passing from key to key beneath a
tumultuous surface sparkling like the Homeric seas". The main theme
rises and falls like some great ship, the water illuminated in superb
hues as the sun rises, at last bursting clear in the sky. During this coda
Bruckner passes through the entire spectrum of tonality; there is no
key that he does not suggest in its sixty bars, but A is the only fixed
point and it is salutary to contemplate the unerring accuracy of his
draughtsmanship as he hovers round subdominant, tonic, dominant,
and submediant in bars 327-36, precisely half-way between the
beginning of the coda and its final mighty plagal cadence, in which
the drum makes a tremendous effect by playing a D for the first time. A
further contributory factor to the impression of enormous strength is
the fact that in this coda every single basic harmony, except for the two
bars penultimate to the final tonic, is a triad in root position.
In the Adagio, too, we find Bruckner at his deepest. The frequent
130 THE ES S E NC E OF BRU CKNER
Neapolitan inflexions of the first movement, beginning with the B flat
and F in the main theme itself, make it natural that the Adagio should
be in F, with an opening, moreover, that seems to be at first in B flat
minor. Like most of Bruckner's largest designs, the first movement
has a huge range of modulation, but it is worth noting that the key of
F is rarely more than hinted in it, and never once established. Yet the
first cardinal move was in that very direction, when the dominant
seventh of F was turned into a German sixth in E minor just before the
second group began. So the sound of the Adagio is both related to and
contrasted with that of the first movement. Here we explore a world
on which windows have but briefly been opened, but which we have
known was always there. In such ways it is that each successive move
ment of a mature Bruckner symphony is like a layer uncovered.
This movement is one of the largest and most perfectly realized slow
sonata designs since the Adagio sostenuto of Beethoven's Hammerklavier
sonata. It is often played too fast ; it will both withstand and reward
the slowest playing that artistry, technique, and courage can afford.
The feeling is elegiac, and the first great phrase of the main theme
begins in the shadows of B flat minor, moving towards the light and
the dominant of F major :
EK 6
�hr Jci�lieh
ll��.?a ! i'l. l oJ 0J I i. ffi�!J I

It is joined by haunting oboe phrases :
E.11. 7 (bar5)
'i :i'lih·i)11'wt{1i&l'r
1 C �� MJ
The first phrase is of four bars ; then, when Ex. 7 begins, two two-bar
units move into two of one bar each. This creates tension without
destroying the magistral growth of the line, and the music broadens
again to a climax at bar 1 3 , with F major now affirmed. The violins
take up the dejected rhythm of Ex. 7 as it falls away from the climax;
then solemn descending motives derived from Ex. 6 (b) sink into dark
ness. The whole vast melody (for such it is) seems about to close in F,
SYMPHONY N O . 6, IN A MAJ O R IJ I
when the horns make a deliberate modulation in the unforeseen
direction of E major {this is not Bruckner's favourite transformation of
the dominant seventh into a German sixth, as it might very well have
been, but a much more solid modulation that prepares the ear for E
as a new tonic ; yet it is less conclusive that it would have been with
dominant preparation, for he uses instead diminished harmony over
a subdominant pedal-originally the third in the key of F-thus making
a very beautiful and pathetic plagal cadence). The sense of sorrow is
greatly softened by the lovely new counterpoint of themes that now
sings in E major :
This exquisite music docs not stay in E major. It burgeons in a C

major climax and, instead of slipping back to the dominant of E (as
such apparently Neapolitan harmony normally would), C major
remains floating in the air. It is the orthodox and most natural key for
the second group of an F major sonata movement, but it is approached
in the finest imaginable way ; at the same time we have yet another
distinguished example of the Schubertian-Brucknerian second group
that contains its own transition. The light of C major fades slowly,
and in time there comes another new theme, a grieving funeral march
in C minor, with an expressive A flat major tinge :
E" 9 (ba"53)
lJ�iJ.aJJ l i_itJ.]iV�·t161r•�@®"i"'
It drifts away from C minor, and at bar 69 the immensely broad
development begins with Ex. 6 (a) in A flat minor, its descending bass
now above it in the woodwind. In inexorable stages it climbs until it
reaches the home dominant with the natural melodic sequel, Ex. 6 (b)
(bar 75). But though the recapitulation is already suggested, the oboe
(which has a marvellous part to play in this movement) turns the music
into B flat. Here the inversion of Ex. 6 (a) is in the bass, in free canon
with bassoons and clarinets, and with an aspiring new line on the
violins. Feeling rises as the harmony clouds, and with remarkable
simplicity and economy a climax of some intensity is generated, no key
being fixed, with the inversion of Ex. 6 (b) in the bass. It leaves the tail
of Ex. 6 (b) (inverted) floating in space with wisps of appoggiature in
clarinet and oboe above it, and the air is desolate as the oboe is left
alone (bar 92).
Now the recapitulation begins, with characteristic movement in the
violins as the great theme returns on the horns. The descending bass
pulsates darkly, and it is very touching to hear the way the last lone
cry of the oboe proves to have been an anticipation of Ex. 7. The whole
complex of Ex. 6-7 is now caught up in a crescendo-diminuendo para
graph of the highest tragic grandeur whose threnody seems almost
irrevocable-until the pall of F minor vanishes; Ex. 8 in F major,
sweeps all the grief away. It will be remembered that when this theme
first came in E major, the modulation was unexpected, and the E major
itself proved part of a transition to C major, then minor with Ex. 9.
This time it is in the tonic, and its inevitability is such that the whole
great troubled paragraph before it seems to have been only its prepara
tion. There is now no question of the second group having its own
internal transition; this is unequivocally the home key. Yet the same
climax occurs, now in C sharp major (which is to F what C was to E
in the exposition), but its sequel is now Ex. 9 in the tonic F minor
instead of C sharp minor, and this retrospectively gives it new meaning.
The whole restatement of the second group is thus given a fresh func
tion, and it would be cruel to make the cut suggested in the first
publication-from the end of the first-group paragraph (bar 1 12) to
the return of Ex. 9 (bar 1 33). Tovey says, "Reluctantly, perhaps on
Bruckner's part, certainly on mine, the orthodox recapitulation . . . is
shortened at the composer's suggestion". It was Hynais's suggestion,
not Bruckner's ; the composer could scarcely have been more reluctant
to accept it, for he was dead at the time.
The fine-drawn consolatory coda is one of Bruckner's best. Ex. 9
having moved away from F minor on to the dominant of D flat, the
little semiquaver figure from Ex. 8 restores the home dominant, rises
to an impassioned moment in A flat (bar 145), and eventually eases
into the main theme, at last in a serene F major. This ultimate stage is
among Bruckner's wisest and tenderest utterances. Although it is
entirely his own natural voice, it is moving evidence that he has.taken
Die Meistersinger to heart. The sanity and kindliness of the music is
Hans Sachs's as well as Bruckner's.
The Scherzo is quite unlike any other by this composer, slower than
usual, often shadowed and muted, but sometimes brilliant with flashes
in the dark. It is in A minor. Frequently it has been said to anticipate
Mahler, especially perhaps the middle movement (marked Schattenhaft)
of his Seventh Symphony ; I am inclined to think that while Mahler
may well have been influenced by Bruckner's piece (he did, after all,
conduct it) there is really little in common between the two. Mahler
may certainly look back at and be stimulated by certain aspects of
Bruckner, but there is nothing in this Scherzo that looks forward to
the nightmarish quality of Mahler's inspirations. It is mysterious, but
rooted in calm. Its steady 3/4 time is mostly pervaded by triplets, and
one gets the impression rather of 9/8 ; the basic triple time builds itself
into extremely broad four-bar pulses, so that the actual sense of move
ment is remarkably deliberate for a scherzo. Bruckner marks it Nicht
schnell and indeed it is really an allegretto. Quiet though much of it is,
and delicate, it nevertheless creates a sense of suppressed power. We
are out in the night with owls and blown leaves, and the sharp tiny
glint of unthinkably alien stars. We sense a soft drumming in the earth.
A door flies wide with a flare of light and din ; there is the smith and
the anvil. At all events, there is no nightmare in this music-only
wonder.
The deep simplicity of the structure is worth reflecting upon. In the
whole of the first part of the Scherzo there are but two bass notes, E
and A, and the first twenty large bars are on a dominant pedal. When
the bass moves at last to A it is not the tonic, but the bottom of a
6/3 chord of F major (bar 21). The bass sticks to A through dimin
ished harmony (bar 3 3) and then drops back to E when the first section
ends in E major at bar 43. So there has not yet been a single root chord
of A minor. Ex. IO shows the main theme over its dominant pedal.
The subdued development stays around D flat, G flat, and B flat
minor, all closely related to each other, but mysteriously remote from
the tonic. Then, with a stirring of ambiguous diminished harmony,
the home dominant is reached at bar 75. The recapitulation begins, as
before, over a dominant pedal. Still no root chord of A minor ! There
are alterations in detail, and now the music passes through the dominant
ofD flat (bar 89) before the blacksmith hammers on the dominant of A,
bending it powerfully into A major. So the recapitulation, compared
with the exposition, is extravagant in the matter of bass notes ; it has no
� io J
l'licht t;ch11&ll
t t t t
less than three, E, A flat, and A natural, and this last is the first root
chord of the tonic in the whole piece.
The Trio is something utterly indescribable ; Tovey again, perhaps
"Strange pizzicato chords and rhythms introduce the three horns of
Beethoven's Eroica Symphony into the Urwald of Wagner. The violins
pronounce a solemn blessing in their cadences." To this I would add
that Beethoven and Wagner are also introduced to the main theme of
Bruckner's Fifth Symphony, and express their astonishment when
shown what it is like upside down. The impassioned magic of this short
C major movement is not like anything else. We can analyse it as
meticulously as we like, but will not be able to explain why in every
detail the unexpected is inevitable, and the inevitable totally un
expected. One of Bruckner's favourite harmonic gambits has some
thing to do with it ; the opening pizzicati seem to be on the dominant
of D flat, but the horns imperiously insist that this must of course be a
German sixth in C major :
EK 11
l.G"9�"'
. pi&�
·�1 t
·t�;cqttrt�!'1ll
• b
fH.a 1
!
SYMPHONY N O . 6, IN A MAJ OR 135
Whereupon the woodwind opt for a compromise with the theme

of the Fifth in A flat, but the horns tum stubbornly back towards C
and gain the acquiescence (or solemn blessing) of the strings-that is,
until they immediately remember the pizzicati on the dominant of
D flat. So we go through the same motions again, to end the first
part. The second part seems to favour the direction of A flat and D
flat, but as a crescendo rises there is intense feeling that C major should
after all be the right key. It stimulates a poetic debate that finally brings
the committee back to the original exchange between pizzicati and
horns. This time the woodwind give their inimitable rendering of the
theme of the Fifth upside down-but they still like A flat. It slightly
shakes the opinion of horns and strings, but the latter find that C
major is really all right. Everyone is compelled to agree that this is
proper preparation for the return of the Scherzo.
In the chapter on the Fourth Symphony I tried to give some idea of
the kind of finale Bruckner was instinctively aiming at (see p. 94). We
saw in the ensuing analysis how in that symphony the solution to the
problem was obscured by irrelevant sonata habits. In the Fifth he
triumphantly mastered a new kind of finale, aided by the vast fugal
development of much of the music and the generative power of them
atic combination. All this created in that mighty structure a momentum
of a sort unprecedented in symphonic music. But it is not quite the
type of momentum aimed at unsuccessfully in the finale No. 3 and No.
4 and totally achieved in that of No. 8. The last movement ofthe Sixth
shows a stage intermediate between these, but it is far nearer to the
success of the Eighth than it is to the hesitancy of the earlier works.
No. 6 does not demand so colossal a finale as No. 8, for its general
dimensions are smaller, but it is here that Bruckner, with an occasional
moment of puzzlement, first manages to reveal the new essence with
real mastery. The distillation of an essence must result in something
plainer than the brew from which it is distilled, and since, as we have
seen, this kind of Bruckner finale expresses the nature from which the
rest of the symphony has arisen, we must expect it to concentrate more
directly (or, better, more obviously) on vast slow motion, with a
corresponding reduction in elaboration of texture. On the other hand,
as we shall see, the tonal conflicts that underlie the invention in the rest
of the symphony are now to be laid bare-so in this sense the finale
is going to reveal a more complex situation ; but for this very reason
its textures must be simpler. Nothing essential must be concealed
beneath a decorative surface ; nor must the true nature of the progres
sion be hidden or smoothed over by well lubricated transitions. Empty
space must be part of the composition and it, too, must be so ordered
that the great momentum passes steadily through it. The placing of
block against block and mass against void must of itself create its own
comprehensively deliberate rhythm. The listener has to feel Bruckner's
sense of time, and there lies a snare for many; we all have different
built-in animal clocks, and some have more patience than others. But
it is possible to adjust such an internal clock-in fact we are all doing it
all the time, and can easily do so whenever we need or really want to.
Once we have found the correct adjustment, we are able to hear the
tick of Bruckner's and even to notice when it falters ; we shall surely
know when synchronization is achieved. Being then literally sympa
thetic, we are entitled to criticize.
The Finale of the Sixth (which must not be played toofast) begins on the
dominant of A minor with a severe theme that stresses the flat sixth (F) :
E,i. 12 Btt-st cl.och n�ht zo sc:h'14111
':*ffi \ iAte.lt��fF?U \ f Fffl

�
\J& \ii]3\ d.j..,
Nocturnal mystery pervades the air as Ex. 12 moves to the dominant

of D minor (bar 19), its flat sixth now being B flat. These two
"Neapolitan" notes (F and B flat) were also prominent in the main
theme of the first movement, and the tonalities ofF and B flat were basic
to the Adagio. They will be found to make deep and disturbing inroads
on the Finale. At the end of bar 22 horns and trumpets peremptorily
inject the sound of A major into the music, with startling effect, and their
interruptions engender a massively marching tutti in the tonic major :
£!( 1� (bQr 29)
r
l
(CL, ---
f.*n•ffr1
, li.H i_ ::,U fflbfT.�= ��·
===lJt ce> �
SYMPHONY N O . 6, I N A M AJ O R 137
At bar 37 the brass deliver another powerful theme, consisting
mainly of F and B flat:
EK. i4- (po... 37)
1',j fi I# • - I
�"
t J@h I J .. !:J .
.H &� .
B flat minor briefly becomes the tonality; then, with the aid of Ex.
Ex. 14 (a) dominates another tutti (bar 53) . The stiff-necked insistence
1 3 (b) Bruckner lifts everything back on to the home dominant, where
with which it closes by hammering the dominant chord is caused by the

force with which A major was invaded by the B flat minor of Ex. 14,
and the conductor who does not realize this will speed up here. A horn
is left holding an E that is still the dominant of A. But instead of the
tonic comes a typical Bruckner Gesangsperiode beginning in C major
(exactly the same relationship can be found in the Finale of No. 5,
letter B) :
E" 15(bar65' (..rinc.il'<'I jia.rl:.s o"I�)
p hU�rtret&nci.
This C major is neutral-it could be either the relative major of A

minor or the dominant of F. The childlike innocence recalls the
corresponding passage in the Finale of the Second Symphony, and
this is equally beautiful, though more easily disturbed. Like all such
episodes in Bruckner it moves in guileless two- and four-bar phrases
and soon begins to roam harmonically. It becomes a little introspective
and by bar 88 seriously considers the possibility of B flat. But this is
brightly contradicted by-of course-A major, in the next bar. This
turns to the minor and by a devious and exquisitely expressive route
returns the music to C major at bar 97. This time the tendency to
introspection causes clouded harmony (bar 105), and Ex. 15 (b) gets
138 THE E S SENCE OF B RU CKNER
caught in an irresistible crescendo on the dominant ofF. But the situation
is saved by the majestic entry of Ex. 14, augmented and inverted, on the
dominant of E (bar 125). It lets drop a new derivative-
before resuming its striving to assert E. Abruptly its efforts are cut off,
and a low F is heard pulsing quietly in the bass {bar 145). Over this,
Ex. 16 asks anxious questions, and with growing agitation searches
blindly for key after key. It drags the bass and the harmony with it,
bar by bar. At bar 1 56 it actually hits on E major but staggers on, still
confused. At last it finds the dominant ofE (bar 163) and holds pathetic
ally on to E major until bar 175.
But E major cannot now be convincingly established; the last quiet
shock ofF at bar 145 was too much for it. We must confess that it was
/
also a little too much for Bruckner's invention, for there is something
pedestrian in the labours of Ex. 16; but a fault of this kind is artially
forgivable, for unlike those in the finales of the Third an Fourth
symphonies, it is a slight lowering of inventive power rather than a
failure to grasp the nature of the artistic problem. And it is fortunate
that the laboured effect comes at a moment when it is at least not
inappropriate to the situation. The somewhat lumpish sound of this
passage can, moreover, be to some extent mitigated by bringing out
the rich sustained harmonies of trombones and tuba {bars 15 1-8) which
Bruckner himself has carefully marked sehr stark und breit; few perfor
mances seem to do this properly. But not much can be done about bars
167-74, and speeding them up impatiently is no answer.
E major, uncertainly seated, begins to sound like a dominant, and
with a natural reduction of the tempo Ex. 12 again hovers gloomily
in its original tonal position (bar 177). Ex. 16 asks more questions,
at first still on the dominant of A minor, then moving tentatively
towards either D minor or F major. Inevitably the uncertainty is for
the time being resolved in favour of F major, and philosophically
accepting the fact, the inversion of Ex. 12 sings calmly in the cellos with
broad serene harmonization, creating an atmosphere curiously antici
patory of Sibelius's Sixth Symphony. More warmth comes with a
turn to A flat (bar 203), C major (bar 207), and E flat major (bar 209).
SYMPHONY N O . 6, IN A M AJ O R 1 39
Movement gathers when the second violins play Ex. 12 (no longer in
verted) on the dominant of A flat minor (bar 2 11), but so does a sense
of foreboding. The brass answer powerfully with Ex. 13 (b) on the
same dominant. Softly and persistently the treatment of Ex. 12 con
tinues, rising in pitch and volume. The brass (bar 225) hit the
dominant of A with Ex. 13 (b), but increase the tension by immed
iately blazing out the same motive a semitone higher, on the dominant
of B flat. The tonal argument is still being hotly pursued. A horn
takes up Ex. 14 which can now, after the preceding developments,
clearly be heard as an inverted derivative of Ex. 12; it rises with it to
the dominant of E flat (bar 234). The heavy brass answer with the
second half of the theme, and screw up the tension still further
by authoritatively compelling it upwards, step by step, to the domin
ant of B flat. The music has already staved off an invasion from the
direction of F, at first by severe effort, then by philosophic per
suasion. What is the answer now to an obviously formidable
challenge from the other terrible twin, B flat?
The reply at first hesitates on the dominant of D flat, but then the
full orchestra defiantly crashes into a clear A major with Ex. 1 3 . The
effect of this is so overwhelming that a magnificently spacious tutti
is able to march unimpeded for forty bars. It is not, however, entirely
undisturbed, for A major's shock tactics in the face of B flat cannot
establish it beyond doubt. Soon it turns to D minor (bar 253), which
turns dominant minor to G minor, and then moves down through the
dominant of F minor to A flat (bar 261). At bar 265 there is a sudden
piano on the dominant of A, then as a crescendo grows, A minor takes
over (bar 269). The key of A is being consolidated. A minor shifts to C
major (bar 277), then D minor (bar 279), and then G flat major, which
is really F sharp (bar 281). The music has now climbed over the top of
A, and can easily descend to its dominant, which it does at bar 285.
All this listing of keys and modulations naturally makes appallingly
dull reading and gives no idea of the wonderful majesty of the music.
(I can see the reviewer fiercely writing, "To take your points in order,
yes it does and no it doesn't !", but we must not forget that he should
have no cause for complaint ; he is no ordinary reader and should
understand these things, not be bored by them. Let us waste no pity
on him, though it is regrettable that musical jargon is so deadeningly
unmusical and that there is no other way of describing how the music
works-a necessary task in the case of so frequently misunderstood a
composer as Bruckner.)
THE ES SENCE O F BRUCKNER
Fragments of the tutti fall slowly over what is now clearly the home
dominant, and come to rest. Then, in A major, Ex. 1 5 begins to sing
once more. Originally it appeared in a neutral, non-committal key;
now it gladly confirms the tonic. But it wanders as it did before and
eventually arrives at B flat, where it hesitates doubtfully (bar 330). All
is not well yet. A chord of C flat is suggested ; the horns hold it, waiting.
C flat is B, the dominant of E-pcrhaps this looks hopeful? So the
plaintive and rather hapless Ex. 16 timidly tries this possibility. It
gathers confidence, but the more it docs, the further astray goes its
aim. This figure is like Bruckner in Viennese society, it blunders about.
At bar 356 it stops dead, nonplussed in E flat minor. It starts again,
slowly (oboe and clarinet), and is actually staring uncomprehendingly
at the dominant of A. Once more it turns in the wrong direction, this
time becoming excited-but it is the dominant of F. The crescendo is
cut off (bar 370) on the edge of a precipice ; B flat minor is creeping
malevolently at the bottom of it (letter X). Ex. 1 3 again comes to the
rescue with a militant blaze of A major (letter Y), but the terrible fasci
nation of B flat minor is too much-again we stare over the fearsome
cliff at the thing below (bar 397). But no !-resolutely Bruckner turns
his back on it, and the A major sun is high in the sky as he strides
towards it (letter Z). At the end the theme of the first movement lends
its voice to the reassurance.
So ends this fantastic, almost surrealistic movement, leaving dark
questions unanswered. Despite the small flaws connected with Ex. 16,
it is a masterpiece of astounding originality, and if we want to have
some idea of the range that exists within Bruckner's consciousness, we
need only compare what this Finale expresses with what is to be found
in its predecessor in the Fifth Symphony. Even the faults here have
some point, for the gaucherie with which Ex. 16 is handled is in a sense
functional. This figure, incidentally, bears at times a close resemblance
to Ex. 7 in the Adagio, as if that pathetic motive, dignified in its own
surroundings, now is bewildered in an alien world. Is this too fanciful
an idea, or could Bruckner have meant that? So far as the structure of
this Finale is concerned, it is only too obvious that its various stages can
be interpreted by rule of thumb as those of a sonata movement : second
group, bar 65, development, bar 1 77, recapitulation, bar 245, coda,
some time after letter V-all very comfortingly easy, provided we are
willing to forget conveniently where the real tensions of the piece are
distributed.�They are in the extraordinary triangular conflict between
A on the one hand and f and B flat on the other, and in exploring the
SYMPHONY N O . 6, IN A MAJ O R
depths of so-called Neapolitan relationships Bruckner instinctively
arrives at an unprecedented form, in which elements of thematic
treatment and recapitulation are as inevitable as they are in most music
extended beyond aphoristic limits. Bruckner's instinct has now broken
through the barriers of his own prejudices, and it is not surprising if
he himself thought the Sixth his most daring work. Ofall his completed
symphonies it is the least conclusive, in the easy sense of the word ; yet
in it he comes to far-reaching conclusions about his own artistic consti
tution, and embodies them in a profound work of art.
CHAPTER VIII
SYMPHONY N o . 7, IN E M AJ O R
I T IS S O METIMES suggested that the Sixth Symphony, with its rich

ness of harmony and line and the refinement of its orchestration, is
more interesting as an anticipation of the Seventh (completed in 1883)
than it is in itself. Such a view is nonsensical, and is typical of the super
ficiality of much Bruckner criticism. It is true that No. 6 is in many
ways a new departure, in the respects just mentioned ; but whereas it is,
especially in its first three movements, a climax in Bruckner's mastery
of his own kind of sonata music, only one movement of No. 7 (the
Scherzo) is in true sonata form. The other three movements are evolved
along entirely individual lines, with a special functioning of tonality and
a spacing of calm and climax that is apt to peculiar purposes. On paper
the first movement of the Seventh looks like a clumsily formed sonata
design with its tensions in the wrong places, and was, indeed, once used
by H. C. Colles in this very way to demonstrate what a good composer
was Brahms by comparison with the inept Bruckner. Such semblances
may easily fool the routined critic ; a proper analysis of such music as
this must be conducted (a) with a completely accurate ear for tonalities
and the ability to relate (not merely rationalize) tonal experiences over
large stretches, and (b) with freedom from conventional a priori
concepts. The work must be followed from point to point with the aid
of a retentive memory for details intelligently observed and under
stood, and without reliance on impossible diagrams or misleading
ground-plans. The hoary legend that would have Bruckner an inspired
yokel still dies hard, and is a comforting substitute for hard thought and
careful observance. I hope thatin this book the legend is already showing
signs of wear, and if we want finally to see through it, the Seventh
Symphony (which is one ofBruckner's greatest and most original works)
should give us the opportunity. And there need be no fear that thinking
clearly and thoroughly about it will weaken the magic of its indestruc
tible beauty ; this is the most obviously beautiful of all the symphonies,
and its artistry is of the kind that can only gain power from scrutiny.
That the Seventh is so widely loved is evidence that the impression it
makes is direct. Its flowing melody and the intensity of its harmony are
finely matched, and the sound of its orchestra gives off a golden gleam.
In expression it ranges from exalted serenity to funereal sorrow, and its
S YMPHONY N O . 7 , IN E M AJ O R 143
last two movements are the most purely joyous Bruckner wrote.
Nobility speaks from every measure of it. We are about to examine it,
but let no one imagine that the subtleties we shall uncover have nothing
to do with the satisfying qualities the sympathetic but lay listener finds
in hearing the symphony. They have everything to do with them.
The vast mental, neural, and muscular complexities that underlie a
smile have not yet been analysed ; but everyone understands a smile, and
without these complexities (which are decidedly not mechanics in the
crude sense of the term) no smile could exist. Bruckner's music,
fortunately, does not have that kind of complexity {at least so far as
concerns the kind of analysis we are capable of) ; we can perhaps hope
to get from it the sort of satisfaction that might come from scrutinizing,
rather than merely reacting to, a smile. No analysis can make great
music out of poor, or dredge up subtleties without testing them against
their effects. The ordinary listener need not be afraid ; we shall not get
lost in subtleties-their effects are too powerful, even on the majority
who have no interest in trying to find out why. But the misunder
standings ofdecades have piled into a debt we must attempt to repay. So
to perdition with further apologies ; letus lookat the score withour ears.
The entrance to No. 7 {Bruckner's favourite string tremolo) leads to a
very lofty and light interior :
Eic i (bQ.r ?I)
tFtr 1 m 1 @ari - 1 --rrru

1J·ta � F
f'Oco o J"oco
!''t!Ei I -' ttllf11fftf lzIf qt"tl

el"IZSC
Notice how this magnificent arching theme modulates to the

dominant before slipping back to the tonic for a fully scored counter-
144 THE ES S E NC E OF B RU CKNER
statement. It is of the highest importance. The rich counterstatement
(beginning at letter A, bar 25)* shows the same tendency, but it is
checked by a beautiful cloudy elongation that finally settles on (not in)
the dominant. The distinction between being "in" or "on" the
dominant is a very real one, not always fully grasped by writers on
music. At the end of the first statement of the theme, in bar 23, we are
about to settle in the key ofB major, for Bruckner has modulated from
the original E major so decisively that the new key is about to take
possession as of right. Bar 24 shows how he has to get back to the first
tonic at the last moment, rather drastically. In other words, he has made
B major momentarily a new tonic. We are in it, and until the 24th bar
are expecting it to remain. Since B is the dominant of E, we speak of
being in the dominant. If we are on the dominant, it is functioning only
as a chord, not as a key, and feels as if it wants to fall back to the tonic.
At letter B in the score (bar 5 1) the note B docs not feel like a tonic ;
if the music were to stop there it would not sound like a close-we
would expect a chord of E major at the beginning of the next bar to
create a sense of rest. To be in the dominant is to be in a key : to be on
it is simply to have the sensation of a chord, or penultimate harmony.
To some readers this will seem elementary ; there are, however,
respected books on classical music which show no awareness of the
distinction, committing fiequent howlers.
What we are about to witness is a long process that is adumbrated by
this tendency of the main theme to modulate into B major. Through
out the whole first part of the movement B major takes over, as it were,
by stealth, in a manner remote from the muscular action of sonata.
At bar 5 1 the chord of B major is still a dominant, but with quiet
deliberation oboe and clarinet, supported by soft horns and trumpet,
bring in a new theme, and treat B as if it were a key :
EK 2 (bcl.. 51)
'�Fi §J Jilt ;ir:ll

i;. l+"s .- _,,,. _.
* Bar numbers and rehearsal letters refer to the Bruckner Society score edited
by Robert Haas.
SYMPHONY N O . 7 , IN E M AJ O R 145
As the quotation shows, B major becomes B minor (bar 52) and in
bar 53 loses its slender foothold. For the next 1 8 bars the music drifts
through a series of remoter harmonics, but returns to a chord of B
major at bar 69. The chord is a 6/4 (i.e. with F sharp in the bass} ; it
strengthens without establishing the influence of B. The flow grows in
confidence and the tonality is carried to the crest of a wave, then falls
into C major harmony, definitely felt as the flat supertonic of B
(bar 77, letter C). The phrase of Ex. 2 now has a new ending which
becomes absorbed in a short but lovely triple counterpoint :
EK 3 (bitr sn(princif>..l part'" onl�)
1.
The Neapolitan C major falls easily back into B major (bar 89),
which now shows a confidence that is not undermined by the "passing
keys", through which it moves almost at once. These occupy IO bars,
and at bar 103 the iron grip of a deep pedal F sharp settles the firm
entrenchment of B, toward which tonality a giant crescendo sweeps.
Throughout this process Ex. 2 has prevailed. The first big climax comes
with a sudden hush and a rhythmic new theme in B minor :
E.,r. 4- (belr iZ�)
Ii � �
&w• Elf o �t r t r 1 Bi O!e re r 1
· · · ·
11
THE E S S E N C E OF BRUCKNER
Passing through harmonies of F sharp minor, D major and minor,
and G flat major ( F sharp major), this rises quickly to a massive brass
=
fanfare, afterwards closing gently in B major. Ex. 4 and its sequel

should not be regarded only as a "third subject". Analysis often pays
attention to the themes without due regard to their function ; the
sudden change of character at this moment is caused by the release of
tension arising from the victory of B, and it provides, as well as a new
theme, a welcome change of movement. We shall find that when
Ex. 4 is recapitulated much further on in the movement, it serves an
entirely different purpose.
Outward resemblances such as the change from tonic (E) to dominant
(B) must not deafen us to the fact that such behaviour as we find in this
opening section is totally uncharacteristic of sonata. The slow
emergence of one key, by persuasion, from a region dominated by
another is a new phenomenon in the field of symphony, and the rest
of this movement will be heard to reinstate E major in a similar but
longer process. We shall find that E major, in fact, is not fully restored
until the end of the movement. During this process, material is bound
to be recapitulated ; such restatement is far from conventional, helpless,
or redundant, as we shall sec. Recapitulation is, after all, a prime
element in any large-scale form, whether its motion is sonata-like or
not. The assertion that Bruckner was haplessly fettered to useless
sonata formulae breaks down when it is understood that elements a
lesser master might have made into a clumsy development, restatement,
and coda are here welded into a single organic structure, the natural
consequent of the opening section. This movement is composed
against the background of sonata, but it is something new.
Two horns augment the closing notes of the last group (bar 163) and
a clarinet peacefully plays an inversion of Ex. 1 (a) in B major. An oboe
freely imitates it, gently supported by trombones. After a flute echo of
figures from the Ex. 4 paragraph, the mode becomes minor with
another entry of the clarinet-oboe-trombones combination. This time
the flute hints at the dominant of A flat, but a solemn inversion of Ex. 2
follows in D minor on cellos. It breaks off, and is heard again high in
the violins in E minor, at present not recognizable as the tonic minor.
The cellos take it up again in F sharp minor, whence it grows into a
grandly sustained cantabile with a trend towards E minor. F sharp is
soon shown to have been a supertonic harmony. Very definite
emphasis is laid on E minor by the abrupt but quiet interruption of
Ex. 4 in that key, on a solo flute (the basses playing a mirror inversion)
S YMPHONY N O . 7 , IN E M AJOR 147
(bar 219). Violins join with a new counterpoint. E minor is then
contradicted quickly by A minor, D major, D minor, C major, B flat
major, and A flat major. A drop to ppp finds the music waiting
expectantly on the dominant of C, then a beat' s silence is shattered by
a powerful outburst in C minor. The inversion of Ex. 1 (a) strides
grimly across the orchestra in an imitative passage that lasts for 16 bars.
When the irruption subsides, C minor is in firm control.
Here is a crucial incident that shows plainly the gulf between sonata
principles and those obeyed by Bruckner in this movement. He is now
approaching the moment usually construed as a sonata restatement.
Consider first the effect of this massive C minor passage, like a great
dam placed across a river. This dam does not create a swamp or even a
lake, for music is not water, but it postpones for a time a return of the
normal flow, and (in purely musical terms which we had better hastily
restore) it puts off indefinitely the establishment of the home key. In a
sonata movement on this scale such a passage would inevitably generate
the kind of tension demanding a long preparation for the recapitula
tion, which would come with the effect of a well planned uprising,
even if it were quiet. This does not happen here.
The music calms but there is no immediate change of key. The first
theme begins in C minor with euphonious echoes in the woodwind and
a gracious counterpoint in the first violins, and then it modulates to the
dominant of D (bar 257). In D minor the same thought recurs, now
turning in the direction of A flat. There is a crescendo-but the expected
A flat is magically supplanted by E major. The whole of Ex. 1 is now
stated for the first time since the outset (bar 281). E major is just
appreciable as the tonic because of Bruckner's strategic handling of E
minor before the big C minor passage (see bar 219). But its position is
far from solid. The intervention of C minor has given the reason for a
startlingly beautiful change of key and has greatly increased the
prospects of the movement as a whole.
Above the main theme floats its own inversion, and its second half is
enriched by swelling trumpets, a sound of such splendid majesty as
Bruckner rarely surpassed. As before there is a shift towards the
dominant. This time it causes the biggest crisis of the movement. The
integrity of the design is now at stake, and the B major-minor tendency
has to be curbed. Therefore the end of the theme drifts into dark
mysterious modulations ; flute, clarinet, and basses are heard through
high string tremolandi. This tilts the tonal balance in the opposite
direction, so that Ex. 2 has to sound in an E minor that feels like the
dominant minor of A minor. Its first 16 bars, newly scored, make the
same (transposed) harmonic journey as before. From bar 335 (E major
6/3 chord) two successive waves rise strongly to the very threshold of
B major. The challenge of B major is here so insistent that were
Bruckner to state Ex. 4 in E minor it would certainly seem to be in the
subdominant minor of B.
Originally Ex. 4 acted as the climax of a process. There is now no
question of that, as it cuts in with a quiet sense of purpose in a startling
G major. So the theme that so definitely confirmed the key of B on its
first entry is now the decisive means of contradicting it ; the impact of
G major is a force that B major cannot withstand. Through C major,
E flat, and G flat (which cannot now sound at all like F sharp !) Ex. 4
passes to A major, where it settles. There is a sudden pianissimo drop
down to a low E, clearly the dominant of A (bar 391).
Here is the final masterstroke-A is to E as E was to B, so all
Bruckner needs to do to restore E major is to state the whole of the
main theme for the third and last time, letting it start this time in A
major. It would automatically turn to E for the final blaze. But there
is never anything automatic about Bruckner's reactions, especially in a
work so mature as this. Instead he remembers that the expressive figure
(b) from Ex. l has rarely been heard, and he makes it sweep in a grand
arch over a dominant (E) pedal that slowly turns into a tonic. It is one
of the finest and most memorable passages in the symphony, and it
gives the composer the further advantage of reserving Ex. l (a) for
the last climax, rearing nobly in E major, fully established for the first
time since the beginnin g.
The plan of the first movement is thus divisible into two main parts,
the first fostering the slow evolution of B minor and major out of a
start that is not so much in as delicately poised on E major, and the
second seeing the subtle resurgence of the true tonic, not without
opposition from the pretender. When themes or thematic groups are
restated their functions are cunningly changed. Ex. l , instead of starting
a process, becomes almost imperceptibly absorbed into one that began
at bar 1 89, ninety-two bars earlier. Ex. 2, which at first was the means
of pointing the way to B major, later causes the final attempt of that
key to regain its sway (see the passage before letter T). Ex. 4, originally
the signal for the victory of B, eventually defeats it by a sudden entry
in G major and a modulation to A. Tovey was in a sense correct in
remarking that "it is Bruckner's misfortune that his work is put
forward by himself so as to present to us the angle of its relation to
sonata form". But we must take care to examine the music from angles
other than that we first notice, or the misfortune will be ours.
The Adagio, perhaps the most famous composition of Bruckner, is in
C sharp minor, a key which the first movement, with all its range of
tonality, avoids. This composer is always wonderfully circumspect in
his use of tonality. C sharp minor is one of the keys most likely to
occur in a piece in E major-yet its effect is carefully reserved for the
slow movement. The opening is a vast paragraph containing, among
others, the following three important elements :
E" 5
..... f<'"'�.!;.1..""
�
•'•Ii cf
"lo.' ,..tYbo.S
c:re&c
BI e· ti 1t c;tf!ttltf
e�
�)
S&rftprct
I 3 dim
-
E" r(ba.-1�)
tlit
'1
irr @ 1{tdifr1�'Tr &11a.
cre�c: 1
Though the start is in C sharp minor, the tonality during this passage
moves slowly towards F sharp minor, a big climax being poised upon
its frontier. The tutti breaks off and a diminuendo leads solemnly to the
second half of the expository part of the movement, settled serenely in
F sharp major with a change of time and pace (Moderato) and a new
theme of remarkable beauty :
�
� 6 (ba,.37)
&H•i'· ft jj1Etttdilifii
......, _.
'I Cr4Z5C cL"111
&>ft §UiL I =·
1 50 THE ESSENCE OF B RU CKNER
The mood of this heavenly episode was anticipated only once by
Bruckner, in the Adagio of the First Symphony.* As it closes, the light
fades, giving way to the funereal strains of Ex. 5, again in C sharp
minor. At bar 85 the theme is deflected into F sharp, and the association
of this key with recent happiness seems to evoke the slow rising
passage that follows, since it is full of longing. It is based on Ex. 5 (a)
and its inversion, and moves towards a crisis, heralded by urgent
trumpet calls and reached at bar 101 with a striking tum to C major.
This has a bearing on later events. With a softening of tone Ex. 6
follows in the new key, finely scored for flute and strings. More rising
sequences involve a crescendo to the dominant of G. The expected G
major is foiled by a statement of the whole of Ex. 6 (bar 1 14) beginning
in E flat and leading naturally to A flat. Now comes a massive and
typically Brucknerian crescendo based on successive terraces, in which
Ex. 6 (a) enters in different keys and on different choirs of instruments.
By way of A flat major, E major, F major and F sharp major, the long
delayed G major is attained in what is so far the weightiest climax of
the movement (bar 127). G major, which sounds like the final stage in
the sequence of keys initiated by E major at bar 121 (rising by semi
tones), now dies away revealing itself as the dominant of C. The
suggestion of C, however, is but momentary, and the surprising
appearance of Ex. 8 in A flat major shows that G major was not the end
of the total chain. The Moderato has here a darker colouring and the
theme is half concealed beneath a lovely new counterpoint (bar 133).
It is soon clear that A flat major is simply G sharp major, the home
dominant, from which impressive cloudy harmonies and hesitations
drift back to C sharp minor.
The return of Ex. 8 in A flat, besides being a satisfying and necessary
recapitulation, is thus a gigantic dominant preparation for the resump
tion of the tonic. Bruckner rarely repeats ideas for the purpose of mere
symmetry, but makes them perform organic functions in living forms.
His practice in the first movement is here carried further. He might
well have given another statement of Ex. 6 (a) in A flat ( G sharp) at
=
bar 128, moved at once to the tonic and written a complete (or slightly
curtailed) restatement of Exx. 5 to 8 inclusive, following it by a suitable
coda. This would have made a vast but obviously ungainly sonata
rondo, and would have been the sort of composition for which
Bruckner is often blamed by cursory critics. But, as we shall soon
sec, a further repetition of Ex. 6 (a) in A flat would, apart from
* See p. 36.
its redundancy, ruin the still larger plan in the composer's mind.
The tonic brings back the main theme surrounded by flowing string
figures. The complete Ex. 6 follows and mounts in one of Bruckner's
greatest crescendi, growing with vast slowness into an awesome climax.
Again, as in the earlier crescendo passage, a sequence of keys is employed,
different and even more striking. From bar 164 onward it runs-F
minor to A flat, F sharp minor to B flat, G sharp minor to A, D flat to
E flat, and B major to the dominant of C sharp. Here the tension is
immense. The G sharps in the bass change to A flats, and with a thrilling
shock the music streams out in a shining C major. It is at this point
that the disputed cymbal crash appears in the first published score of the
symphony. The Seventh did not undergo such drastic revisions as some
of its companions, but there arc many minor discrepancies between the
final autograph and the first printed edition, most of which may be
safely put down to other hands. Haas removes the cymbal stroke and
the parts for timpani and triangle at this place on the strength of
a handwritten note gilt nicht (invalid) on the part ; it is now
disputed whether the writing is Bruckner's or not. There is no question
that the three instruments were added as an afterthought at the sugges
tion of Arthur Nikisch, and there is also no question that the very
similar effect at the corresponding place in the Adagio of No. 8 is
authentic. Few who have been thrilled by the cymbal crash are likely
to want to part with it, and I see no reason to do so-though I could be
persuaded to do without the triangle, both here and in the Eighth.
It will be remembered that the previous high point in G major
{bar 127) showed signs of leading to C, but was prevented from so
doing by Ex. 8 in A flat. The present higher peak stands in brilliantly
clear relation to the other, as also to the still earlier emphasis on C
major (bar IOI ) . But the final denouement is to come. As the G major
tutti was followed by a soft A flat major, so this C major shows itself
in a similar light, and the quiet reaction is in D flat major, which is
really C sharp, the tonic major. The marvellously controlled lingering
coda is threefold. First, major turns to minor with a noble utterance of
tubas and horns, based on Ex. 6 (a), cavernous and grand. Then
follows Ex. 7, not heard since its first appearance, now no longer
aspiring but ethereal and remote, floating high above a wonderful
intermittent pizzicato bass C sharp. Last, Ex. 5 (a) emerges for the first
time in the tonic major. The coda was not composed, as is often said,
in memory of Wagner ; it was, however, the thought that Wagner had
not long to live that was its source. Anyone familiar with Bruckner's
152 THE ESSENCE OF B RU CKNER
Te Deum, written in the same period as the Seventh, will quickly
recognize Ex. 6 as strongly resembling the non confundar.
The Scherzo is in A mi.ii.or. Again Bruckner's strategy is effective,
for this key, touched but once (and fleetingly) in the first movement
and not at all in the Adagio, makes a strong impression. Significantly,
the two other important keys in this third movement have previously
had little prominence. C minor, in which the first stage of the Scherzo
ends, has not been heard since its huge outbreak in the first movement,
and F major, the key of the Trio, has hitherto existed only as an unob
trusive member of a few short key sequences. The freshness of the
Trio, moreover, is made doubly sure by the strict exclusion of F major
from the Scherzo, of which the succinct start states its complete
thematic matter :
Cl
At bar 29 there is a quick shift to D flat, the first of a series of

kaleidoscopic changes lasting for 24 bars. Then the dominant of C
minor is reached (bar 53), and after some preparation C minor itself
drives home a very massive climax. The absence of distinct first and
second groups does not prevent this section from being a terse sonata
exposition, as usual in Bruckner's scherzos. The development shows
more swift modulations, beginning softly in A flat with (a) followed by
(d). A repetition of this in G flat leads to inversions of (b) in A major,
C sharp major, and E minor, the two latter keys being enmeshed in a
stretto by contrary motion. The strings are meanwhile busy with
derivatives of (a). Next come treatments of (d) and its companion (e).
Both these ideas become quite changed in character, passing through
many modulations, inversions, and contrapuntal combinations before
entering D flat, whence the trumpeting figure (b), in stretto withitsown
inversion, careers to the home dominant. The first horn and subsequently
a trumpet display a free diminution of (b) (bar 165). The recapitulation,
coming after a hush (bar 185), is regular. Its first move is to B flat instead
of D flat, and the final climax thus fixes A minor. With all its breadth,
variety, and unity, this piece fills no more than four minutes.
The slower Trio, elegant and rich yet open-hearted, is in binary
form since its first part is incomplete, starting in F after some intro
ductory drum taps and ending with a delightful surprise in D major.
The second part is begun by an inversion of Ex. IO (a). Bruckner is
very economical, rarely leaving this phrase, and treating it with
Ex iO
fsB� I J k.Jd d,",..,

•
delicate resource. The return to F major finds the original melody

soaring before it finishes gently with flowing flute figures.
The Finale blends solemnity and humour in festive grandeur. It is
unique in form and difficult to describe despite the directness of its
address. The tonal organization is as subtle as it is everywhere else in the
symphony and, as in the first movement, the main theme foreshadows
by its modulation the key-system to follow :
E>c il
Be'lll<Zg l: docli nicht cchnd
�
t'IJ l'��-!!1?'.!f"U I J;ptm®r·JI! Iz z
(I>)
t. (b)
w Jj··ID11ij �-w 1'f·1w1Q19J Jy

-
•
154 THE ESSENCE O F BRU CKNER
This moves almost at once, as shown, from E to the key a major
third higher, A flat. The next bar ( 10) cancels this by asserting E minor,
whereupon the theme begins again in the dominant, B major. It now
modulates with another crescendo to B flat, whence it starts once more.
Then come two more steps to major mcdiants, B flat to D major, and
D to F sharp major, leading to a bold progression which, rising, hits
the dominant of G flat (G flat being really F sharp). All this sounds
fearfully involved and academic, so we must observe that everything
is in the highest of spirits. Before the music can settle in F sharp alias
G flat, it subsides on to the dominant of F (bar 33). Instead of F major
(or minor), however, there is a gorgeously modulating chorale,
commencing in A flat major and thus consolidating the first change in
Ex. I I from E to A flat (this still makes aural sense even after all the
intervening changes) :
,.,
cl.i""
The chorale appears to modulate casually, but it is properly centred

on A flat, which is soon confirmed by Ex. 1 3 in a return through the
dominant of F. The resumption of Ex. 12 occasions a small rise in
temperature that falls to the dominant of A. At this, the first tutti of
the Finale bursts out in A minor with the following Herculean
derivative of Ex. I I (a) :
A recurrence of this a semitone higher launches a great striding

passage that stamps through F minor, B flat minor, A minor, and the
dominant of D minor, culminating in two powerful brass fanfares on
the successive dominants o f G and A flat. It looks as if this cardinal
stage is going to end with a climax in A flat, which is perhaps what we
should expect in view of the modulation of Ex. 1 1 and the key of the
chorale. Ex. I I (b) does in fact enter in A flat, but its very nature
compels it to rise to its major mediant, C major. After a short-lived
effort by A flat to retake control {bars 1 I 7-27) , the music dies away
mysteriously in a C major that is not perfectly sure of itself, being not
quite free from its earlier associations as the dominant of F {refer back
to bar 3 3). Ex. I I {b) is changed into a new figure :
E11. .i5 (bQ... H3)
t•I•�Wnifiil 1 � -----i
ti
At present the three most important keys asserted have been {i) the
tonic, E major, {ii) A flat major, and (iii) C major. They are clearly
connected as a series of major mediants. Of the three, A flat has been
most emphatic, E major least. Bruckner immediately illuminates the
relationship by giving a soft free augmentation of Ex. 15 in A flat and
repeating it at once in E major {bars 147-62) . The threads are being
drawn more closely. The tonic and its environs are now entered. At
bar 163, in the subdominant minor, there is a humorously simple
inversion of Ex. 1 1 ending in A major and overlapping with an equally
playful inverted diminution of the chorale, whose second phrase is
placed on the home dominant. Then Ex. I I appears in E major in stretto
by contrary motion, threaded by a quaver counterpoint. A tendency to
strain after A flat is checked by a crescendo, and a second tremendous
tutti on Ex. 14 makes a forcible entrance in the dominant minor. The
counterstatement of its first phrase lands on the border of A flat (bar
198), for which the influence of the tonic now proves too strong. Its
E flat becomes D sharp and the rest of the fortissimo stalks gigantically
around home territories, crashing into a terrific unison on the dominant
of E {the notation in flats does not deceive the ear). There is a silent
pause.
The echoes of the titanic sound have scarcely died when the chorale
begins in C major. The melody is so shaped that this time its second
phrase modulates smoothly to F major. Strictly the third phrase would
follow on the dominant of G, but it continues in F, thus emphasizing
the original habit of C major to behave as the dominant of F. Any
THE ESSENCE O F BRU CKNER
pretensions C major might have had being nicely disposed of by this
tiny bit of dialectic, the theme becomes its old modulating self again
and Ex. 13 falls into the homely subdominant region of A major (over
a pedal E). Slight tension is raised by the intervention of the dominants
of F and A flat, but they are amiably kicked out by Ex. I I (b) in A
major {bar 247). This is the start of what would be a mighty coda if
this amazing movement were neatly divisible. The theme, on the edge
of F sharp, is gloriously crowned by the brass {bar 251). It emerges
unscathed, travelling in the direction of A flat, and is swept up by
another thunderous tutti, driving towards the submcdiant. At bar 267
there is, perhaps, a reminiscence of the Fourth Symphony, blazing out
in E major. After a fiery contrapuntal combination in C sharp major
there is a furious hush and Ex. 1 1 leaps out in the tonic, which key is
now unmistakable. As at first it rushes to A flat, the brass crowning it
again ; it restarts for the first and only time in A flat major, modulating
now to G {this corresponds to the move from B major to B flat in bars
I I to 19). The orchestra is wonderfully vivid as the theme flashes in
many brilliant shapes towards the home dominant ; when it arrives
there the astonishing mass of tone is abruptly cut off. Then the main
theme, merging with Ex. I (a) (from which it is obviously derived),
resounds in the vast spaces of E major as, with golden fanfares, it rings
the final majestic climax.
It would be a pleasure to be able to answer the simple question
"What form is it in?" instead of having to describe this astounding
finale in such complicated narrative. But its unique organization is
describable only in its own terms and if we arc to feel its immense
cogency and the utter originality of it we must give up the comforting
prop of any familiar yardstick. Many attempts have been made to
analyse this piece in conventional terms with "modified" this and
"telescoped" that, "truncated" this or "extended" that, all of them
laughable. The basis of the movement is the idea of major mediant
connections between keys, and the attempts of two competitors to oust
the rightful tonic. The form that grows from this is the resultant
of three tonal forces acting from different directions, one of them strong
enough to dominate the outcome, but not strong enough to maintain a
simple course by sweeping the others out of the way. The piece evolves,
and along no familiar lines, though the fact of key-conflict itself derives
from sonata. This and the first movement show a view of tonality that
foreshadows the profound achievements of a later symphonist, Nielsen,
in whom no trace of Bruckner's influence can be found.
SYMPHONY N O . 7 , I N E MAJOR 157
The kind of structure we find in the Seventh benefits greatly from
steadily maintained tempi, so that the evolution of the tonalities may
unfold itself naturally and clearly, without distraction. This is especially
true of the first and last movements, where the processes depend on a
relatively undisturbed pulse ; in both it is perfectly possible to find a
main tempo from which deviations shall be no more than normal
flexibilities, so that the basic rhythm is never lost. It is worth while
mentioning the matter because there is some confusion between edi
tions. Robert Haas, in preparing the first publication of the original
in 1944, removed all performing instructions not unequivocally in
Bruckner's hand. This resulted (particularly) in a first movement
virtually in a single tempo and a finale similarly constituted and freed
from the somewhat disruptive persistent ritardandi that, once having
been applied to the tail-end of the main theme, recur with monotonous
predictability in the earliest printing (Gutmann, 1885). Most of these
amendments were restored by Leopold Nowak in his edition of 1954
on the grounds that they were "based undoubtedly on instructions" ;
in support of this theory Nowak quotes a letter from Bruckner to
Nikisch saying "in the score there arc many things of importance and
frequent changes of tempo not noted". Nowak concludes that there
fore "the enigma of these entries is solved . . . one of the very rare
cases where in addition to the autograph, verbal instructions by
Bruckner can and must be considered, because they are substantiated
by letters".
It seems to me that no argument, however ingenious, can prove that
specific tempo modifications at particular points in the score are
authorized in detail by Bruckner's remark to Nikisch. For all we know
he may have meant that he did not want metronomic rigidity, which
would certainly destroy the expressiveness of the music. If Bruckner
issued instructions to Joseph Schalk, where is the kind of evidence a
purist musicologist ought to insist upon? It is surely impossible that
such detailed instructions could have been merely verbal ; if they were,
we may be sure, knowing the Schalkian genius for re-interpreting
Bruckner, that the instructions were not taken very literally. The verbal
instructions assumed by Nowak might just as easily have taken place
in some such conversation as this :
Schalk : You don't want absolutely rigid tempi, do you?

Bruckner : No, of course not.
Schalk : Right-leave it to us . .
158 THE ESS ENCE O F BRUCKNER
Such an exchange might have taken place before J. Schalk and Franz
Zottrnann played the first movement and Scherzo on two pianos in
1 883 or when the same Schalk and Ferdinand Loewe played the whole
symphony a year later. What these gentlemen did on the piano could
very well be what we find in the Gutmann score (the proofs of which
were read by Joseph) and in Nowak's "restoration". As always in such
cases we must use our musical judgment: the structure shows (in my
view decisively) that Haas acted correctly. The trouble with written
tempo fluctuations is that they inevitably get exaggerated in perform
ance ; their presence in a case like this is more dangerous than their
absence, for no sensitive conductor is going to march metronomically
through Bruckner's music, while the insensitive ones will make
grinding changes of gear at every apparently authorized excuse.
Not wishing to labour the point, I will mention but one especially
pernicious example in the first movement, where the indications of the
first edition can lead to an obscuration of the structure. In the Gutmann
score (also in Nowak, Universal, and Eulenburg) the great C minor
outburst at bar 23 3 is marked molto animato, and this usually leads to a
violent acceleration of tempo that not only robs the passage of its
majesty and spaciousness but also creates the problem of where and
how to get back to the original quieter motion (for there is no cancella
tion indicated). Most conductors who observe this direction choose
to return abruptly to the original speed at bar 281, obviously thinking
thereby to emphasize an orthodox sonata recapitulation. But this is to
share the delusions of those who complain that the movement as a
whole is clumsy in its treatment of sonata. The real inevitability and
flow of the process may be preserved only by getting rid of such
automatic responses and by allowing the E major at bar 281 to float
in unobtrusively, without the emphasis of a change of pace, to be
confirmed gradually by everything that happens afterwards in the
movement. The C minor passage gains enormously in both aptness
and power ifit is sustained by the main tempo, and what follows it then
comes naturally.
CHAPTER IX
SYMPHONY N o . 8, IN C M I N O R
THE PREMIERE O F the Seventh Symphony o n December 30th, 1 884,

under Nikisch in Leipzig was Bruckner's first taste of real success
significantly, outside Vienna, where he had received little but dis
appointment. He was sixty. In the following March Hermann Levi
performed No. 7 in Munich, another notable triumph. Bruckner's
satisfaction was complete when Ludwig II of Bavaria accepted the
dedication. Even so, when the Vienna Philharmonic (which had not
always been kind to him) wanted to follow these successes with a
performance in Vienna, the composer begged them to refrain, for fear
that the Viennese critics (and Eduard Hanslick in particular) would
undo all the advantage gained in Germany. He was right concerning
Hanslick; when the work was eventually done in Vienna in 1 886
(under Richter) the enthusiasm of the audience did not prevent that
egregious critic from describing the symphony as "sick and perverted",
or from quoting such adverse comments as he could extract from
German newspapers in the hope of dimming any impression that
Bruckner had had a triumph in Germany. Hanslick's minions, Kalbeck
and Dompke, were positively abusive.* Bruckner would normally
have been badly upset by such things, but his reputation was now
growing in the outside world, the Seventh was being widely played,
and he had the encouragement of several distinguished conductors who
believed in his genius. Among these was Hermann Levi, whom he
called mein kiinstlerischer Vater; what more natural than that Levi
should be the first to see the score of the new Eighth, which Bruckner
had finished in September 1887, after three years of work? And what
could have been more shocking to the composer than Levi's rejection
of it? Although the news was broken tactfully to him by Joseph Schalk,
Bruckner was brought to a nervous crisis verging at times on mental
breakdown.
Levi's sincerity is not in doubt. He certainly found the new
symphony bafflingly different from the E major work he genuinely
* I am reminded of the de haut en bas attitude of some critics after a recent per
formance of Havergal Brian's magnificent Gothic Symphony, when a packed
Albert Hall was the scene of one of the greatest standing ovations for many years.
160 THE ESSENCE O F BRU CKNER
loved, and failed to come to terms with it. In his defence it must be said
that the score was not the one now known ; it was the first version, still
unpublished. Levi was not one of those who constantly badgered
Bruckner to revise his music. He even warned him not to alter the First
Symphony too much, and was full of praise for the Linz score of it.
Nevertheless, this fright undoubtedly caused the revision of No. 8 in
188HO, which included a new ending for the first movement, a
completely new Trio, structural alterations in the Adagio, some cuts
in the Finale, and considerable re-scoring. It is this version that must
be regarded as definitive, though there are some dubious points that I
shall discuss in the course of analysis: they concern the differences
between the score published under Robert Haas's editorship in 1939
and that edited by Leopold Nowak and issued in 1955, both printed
by the International Bruckner Society. Nowak has removed some
passages which Haas included from the first version of 1887. From a
purist musicological point of view Nowak's position is unassailable, but
there are artistic reasons why the matter is worth discussing-these will
emerge whenever we reach the relevant places in the symphony. We
must be clear that Nowak's edition represents all that can be divined
from Bruckner's own hand. Despite this (as we have learned only too
well) we cannot be sure how much of what he wrote himself (or, more
to the point, excised himself) is the result of external pressure. The
demands of the musical structure must be our guide whenever we are
not certain.
Within Bruckner's ethos (which is much wider in scope than is often
supposed) one cannot find two works more contrasted than the
Seventh and Eighth symphonies. No. 7 is poised and fundamentally
relaxed, for all its tonal intricacy and originality; like the Second and
the Fourth it is an expression of elevated content in the making of
music. The sweeping dramatic force of the Eighth is almost new in
Bruckner. No whole work anticipates its character, not even the Third,
the most dramatically inclined of the earlier symphonies. The Fifth
has an immense inner tension resembling that of Gothic architecture,
and is dramatic as a totality rather than as a process ; there is nothing in
it that quite suggests the dark sense of crisis that fills the first movement
of No. 8. The Eighth is the first full upshot of matters hitherto hidden
in undercurrents and only intermittently allowed to erupt. But it
evenrually reveals its true background in the Finale, the background,
in a sense, of Bruckner's life-work, a contemplative magnificence of
mind beyond the battle. This Finale is not so much a victory over
tribulation as a state that had to be found behind it, slowly and some
times painfully uncovered by the Adagio. But we shall come to that,
and must first go with Bruckner through the process of pacification
that results in its discovery.
It is to be well noted that the turbulent forces informing the first
movement compel Bruckner to final mastery of his own kind of newly
expanded sonata. Like all true and flexible artists, he bends method to
expressive purpose, and at his best he is consistent in so doing. The
main theme is given out in grim disquieting fragments :
- I
The tonality is at first obscure, suggesting B flat minor {or even D

flat until the fifth bar), and the mystery is deepened until as late as bar
22, when an expected close in C minor is foiled by the fortissimo out
burst of the opening F, now felt clearly as the subdominant of C. The
162 THE ESSENCE OF B R U CKNER
violent counterstatement reinforces the real tonic, C minor, with the
drum, but it is not allowed to close in that key and it softens in the
direction of A flat ; the music falls, however, on to the home dominant,
G major, at bar 5 1 . The appearance of a beautiful new theme in
Bruckner's characteristic mixed rhythm (derived from Ex. 1 (c) ) insists
that the ear accept for the moment G major as if it were an established
key :
E11 Z. (bo... 51)
br¥it 11nd. CWW" c.U"OM
ttjj 14ll� l!eµ.J IJJ.j !�!4 llfi'

1 � � c�.
F I•
This contains typical "passing keys" and swells out to an urgent
pronouncement of G major (around bar 70). But its basis is not firm,
and a new resumption of Ex. 2 has a different continuation, moving
into the clouded region of E flat minor, where a new threat creeps;
Mahler must have been strongly affected by this theme in the first
movement of his Second Symphony :
The menace quickly flares into an extraordinary outbreak ofjagged

downward slashes athwart fiercely dissonant trumpet blares. They
cease sharply, then a powerful crescendo culminates defiantly on the
dominant of E flat major (bar 125). The massive fanfares abruptly die
in vast spaces. A mysterious quiet, disturbed only by soft accents of the
first theme, brings about the immensely dramatic and spacious end of
the exposition in E flat major. The final resolution of the bass on to
E flat comes after one of the longest and most breathtaking cadential
preparations ever conceived (bars 125-39). Bruckner's masterly com
mand of pace in this remarkable exposition should be appreciated.
Without any alteration of tempo he contrives to compress his actively
dramatic passages into short spaces, leaving himself the freedom to
expand ; so he need not sacrifice his profoundly characteristic delibera
tion and breadth, even in a sonata movement of such disquiet as this.
So broad a preparation for E flat means that it must not be left too
soon. Accordingly, Bruckner stays rooted in it for no less than twenty
five bars of extreme hush, and long-drawn augmentations of Ex. 1 (b)
hang in the dark air. The obscurity grows with a tum to the minor
and then, with a soft move into G flat (marked by a striking entry of
of the contrabass tuba) the development begins at bar 165. Augmenta
tions and inversions of Ex. 1 (b) persist, proceeding with great majesty
from key to key. The harmony is of considerable originality, creating
dissonances of fearsome smoothness as it finds the full power of the
brass. All at once the sound disappears on the dominant of G flat
(bar 192) ; in G flat comes an inversion of Ex. 2. It does not stay there ;
after a slight rise in tension it slips very suddenly into intense pianissimo
preparation on the home dominant (bar 201). The recapitulation can
already be felt at a distance. This is not to say that its form is predict
able ; as we shall find out, Bruckner marks it with one of his greatest
strokes.
It will be remembered that the movement began in an alien tonality
and that although C minor was strongly thrust forward by the first
group, that key was never permitted to form any kind of conclusive
cadence. Power of suggestion was enough to impress C minor on the
mind as the real basis of the passage. Bruckner now recognizes the
clamouring fact that a full, sufficiently spacious and unequivocal
dominant preparation is the only thing that can restore the home tonic
firmly enough to balance and efface the vastly comprehensive establish
ment ofE flat at the end of the exposition. Presumably that is his object
as he now settles down to one of his own peculiarly cumulative
dominant crescendi, with an inversion of Ex. 2 in the violins,
205 et seq.) . No simpleton of the type sometimes portrayed as Bruckner

punctuated by Ex. 1 (a) deep in the bass at shortening intervals (bar
could have thought of the music as far as this point. Few geniuses, and
only the subtlest of these, could have thought of the stroke that now
follows. Having reached this dominant crescendo, most composers
would have been satisfied to reinstate C minor by means of the growing
excitement, with a plain (and probably impressive} statement of Ex. I
at the height of the climax, perhaps expanded in some way and almost
certainly chained to the tonic by a pedal, for it is by nature a modulating
theme. No doubt to point triumphantly to the essential banality of
such a scheme is to be wise after the event-but how, after such an
event as Bruckner's, can anyone be anything but wise? He allows the
dominant preparation to go on for 1 I bars, and then the bass (Ex. 1 (a} }
THE ESSENCE OF BRU CKNER
starts to rise by semitones. The violins slip weirdly from their pitch and
the horns become articulate (bar 212). In :five bars the music heaves
bewilderingly: then it finds a grip at bar 217 on the dominant of B flat
minor. The rising tumult sweeps in Ex. 1 (b) in the bass, augmented and
titanic, in precisely the same tonal position as at the start of the sym
phony, now combined with a free augmented inversion of Ex. 2
to make a colossal irruption of sound. Three times this mighty
combination rears itself; at the end of the third and most powerful
upheaval there is an abrupt pianissimo, with C minor fully established.
What is the real point of this tremendous passage? In effect the
composer says : "My main subject is a modulating one-it begins on
the dominant ofB flat minor and moves chromatically to C (Ex. 1 (b) ) .
If I were to recapitulate it in C minor, I would have to do one of two
things : (i) I could start it on the note G, whence it would move to D,
which could then be treated quite simply as the fifth of the dominant
chord, falling naturally by step to C, or (ii) I could flatten out the whole
theme into a mere rhythm without any kind of tonal ambiguity and
with plenty of elemental power. Of the two suggestions I would prefer
(i) since it is the more musically interesting : but it is unsatisfactory
because it fails to ram home what I wanted to show at the outset, that
the turn from B flat minor to C is not a full establishment of C minor,
in spite of its impressiveness. If I were to shift the theme up a tone, I
could without difficulty keep it within the bounds of C minor, as
already argued, but I should lose its most precious attribute, its tonal
restlessness. Why not make as if to bring about C minor by dominant
preparation and then undermine the whole idea by slipping on to the
old dominant of B flat minor, blazing out the theme in its original
form (augmented to increase its breadth) ? It will then move to its C,
which will demand further confirmation and thus urge me to state the
theme in immense steps until it crashes over upon the dominant of C,
leaving no more doubt about the tonality. Three such statements should
be enough, the middle one increasing the tension by being a minor
third above the first, and the third relieving it by being poised gigantic
ally on the home dominant. I shall thus have made the needed dominant
preparation with far more power and incident than if I had been
content with my first notion."
Whether or no Bruckner actually reasoned thus with himself (more
likely his intuitive genius took a short cut through any such chain of
arguments), this magnificent tripartite passage flings the shadow of C
minor across the 53 bars that succeed it. When it ceases, a solitary flute
is left hovering over a drum pedal on C with faint cavernous sounds
of the last four notes of Ex. I (b) in the bass ; between these extremes
soft trumpets enter with the bare rhythm of Ex. I (b) on the tonic.
Thus Bruckner makes a more telling use of this device (the reduction
of Ex. 1 (b) to its rhythm) than ifhe had relied upon it for the previous
climax. The bass figure slides into the upper strings and initiates
another crescendo, curving up into a great wave, through which the
trumpet rhythm may still be discerned. The reaction from this is a
quiet counterstatement of a new form of the main theme in oboe
(bar 282), clarinet (bar 286), and trumpet (bar 290), with a flickering
flute and string tremolando accompaniment (the oboe has the very form
of Ex. 1 (b) that Bruckner refrained from using in the most obvious
place, the form beginning on the note G; here it is carefully hidden for
a reason that will appear very much later in the symphony). At bar 29
the strings burst out with the last phrase of the theme, much as they did
at bar I 8, thus confirming the unity of the whole enormous expansion
of the first group from bar 224 to 302. During this subdued counter
statement (which contrasts with the loud one of the exposition) there
arc apparent modulations ; they do not affect the issue, and would
better be called inflexions.
As before, the expected close in C minor is turned into an alien
dominant, which now moves unexpectedly into the familiar region of
E flat and a fresh version of Ex. 2. After so spacious a design only a full
recapitulation of the second group is possible. Like Schubert, Bruckner
gives it with its thematic material largely unchanged, but with different
key-relationships. By this means he creates symmetry without
tautology. He also gives the restatement of the second group a new
meaning, for it is now part of the restoration of C minor, even though
it begins in E flat ; the fact is grimly confirmed by the apparition of
Ex. 3 at bar 341, in C minor. The tonic cannot now be undermined.
The fierce sequel leads directly to the coda, where is the most minatory
of all Bruckner's climaxes. The rhythm of Ex. 1 (which is, incidentally,
the same as that of the first theme of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony)
cuts remorselessly through the surging mass of the orchestra and the
most chilling moment is its sudden isolation on the brass, with nothing
but a thunderous drum far below it. At the end comes prostration,
collapse ; broken wisps of the main theme drift blackly out. Bruckner
called this coda a "death watch", and for once his description is apt;
it is the most frightening music he had yet imagined. The original first
movement ended fortissimo, like all such by this composer; the change
converted the piece into the greatest of its type since Beethoven's
Corio/an overture.
After human tragedy comes mysterious and titanic energy. For the
first time Bruckner places the Scherzo second in a symphony. If he
really wished to create here a portrait of the indomitable, clumsily
obstinate figure of Deutscher Michel (as he said), he completely dwarfed
it with music whose fantastic power suggests nothing so much as the
constant thud of a colossal celestial engine beyond even Milton's
imagining. The brilliantly imaginative use of string tremolandi gives the
sound a keen and chimerical glitter, and the trenchant main theme
pounds with the continuous reciprocating action of a mighty piston :
Like all Bruckner's scherzos this one (in C minor) is in a concentrated

sonata form without clearly defined first and second groups, and with a
development of comparatively reflective nature. The exposition ends
with a climax in E flat major, after which the main theme is inverted
legato, passing through a wide range of harmony and key, and giving
rise to much fine woodwind writing. The recapitulation is caused by a
settling on the home dominant (over a tonic drum pedal) and the horn
entry that began the movement. The final sledgehammer climax is
thrown into C major by a single change of harmony in the restatement
(compare bars 37 and 171). A stupendous piece-and its overwhelming
SYMPHONY N O . 8 , IN C MINOR
force is generated as much by the formidable regularity of its phrasing
as by its actual theme or the weight and perfect clarity of its
orchestration.
The Trio is a notable slow movement in itself, and its calmness is a
relief-the first period of genuine rest in the symphony so far. Its
refreshing quality is enhanced by the fact that its key, A flat major,
has not previously been established in either the first movement or the
Scherzo. It is also a compressed sonata scheme without separable
groups of themes, the exposition ending in E major, another tonality
that has hitherto been avoided. For the first time in his career Bruckner
uses harps, which he treats with delicate care ; the almost French
fastidiousness of the scoring in bars 3 3-44 should be observed-yet
the music is illllatcly Austrian. The recapitulation comes at bar 61 after
a succinctly expressive return through four solemn detached phrases,
and has a finely calculated alteration of key-relationships. The last
gentle restoration of A flat is achieved, with exactness and poetry, only
in the last nine bars. After this the Scherzo is even more impressive.
The highest tribute to Bruckner's power of subtle composition need
do no more than point out that the coherence of so immense a piece as
the Adagio of this symphony hangs to a great extent on a single chord.
This chord, moreover, is heard no more than four times during the
full length of the movement. It is not even an unusual chord, but a 6/ 3
triad. Such an assertion looks like hyperbole, but analysis shows that
without this chord, unobtrusively used though it is, the most important
passage (and consequently the whole plan) would lose its thread.
D flat major is the key of the Adagio. Like the keys of the Trio, it has
barely been touched upon earlier in the work and so is new to the ear.
The first theme, over faintly pulsing chords, has a strange air of
troubled detachment ; the two phrases shown in Ex. s appear in the first
ten bars :
Extremely important is the persistent D flat (becoming C sharp) in
the bass. It is intended to penetrate the mind, for it causes a compelling
harshness, almost coarseness, that characterizes the firstfortissimo chord,
underlying a loud aspiring phrase (bar 15). This is a 6/3 chord of A
major, with its root (the third, the C sharp) heavily doubled in the bass.
Now the most elementary student of harmony knows that a doubled
third, especially in the bass, results in an unpleasant roughness : one may
therefore be pardoned for wondering why Bruckner has been at pains
to double and redouble in the lower brass this dangerous note. The
answer is that he wants this chord to be peculiarly recognizable without
being complex or abstruse, as later events prove.
The reply to this is a marvellously sonorous string passage ; joined by

the brass, it rises to a seraphic series of chords for strings and harp,
resting at length on F major (bar 28). As if nothing had happened, the
opening D flat harmonies are heard again, and Ex. 5 (a) returns. Before
(b) can follow, the harmony changes to B major and once more Ex. 6,
with its singular scoring, asserts itself, now a tone higher than before.
Its noble sequel, duly transposed, ends now on a chord of G major
(bar 45). As the F major of bar 28 dropped a major third back to D
flat, so we expect this G major to fall to E flat, especially if we know
that the drop of a major third between tonalities is a favourite sound
with Bruckner. That this does not now happen is another important
factor in the cogency of the movement as a whole. Instead, an inter
vening horn leads to one of Bruckner's most beautiful ideas, beginning
in E major (Ex. 7).
As will be seen, the chief characteristic of this superb theme lies in its
tonal freedom, its refusal to be bound by any one key : its second
statement, starting again from E, moves to B minor instead of the
original F minor, and then leads to a profoundly calm tuba theme,
SYMPHONY NO. 8, IN C MINOR 1 69
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sounding remote depths as it passes from C major into F (bar 67). This
second section of the Adagio closes peacefully in G flat at bar 81, whence
a 14-bar link, composed of expressive woodwind derivatives of Ex. 7,
drifts back to D flat and the opening theme. The tonality throughout
the second group has been made purposely kaleidoscopic, for the
composer is determined that D flat shall be the only key to have furn
entrenchment ; the effect at the end of the whole Adagio is that the tonic
has never lost its hold. The very fact that G flat is the home subdomi
nant, rather than the dominant, makes the return to the tonic as
inevitable as if it were in a coda.
The renewal of the opening material brings about a very slow,
widely modulating crescendo, based entirely on Ex. 5 (a) and (b). As the
dynamics increase, the mood becomes gloomier, as if a fruitless search
is in progress ; the climax is approached with a certain dogged persist
ence that may not appeal to less patient ears. For once the owners of
such ears have my very real sympathy, for it must be confessed that so
far as the raising of climaxes in this great movement is concerned,
Bruckner has burdened himself with a disadvantage in the nature of
both (a) and (b) of Ex. 5, (a) being virtually a flat straight line, and (b)
a descending phrase of perilously languishing character, replete with
appoggiature, and rhythmically not really strong enough to be trans
formed by inversion. Neither has innate kinetic energy, both bear
down oppressively on the spirit and (b) climbs laboriously when
inverted ; one can interpret the fact positively or negatively according
to sympathy or lack of it. To me it seems that the growth towards its
climaxes of the Adagio of No. 7 is more inevitable, simply because the
thematic material generates of itself the natural requisite tensions.
THE ESSENCE OF B R U C K NER
Nevertheless, there is the undeniable fact that the crescendo we are now
considering rises to a heavily obstinate attack on a 6/4 chord of B flat
(bar 125) , then expires plaintively without finding the clinching matter
ofEx. 6. So its stubborn dolefulness is not without artistic justification,
and its real character may be appreciated only in the light of the whole
movement. The falling phrases lead now to the second appearance of
Ex. 7 and its train, beginning in E flat, with an effect doubly radiant
after the gloom from which it rises.
The significance of this E fl.at is simply that it is the very key in which
we expected the second group to begin at bar 47, when the music had
paused on a G major chord that had, it seemed, every reason to fall a
major third. If Bruckner defeats expectations it is usually because he
has some long-term reason, and if the term is too long for some
listeners, this is understandable; but the limiting factor is certainly not
Bruckner's. Phenomena such as this have their effect, as we have
observed before, even on the listener who knows not why. The second
group emerges almost complete : it is surely remarkable that this
section, apart from the coda the most serene part of the movement, is
tonally the most mobile. The orchestration is now enriched in various
ways, the end of the group truncated, and a new wistful continuation
forms a fine-drawn link to yet another return of the main theme in the
tonic. Now follows the crux of the whole.
As so often with the opening of a Bruckner passage designed to
create the last climax, the theme is now accompanied by a movement
of semiquavers and a number of more fragmentary embellishments,
some highly expressive. The tension begins to grow and at bar 197
the attention is powerfully caught by a fortissimo 6/3 chord of C major,
its E thickly, almost grotesquely, reinforced in the bass. At last, we
think, comes Ex. 6, for this is unmistakable. But it is merely the
beginning of a masterly delaying process and this one chord is
repudiated by a quick hush and some rising Brucknerian brass chords.
Four bars later comes another identically balanced 6/3 chord of E, its
G sharp heavily underlined at its root: the tension is doubled when this,
too, is silenced by a similar hush. A crescendo brings about a crashingly
urgent outburst of Ex. 5 (a).
At this juncture occurs the first of the cuts apparently made by
Bruckner, the passage having been restored by Haas from the first
version. It is a short one, but more than interesting. In the Haas score
the ff statement of Ex. 5 (a) at bar 205 is interrupted by another pianis
simo, based on Ex. 5 (b), which seems to be drifting when it is suddenly
SYMPHONY NO. 8 , IN C MINOR 171
obliterated by a precipitate assault of Ex. 6, the long-awaited subject,
but on a 6/4 (not a 6/3) chord of A flat. The clearer dominant sound of
the 6/4 suggests that a release is in sight, but it comes too suddenly
itself to provide a climax; it therefore gives way to a resumption of the
soft derivatives of Ex. 5 (b). It is the pianissimo (bars 209-18 in the Haas
score) that Bruckner cut out, so that the outburst of Ex. 6 follows
directly the loud entry of Ex. 5 (a). Thus, because of the cut, Ex. 6 is
turned into a premature climax instead of a dramatic interrupting
anticipation of things to come, and because it presumes to be the
climax, there is no sense in its petering out, which had so much
significance in the original. In the cut version the continuation of
Ex. 6 is made to sound like a mere excuse to prolong the movement, a
clear example of the way in which a cut, whether made by the com
poser or not, can actually increase the longueurs of a piece of music,
defeating its own object. Haas, in my view, though his practice
was not musicologically ethical, showed real insight in restoring
the passage, which is vital to the organic growth of the whole
complex.
The piano is resumed in E major (Haas, bar 221, Nowak, 2u), and
two more crescendi, with gathering excitement, bring about the real
climax, a hugely expansive augmentation of Ex. 6, on a 6/4 chord of
E flat, shifting majestically on to a massive chord of C flat (H. bar
253, N. 243). It is worthy of note that in the first version of the
symphony this climax was not in E flat, but in C major ; it might be
thought that Bruckner changed it because the C major may have
sounded too much like the climax of the Adagio of No. 7, but I suspect
that the deeper reason lies in the fact that E flat bears a clear relation to
the B flat at bar 125, in much the same way as the final C major climax
in the Seventh's Adagio is related to the earlier high point in G major.
It should now be plain that the whole of this process would be
impossible without the peculiarly recognizable constitution of the
chord of Ex. 6, and it says much for Bruckner's grasp of detail (when he
is not put off his stroke by pressure to revise) that so vast a plan can be
pivoted on so simple a device. He is able to arouse expectations by the
severely economical use of a single chord (and an ordinary diatonic
one at that), heard only four times in the huge movement, but each
time suggesting the theme for which the music seems to be searching,
and so raising the tension. Having invoked its power of suggestion, he
then makes no further use of it, founding the climax itself on a clearer
and simpler 6/4 chord, and relying on the theme itself to enforce the
1 72 T H E E S S E N C E OF B R U C K N E R
point. At the end of the last fortissimo there is a small detail in the
revision which ought to be adhered to if the Haas score is performed :
Haas cuts off the full orchestra all at once, leaving the harp high and
dry-the revision protects the harpist from this embarrassment and the
listener from acute discomfort by sustaining the violins until the harp
has finished its arpeggio (H. bar 253, N. 243).
To increase the sense of symmetry and release, Ex. 6 is succeeded by
its original chorale-like continuation and the soaring string and harp
passage is now intensified. After this comes the coda, perfectly balanced
and inimitable in its Brucknerian solemnity, essentially a long horn
solo that forms a new and amazingly broad melody from Ex. 5 (a),
with soft asides in the violins. In performance the top horn line should
be brought out and the strings subdued. I suggest this in the face of the
markings in all editions of the score, which reverse the situation, when
the over-prominent violin phrases arc apt to seem repetitive, obscuring
the real melos. The end dissolves quietly into a slow descending scale
that, while it soothes away the strains and efforts, even mortifications,
of some parts of the movement, yet is subtly inconclusive. The tensile
strength of this Adagio is much taxed by stress between the nature of
the themes of Ex. 5 and the climax building in which they are made to
participate (they cannot dominate it). The dangers can be aggravated
by too slow a tempo, which places an unendurable weight on the
shoulders of Ex. 5 (a)-unfortunately one hears this nearly always.
Schubert's Der Wanderer, which has virtually the same theme, may be
taken as slowly as the artists can or dare, for it is entirely brooding ;
no energy is required for large-scale climaxes, as it is in this movement.
Not that any Bruckner adagio should ever be hurried ; usually a
courageous slowness brings the most rewards. Here, however, the
themes themselves do not permit it, as Bruckner well knew when he
added the proviso doch nicht schleppend (but not dragging).
The Finale is, for all its splendour, the calmest part of the symphony.
It is the cathedral the architect has been trying, through all the world's
distractions, to find in his mind's eye. One by one the impediments
have been removed, until the image is clearly revealed. It can now be
contemplated, sometimes with quiet absorption, sometimes with a
sense of exhilaration, and once recalling past despair. Again we must
not expect such a finale to develop speed ; its movement is vast and
slow, and its active periods do not affect the deep pulse that informs its
life. Pauses and inaction have their rightful place in its massive delibera
tions, and it is a grave mistake to suppose that the structure is weakened
by them ; they are the open spaces in the cathedral. Stillness prevails
whenever the proportions demand it, and Wagner's dictum that
"composition is the art of transition" does not apply, at least not if one
assumes that composition consists entirely of notes. The longer I know
this movement, the more authoritative does it seem in every bar, and
the more sure am I that it is the greatest part of the work. In it Bruckner
finds the essence of his own nature.
The magnificent paean with which the brass celebrate the occasion
is modulatory. It opens out over a strong rhythm on F sharp, which is
really G flat in relation to the previous Adagio, but quickly shows that
D flat major is still the key:
It is as if Bruckner is acknowledging that the peace of mind achieved

at the end of the Adagio has made it possible to see clearly the way
ahead. The theme now rises by the same means as before to E flat
(bar 25), from where it is a short step to the tonic C minor. Here there
is a new incisive phrase :
Now there is a descent of great beauty and dignity (with a wonderful

flash of colour from trumpets and horns at bar 40) to a soft, glowing
close in C major, the rhythm of the strings fading out at bar 67.
Characteristically Bruckner begins a new theme without intervening
harmony, in A flat major, with his favourite drop in tonality of a major
third. It is a noble idea with two simultaneous elements, of which (b)
174 THE E S S E N C E O F B R U CKNER
proves to be the more important, and a third (c) which is capable of

transformation :
The music is purged of all the disturbed, romantic harmony that

sometimes impeded the search of the Adagio for peace. It is simple and
clear, with great purity of line that is in no way affected. A really
romantic composer can contrive a curiously cloying and sentimental
result from the use of "pure" diatonics in contrast with lush chroma
ticism. Not so Bruckner, who maintains throughout this Finale a just
and classical equilibrium between diatonic and chromatic harmony.
Ex. 10 {c), at bar 75, descending by conjunct motion, should be
noticed ; not only does it have special consequences much later, but it
immediately gives rise to an expressive string passage which was cut
out of the first publication in 1892 (this can be found in both Haas
and Nowak, bars 93-98). This passage bears a slight resemblance to a
few bars in the first movement of the Seventh Symphony (bars
197-201). The analytical powers of Joseph Schalk may perhaps be
assessed from a letter he wrote to Max von Oberleithner in 1891
complaining that this "reminiscence of the Seventh" seemed to him
"quite unfounded" ! Haas and Nowak are both right to restore it;
in this case it certainly looks as if the excision were made at the instiga
tion of Joseph, but Nowak keeps the truncation in the similar place
before Oo which also sounds like a Schalkism (compare bars 584-98 in
Haas with bars 564--6 in Nowak). The small and natural climax made
each time by this clear extension of Ex. IO (c) is necessary for spacious
proportions as well as for symmetry. Further derivatives follow
sequentially on the tubas. Then a return to Ex. I O (a + b), more fully
scored, causes a change to the dominant of E flat, through G flat,
during which the first four notes of Ex. IO (b) tum into a new shape in
the bass :*
* Bar numbers attached to the music examples now refer to the Haas edition.
SYMPHONY NO. 8, IN C MINOR 175
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l
The music begins to sound mysterious, and soon the determined
solemn march of the crotchets of Ex. I 1 creates a new theme in E flat
rumor :
It breaks off, giving way to another offshoot of Ex. IO (c), momen

tarily in C sharp minor, then on the dominant of D minor. In D
minor it is joined by the rhythm of Ex. 1 1 , and the steady crotchet

motion passes to the bass as the key then changes to G flat with new
melodic invention in the violins. G flat is only the relative major of E
flat minor, and inevitably there comes a powerful tutti on the dominant
of E flat, now solidly secure, animated by the crotchet movement and
spelling out the rhythm of Ex. 8 (bar 183). In the first version of the
symphony this leads to a fme 20-bar cadential passage that wheels
beautifully down to E flat major. I cannot believe that Bruckner
willingly sacrificed this, and strongly approve of Haas's restoration of
it ; the feeble four bars of drum and pizzicato substituted have nothing
to recommend them musically and spoil the proportions. Again Haas's
instinct is correct, even if he offends the more scientific musicologists.
From now on we shall have to distinguish between his and Nowak's
bar numbering, for the latter editor pwictiliously retains the alteration,
it being in Bruckner's handwriting. The enormously long-drawn close
in E flat major that follows is one of those sublimely static periods we
have mentioned ; its vast amplitude must be felt in relation to the
design as a whole. The revision slightly shortens it, and Haas (again
with the right instinct for proportion) puts back the original (compare
H. bars 253-8 with N. 237-8).
We have now reached the end of the first stage. It can, if you insist,
be called the exposition so long as normal sonata processes are not
expected. The tonic of the movement, C, has so far been emphasized
only at the end of the first paragraph, and that was a long time ago.
So it must be found again, and the rest of the movement carries out
the kind of search that we observed in the first movements of the
Fifth and Seventh Symphonies, the gradual achievement of the tonic
in stages, with recapitulatory elements occurring in the course of
establishing symmetry rather than being associated with the dramatic
tonal returns of sonata. The awakening from the intense quiet is very
gradual. First, Bruckner muses upon Ex. 1 3, modulating to G flat
(H. bar 285, N. bar 265), where its inversion begins the bass to a long
reflective cantilena. This becomes impassioned and returns to E flat
minor, where motion is felt once more with a soft entry of the inversion
of Ex. 12 Qetter U, both editions). The determined rhythm of this
theme now commands the course of the music and brings about a
massive statement of Ex. 9 (still in E flat minor), which now has a new
kind of familiarity, explained by its melodic similarity to Ex. 1 3 and
its forbears, to which it is now related (another "promoted" derivative
of the type we noted in the Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony).* Ex. 12
is combined with it. There are three such impressive combinations, the
first two separated by a piano development of Ex. 12, and each a tone
above the other, like great rock terraces ; the last, beginning at letter Y
(both scores), rests grandly on the home dominant.
Instead of the expected tonic, however, there is a new soft develop
ment of Ex. 8, one of Bruckner's most original inspirations, a soft fine
web of delicate sound, modulating spaciously through foreign
harmony, sequentially at first, later rising in tension and breaking off
from a diminished chord (H. bar 406, N. bar 386). The last powerful
tutti ended on the home dominant (letter Z, both scores), and as if the
shadow of this has not yet gone, a quietly purposeful paragraph (still
developing Ex. 8) now starts in C major : a definite attempt to reinstate
the tonic. But the time is not yet ripe for that ; the keys begin to shift
again, enlivened by manifold products from Ex. 12, ranging as far as
A major and G flat before settling down darkly on the dominant of
A minor (Dd in both versions). Suddenly the trumpets stab out with
* See p. 1 16.
SYMPHONY NO. 8 , IN C MINOR 177
the repeated F sharps that began the movement and, since this passage
was originally the means of fixing C, it at once infers the possibility
of a return to the tonic. The main theme, once more majestic on the
brass, drives forward powerfully through new sequences, finally
completing itself in A flat (Ff in both scores) : is this the resolution?
Not quite ; another series of short and urgent upward steps finally
reach C major with terrific force (H. bar 495, N. bar 475). A threefold
.ffJ accentuation of this key releases enough energy to drive the music
with high impetus for 5 8 bars, during which it moves around C major
minor, sweeping over one huge apex and halting abruptly at the
height of a second (Ll in both scores). All this is based on Ex. 8. The
tonic has now been asserted more strongly than ever before.
The dissonance on which this passage culminates at Ll is left on the
horns, which seem to be blowing across a great gulf. It softens,
apparently in the direction of A major, but at the last moment the
dominant seventh of A is treated as a German sixth in A flat-and in
that key the calm strains of Ex. IO begin to flow again. This is a stroke
of genius. Bruckner is often able to make completely new use of
recapitulated material ; here he does so, but merely by recalling it in
the same key as before ! The first time (bar 69) the A flat major is a
tum in a new direction, a reaction from the first postulate of C, the
beginning of a long process towards other regions. Here, coming after
a long and vehement development that stayed in C minor-major, and
being approached by a modulation rather than a plain silence, it has
the effect, not of going away, but of coming home, of confirming C
minor by behaving simply as its submediant. Bruckner does not even
have to do much more than alter the scoring here and there for the
sake of added freshness, and the quiet depth of the music is the perfect
relief after the immense and complex stretch that has passed. The end
of the paragraph is abbreviated and turns naturally to C minor for
Ex. 12.
The next incident, in a symphony of masterstrokes, should perhaps
be accounted the grandest and subtlest of them all. When Ex. 12 first
appeared it was eventually followed by a forcible formal tutti, based
on the rhythm of Ex. 8 (bar 1 83). Now the last re-entries Ex. I O and
Ex. 12 have given a sorely needed sense of symmetry to a design
already stretched as far as human imagination is able : this symmetrical
impression must be confirmed. A statement of the tutti just mentioned
would undoubtedly serve that purpose in a conventional way, but
would hardly be worthy of its adventurous context. What actually
T H E E S S E N CE O F B R U C K N ER
happens is a superb illustration of the way Bruckner thinks in terms of

balanced masses and voids rather than recapitulated themes or sections
in sonata-type music. His first impulse is that a big tutti is required {not
so big that it endangers the success of the final coda, but big enough to
counterweigh its distant predecessor). How can this be done without
stiffness? Why not both effect this balance and drive home the point
of the whole symphony at a blow? And so he hits on the idea of rising
to a crisis, at the heart of which, grimmer than ever, shall appear the
theme of the first movement : there is his required tutti, and there is the
supreme question for his coda to answer. Many composers have hit
upon this sort of recall as a purely emotional device, but how many
would have made the theme grind into the score in this form?
E" 14 (bar 65�)
It is the very form of the subject that Bruckner refrained from using
at the reprise of the first movement, that starting on the note G, the
form in which it is most surely kept within C minor's grip. Its only
previous appearance {oboe, first movement, bar 282) was carefully
concealed and redirected, like the composer's original scores, "for
fifty years' time". Such foresight is uncanny, and is the kind of stroke
that distinguishes Bruckner from the type of composer whose weakness
is, in Tovey's words, "where the ghosts of former movements seem to
be summoned . . . to eke out his failing resources". After the turmoil
has subsided, the final climax is evolved with the greatest possible
dignity and grandeur ; the coda begins at Uu in both editions. As with
most of Bruckner's ultimate passages, it opens in darkness, breathing
upon dim fragments of the main theme, passing from key to key as it
climbs in a long crescendo. The strings persist in smoky figurations that
burst into flame as the burning sun touches them ; the last triumphant
affirmation of C major is the complete reply to everything, and it
contains elements of the main themes of all four movements. The end
is abrupt but of tremendous finality.
CHAPTER X
SYMPHONY N o . 9, IN D MINOR
(unfinished)
IN T H E W H O L E of Bruckner's life there were but two periods in

which he may be said to have experienced something like full creative
confidence, the early period of the D minor and E minor masses and
the First Symphony (1 864--6) and an eight-year span between 1875
and 1883, during which the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Symphonies were
written, as well as the String Quintet. As we have seen, these are the
fully mature works which underwent least revision (the Quintet
actually gave him more trouble in this respect than the symphonies,
but only because he was using an unfamiliar medium). Levi's failure to
accept the Eighth brought back all his old fears and must have sparked
off the compulsive revising of his last years, which completely disrupted
his agonized struggles to compose the Ninth. Even if we did not know
the circumstances in which his last work was attempted, the self-doubt,
the ill health, and even (I suspect) an ebbing away of the religious faith
that had hitherto protected him from even worse psychological wounds
than he had already suffered, the torso of the Ninth Symphony would
itself be evidence of travail. And the evidence lies, not only in the
hitherto unequalled dimensions of the work (which, had it been
completed, would have been bigger than the Fifth or the Eighth), but
in the very nature of the music itself, often dark to the pitch of black
ness, and rent with such anguish as he had until now almost succeeded
in keeping out of his music. There is tragedy in the first movement of
the Eighth, objectively expressed, and there are more than a few
examples in Bruckner's work of various kinds of conflict-the Fifth
is a mighty battleground, but it is like some great classical fresco, and
if we tum to the strange and compelling tonal conflicts of the last
movement of the Sixth, we do not have the feeling that the composer
is himselfterrified by his own fantasies. But in the Ninth we sometimes
receive this impression, not so much in the ferocious Scherzo as in
parts of the first movement and large tracts of the tormented Adagio.
At first, studying the vast mass of sketches for the Finale (many fully
or extensively scored), I used to think that the completed movement
would have resolved the tensions of the symphony by revealing an
1 80 THE ESSENCE O F B R U CKNER
essentially calm and majestic mind behind all the emotional disturb
ances of the rest ; but the more familiar are these sketches, the more
marked does the impression become that the subjective elements are
still overwhelmingly there, that Bruckner's condition was not such
as to be able to exorcize them. It was clear in the Eighth that the
Finale performed precisely this function after the troubled uncertainties
of feeling in the Adagio and, as we have seen, Bruckner's tendency in
his mature last movements has so far been to disclose a mental back
ground that cannot easily be disturbed by outward events. This is a
matter we have discussed before, and which the next chapter will
mention again. In the meantime I must confess to more than scepticism
about attempts to complete the Ninth Symphony, not only because
the final coda is altogether missing (and it would be a bold, not to say
impertinent, man who would try to compose Bruckner's greatest
climax for him) but because the sketches do not provide the
momentum to support such a coda. Alfred Orel has skilfully assembled
a conflation of them into a more or less continuously written four
stave score, and others have made full scores 400-odd bars long, relying
in part on the instrumental indications shown by Bruckner. But from
the sketches one can divine only broad outlines ; it is possible to
identify developmental and recapitulatory elements, but there is no
real inner continuity perceptible as an organic process, no genuine
coherence, and often a total absence of those inner parts that normally
mean so much to the growth of a Bruckner movement. Details of this
nature cannot be satisfactorily invented on the required scale by anyone
but the composer himself; if the ideas in the sketches themselves were
organically continuous, the problem of filling out details would be
formidable enough, but the fact that they are not makes the task
impossible. I do not believe that anyone will ever succeed in doing for
this movement what Deryck Cooke has done so magnificently for
Mahler's Tenth Symphony. There is no doubt that Mahler saw his
Tenth whole. Bruckner was still trying to conceive the exact form and
nature of his finale.
In the last two years of his life Bruckner did nothing but wrestle
with these sketches and his ultimate inability to resolve the ideas into a
whole was almost certainly due to a failing health that was mental as
well as physical. This is not to suggest that his mind was breaking
down; he had always been subject to acute nervous disorders and could
easily be thrown off balance. Redlich* gives an account of his various
* Bruckner and Mahler Q. M. Dent).
SYMPHONY N O . 9 , IN D M I N O R 181
obsessions, even at times manias, and w e shall not g o into them here.
Nevertheless, we must observe that these distracting subjective
elements not only prevented him from achieving the architecture of
the Finale but also invaded its material-and this was fatal to his
instinctive desire for the kind of last movement that would once more
reach objectivity. In these pathetic relics we find the debris of the last
battle between Bruckner and the fiend of nervous subjectivity he had
fought all his life, and often beaten with triumphant decisiveness. It
would not be fair to say he lost the final contest, for he simply did not
live to finish it. But the fight was far from won, and his faculties would
not allow him freedom of action. We can see from the very first idea
in these sketches that the material itself, full of originality and unlike
anything in the openings of previous finales, has a strangely obsessive
quality. Hitherto Bruckner has always begun a finale with a clearly
shown sense of direction, even when the air is full of mystery; here he
is fascinated by a remarkable harmonic sensation (fixation, almost)
from which he finds it difficult to escape convincingly into larger
areas:
Later we come across a chorale that, while it is obviously not

intended to play as large a part in the structure as the one in the Fifth
Symphony, is clearly meant to provide an affirmative element. But by
no feat of wishful thinking can it be said to match the one in the Fifth
either in melodic distinction or in tensile strength; it is a mere skeleton,
and there is no knowing how Bruckner might have altered it at a later
stage. I quote its beginning in the convenient form shown in Redlich's
introduction to the Eulenburg miniature score (Ex. 2, overleaf).*
When Bruckner knew that he might not finish the Ninth he
suggested that the Te Deum could be used as a finale, and the presence
in the sketches of a motive (the figuration that is heard in quavers at the
outset of the choral work) led to the supposition that he was composing
* Edited by Hans-Hubert Schonzeler; this is the most accurate edition.
some kind of link between the two works. There is no evidence to

suggest that Bruckner, even in the poor state of health and mind of his
last few months of life, considered the use of the C major Te Deum as
finale to a D minor symphony to be more than a makeshift solution,
and certainly none to justify the idea that he would contemplate
anything so inorganic as a modulatory transition between the two. In
any case, his habit of self-quotation was long ingrained, and this is
sufficient explanation of the presence of the Te Deum figure, itself a
type so characteristic that it could have occurred spontaneously. The
fact that he labelled it "Te Deum" in the sketches simply shows that
the quotation was deliberate, not that it was to be used in a link.
In this book, however, we are concerned with Bruckner's positive
achievement rather than with conjecture about his unfulfilled inten
tions, interesting and even moving though such a study can be, and we
had better consider the completed movements without further delay.
The vast opening is essentially a long crescendo, containing a number of
ideas, culminating in a tremendous unison establishing D minor. We
have already observed (see p. 67) that this crescendo process is twice the
size of that at the start of the Third Symphony, and this means that
there can be no question of delivering it again immediately with a new
tonal direction, as happens in No. 3 . And it is even less comparable than
the earlier beginning with that of Beethoven's Ninth. The proces
sion of themes and slow "lapidary" accumulation create a kind of
SYMPHONY N O . 9, IN D MINOR 1 83
momentum that is remotely alien from Beethoven's. Where Beethoven
rapidly increases the tension by a progressive tightening of the rhythm
so that the main theme has greater impetus than its preparation (a
characteristic of sonata organization, for the rest of the movement is
thereby impelled forward), Bruckner's "main" theme is near the end of a
procession, which it brings to a halt. We have time to pause and look
back. As in the Third Symphony, moreover, Bruckner makes certain
that D minor is the key from the outset, and the solemn chant-like
horn theme that looms out of the dark is itself almost as self-contained
as the trumpet theme in the earlier symphony. And when {in bar I9)
the music flares out into a foreign key, the tension created is of the
opposite kind from Beethoven's ; the latter crowds his idea fiercely
upon the expectations, while Bruckner's tension results from what is
essentially a delaying action. The whole massive paragraph from the
beginning to the aftermath of the climax consequently occupies no
less than 96 bars of very moderate tempo, during which we form the
impression of a single idea of colossal slowness. Herc arc the eight main
thematic elements contained in it :
THB ESSENCE OF B R U C K NER
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Already we must accept the fact that although we may discover

contrasting themes and sections, and a large-scale use of related or
unrelated tonal areas, it would be foolish to expect sonata behaviour.
In fact this first movement is one of the few individual Bruckner
designs that is more or less describable by simple terminology, and it
will save great confusion if we notice that the whole movement divides
into two main sections (which we can label Statement and Counter
statement) with a huge but simple coda added. The first thing to
realize, however, is that the mighty opening passage is itself only a
segment of the vast Statement ; the opening itself has numerous passing
tonal inflexions that are not radical modulations and do not shake the
stony domination of D minor-the motion has barely begun. The
passage based on Ex. 3 (h) is only reluctantly a transition, and at the last
moment it seems to halt on the dominant of a foreign key {E flat) ; but
this proves to be a German sixth that resolves on A major. Even so the
drum and the violas still softly underline D, and the drum, indeed,
carries its D over into the A major chord at bar 97 ; this may possibly
be an oversight on Bruckner's part, ifhe intended the D to drop to A
on the other hand it may be a symptom of the persistence of D itself.
If the latter is Bruckner's idea, it must be confessed less than adequately
pointed. At all events the key ofD is massively grounded : where some
SYMPHONY NO. 9, IN D M I N O R 1 85
other Bruckner movements evolve by tonal disputation, or by search
ing for a tonic (as docs the Adagio of this symphony) this one is remorse
lessly pinned down by its basic key-no other is able convincingly to
challenge it.
The Statement continues with a flowing new theme in A major ;
the tempo is slower, the mood nobly reflective :
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Tonally the music is very restless, however, and in bars 105-9 we
minor, but later (bar 1 1 5) we rise into the bright light of E major, the
fmd quietly hopeful F sharp major phrases sternly answered by D
dominant of A. Passing through F sharp minor we reach an aspiring

new melody, forte, in C major {letter E) ; but there is something forced
about it, and soon there is a return to Ex. 4, again in A major. This
time comes a gain in confidence and Ex. 4 sings like a rich chorale over
dominant of D flat an oboe gives out another new idea (bar 153 ) ; a
a climax on the dominant of D flat, falling away in mystery. On the
horn answers it in A minor and the mystery deepens-so does a sense

of the ominous. Yct we settle on the dominant of A (bar 161 ).
D minor, driven home by the whole of Ex. 3, and a less than sure A
So far we have had two tonal centres, an absolutely unequivocal
major, arising from Ex. 4. The fact that there was something unreal
about the would-be radiance of A major is now crushingly confirmed
by another theme-in D minor. It is a coldly severe inversion of the
ohoe idea from bar 153 :
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counterstatement of its own (bar 179) , still in a dismal D minor, then

This is the third stage of the Statement. Ex. 5 gloomily rises to a
it shifts its ground as the melody begins sluggishly to develop, the

horns adding a solemnly laboured counterpoint. In G flat comes a
somewhat Brahmsish line that should be noted :
186 T H E E S S E N C E OF B R U C K N E R
The whole system strains and pushes towards a heavy earthbound

climax that clears, at the last moment, into F major. The whole of this
paragraph has a weary air. Not only is it the expression of spiritual
lassitude, but it is, I am certain, the result of actual tiredness of body and
mind, and becomes not merely weary but dangerously wearisome as it
hauls itself towards its somewhat crudely scored apex. We must
never forget, in criticizing the Ninth, that the whole of what is extant is
only its first draft, that Bruckner would certainly have gone over it all
again. But the F major that follows all this rather flabby protesting is
magical ; the close of the Statement is in an atmosphere of strange
hallucinatory elation, enhanced by the weird B natural that flickers
through the soft veil of sound.
To call this gigantic Statement an exposition would be literally
correct, since it exposes all the main matter, but it is better to avoid
terminology with misleading associations. Commentators have usually
attempted to describe what follows as a sort of combination of develop
ment and recapitulation. No doubt the composer himself would have
done so, but we can understand what he is instinctively aiming at by
more clearly and simply realizing that it is a colossal expansion of the
opening crescendo (finally confirming the impossibility of immediately
counterstating the opening) followed by a telescoping of the two
succeeding sections (Exx. 4-6), the whole to be an Expanded Counter
statement. Beginning at bar 229 over a pedal F, the music grows in
four immense waves to the unison theme (Ex. 3 (f), itself magnified
into two even larger sweeps, the first (bar 333) enveloped in furious
titanic string passages and the second (bar 355) tramping and heaving
towards a truly seismic irruption in F minor-here the music can be
matched in words only by the power of Milton :
Forthwith upright he* rears from off the pool

His mighty stature ; on each hand the flames
Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and, rolled
In billows, leave i' the midst a horrid vale.
* Satan (Paradise Lost, Book I).
SYMPHONY NO. 9, IN D MINOR
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,
That felt unusual weight ; till on dry land
He lights-if it were land that ever burned
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,
And such appeared in here as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
Of thundering .IEtna, whose combustible
And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involv'd
With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet.
After this, slow gently circling figures disperse the terror and drift
into the consolatory second part of the Counterstatement ; the transi
tion itself is a little weak and automatic in its sequential repetitions and
augmentations, as if the previous mighty effort had tired the composer.
But the return of Ex. 4 in D major is a fine relief, at any rate for a
while. The aspiring theme from letter E is now made to appear in
B flat rather than in F (which has been volcanically erupted by the
previous climax) and it now leads, not without some awkward stiffiiess
of phrase and harmony, to Ex. 5, which emerges in the unexpected
key of B minor (bar 459). Soon, however, it slips back to the old D
minor, and drags itself up to a dissonant climax, more stridently com
plaining than ever, saturated with overripe harmony and scoring that
clog rather than intensify its movements. The climax itself (letter W)
batters obstreperously for ten bars of a rhytlunic obviousness that is
scarcely supportable. I feel sure that some of my fellow devotees will
want my blood for thus describing what, for all I know, may be a
favourite passage, but am equally sure that Bruckner would have
paused and pondered over it in any revision he might later have been
able to carry out. When it has mercifully desisted, a genuinely impres
sive cadential passage in woodwind and brass descends darkly to the
home dominant, and it is time for the coda. As always with Bruckner,
this is masterly and awesome. For it he has reserved the chorale-like
figure Ex. 3 (g), which has not been heard at all since its first appearance
as a grand cadence to the mighty unison theme. A stupendous black
cavern of sound is created as it forms the last crescendo, containing also
188 THE E S S E N C E O F B R U C K NER
the ghosts of Ex. 3 (b) and (f). The end is a terrible hollow fifth, against
which Ex. 3 (b) grinds fearsomely on the flat supertonic with all the
minatory force (and perhaps in Bruckner's mind the literal meaning)
of a Dies irae.
Enormous as this design is, it would be extremely terse were it not
for the passage between bars 277 and 301, where the vast expansion
of the original opening crescendo is interrupted by a somewhat abortive
and irrelevant reference to Ex. 6; this, too, Bruckner might well have
reconsidered at the stage of revision. A cut would certainly not do, for
the composer's instinct for proportion is right, and although a cut from
L to M would restore the natural sequence of ideas, the whole passage
would then be too short. Only the composer could have solved this
difficulty. Nevertheless the conciseness of the movement, despite this
and other inequalities, should not be overlooked ; it is an error to assume
that conciseness and brevity are inseparable. Is an elephant less concise
than a flea? It is all a question of proportion, and mastery of movement
and design. In art, as in biology, sufficiency is all ; there must be no
understatement (how often is this word used in praise when "sugges
tion" is meant !) or exaggeration. The prime requirement, whether the
proportions be small or large, is exactitude. The kind of precision we
find in Bruckner's most perfect work is not quite achieved in either the
first movement or the Adagio of the Ninth-but for all we can tell, they
may simply be less unfinished than the Finale.
The foregoing description is not more than an outline of the general
shape of the first movement, and we should not leave it without
looking in a little more detail at it from the beginning of the Counter
statement onwards. The ending of the Statement in F major (bar 227)
coincides with the start of the immensely expanded Counterstatement.
The music stays in F as Ex. 3 (a) returns in various stretti with itself in
inverted augmentation. Needless to say, no contrapuntal skill is
required to make this theme involve itself in any kind of texture-but
Bruckner's ear is always sensitive in such a situation and his sense of
slow movement is here unfailing, so that the music creates a feeling of
awe. The strings add a portentous new counterpoint in slow minims
(bar 229). Then the bass moves from F to G flat (bar 239), and Ex. 3 (a)
grows into (b), which blazes majestically to the dominant of F sharp
(bar 252) (this brass passage, whenever it occurs, is like the effect of
turning abruptly from an interior of sepulchral gloom to a magnificent
stained-glass window). At the end of bar 252 the woodwind begin
Ex. 3 (a) again on the note A ; the previous harmony leads the ear to
SYMPHONY NO. 9, IN D M I N O R 1 89
expect F sharp minor, but instead A minor is the key. Second violins
and cellos join with an inversion of {c) while first violins play a free
diminution of the same figure {its shape completely altered but its
rhythmic basis unmistakable). Once more the music moves deliberately
to (b), now pausing on the dominant of A (bar 276). If the key of A is
adumbrated so pointedly, the tonic D cannot be far off.
At bar 277 comes the irrelevance based on Ex. 6 {mentioned earlier) ;
the strings (pizzicato) play a free augmentation of Ex. 4 {a) and the
whole complex, having frustrated the dominant of A by returning to
F, erects a rather mechanical crescendo to the dominant of D flat and
halts at bar 301. A curious result of this passage is to reveal that the
figuration begun by the second violins in bar 303 is an inversion of
Ex. 4 (b)-but it was also a derivative of Ex. 3 (c) (refer back to the
melodically different but rhythmically identical figure, first violins,
bar 253), so Ex. 3 (c) and Ex. 4 {a) are now connected. Subtle ingenuities
of this kind can give great pleasure, and this one goes some way towards
compensating for the inapt and somewhat helpless passage between L
and M. It cannot, of course, justify it, for the second violin figure at
bar 303 would still, even without the intervening episode, have been
firmly connected with the quaver figuration after letter K, while the
new and more purposeful treatment of Ex. 3 {c) beginning in C major
at bar 305 would certainly have balanced the contradiction of the
expected key of A, as well as maintained the natural growth of the
whole paragraph. But, as we have seen, a cut would make the whole
seem trllllcated.
From K onwards Ex. 3 {c) dominates a crescendo, moving inevitably
into (e) with the octave figure of (d) present in the woodwind and the
quaver figuration transferred to the bass. It culminates as before in {f)
in D minor, now in a great stormy tutti that modulates in seven-league
strides to the remotest possible threshold {that of A flat). With a
menacing slower tempo the second wave of the central climax com
mences in A flat minor (bar 3 5 5) ; Ex. 3 {a) is concentrated into heavy
treading crotchets {strings) against many strange versions of (f),
becoming more and more terrifying and at length reaching the
shattering F minor climax at bar 391.
The whole gigantic passage from J to R is thus an expanded counter
statement of the matter of Ex. 3, with the single redtllldancy referred
to, and it is perhaps as well that we have reserved close examination
of it until after it has been noticed in broad fact. The trouble with
many attempts to analyse Bruckner is that they take insufficient note
T H E E SS E N C E O F B R U C K N E R
Like all Bruckner's large scherzos it is in concentrated sonata form,

and is virtually monothematic, though the curling quaver line in
second violins at letter B becomes important. Notice the powerful
inversions rising out of the bass from letter D onwards, and the
extraordinary savagery of the orchestral writing in bars 97-104; both
these elemental passages are violently aggravated in the recapitulation.
The exposition ends in A minor, and the development begins piano
SYMPHONY N O . 9, IN D MINOR
with a mocking A major transformation of the main theme on an oboe ;

an air of false frivolity invades the music, unprecedented in Bruckner,
and it grows. We almost begin to believe in it when the smiling face
freezes horrifyingly into a mask (sec bar 147 et seq.). The infernal gates
are flung open, and the monstrous Ex. 7 flies out. The recapitulation
outdoes everything else in ferocity and ends in a devilish din of D
mmor.
The icy Trio is a complete reversal of Bruckner's normal practice ; it
is at a much faster tempo than the Scherzo. It both compels and repels
as it snakes quickly across the scene, and there is nothing like it else
where in this composer's music, or perhaps in any other's. It is in F
sharp major and is almost in itself a scherzo and trio. The first part,
beginning and ending in the tonic, has two themes, the first in spidery
staccato quavers beginning in the fifth bar, and the second smooth
and harmonically slippery at bar 5 3 . Herc the more slyly feline evils
of that Place abound, and also in the shuddering heart of the piece
(between letters D and F). Snakes, spiders, cats-no, we do injury to
these innocent creatures by comparing them with the nameless things
that slide through this music. It is almost a relief when the honest
ravening of the Scherzo returns.
The Adagio is the most tortuous music Bruckner ever wrote. It is a
search for a way out of the terrors and horrors of the first two move
ments and it is at the same time a search for a tonality, beginning with
an agonized minor ninth that twists back on itself to an equally
distressed major seventh. The desolation is then softened by harmony,
and the melody struggles upwards through a chord of D major, and
then further, to the dominant of A :
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Darkness returns, but still the upward urge remains, and the light
brightens mysteriously until it flames in a wonderful chord on the
dominant of B, with the horns transforming the minor ninth of
T H E E S S E N C E O F B R U C KNER
Ex. 8 (a) into a major ninth, and the trumpets sounding strange
fragmentary fanfares. This is one of the most remarkable and perfectly
realized sounds in all Bruckner's music. But the brilliance fades as the
harmony shifts to the dominant of B flat (bar 25). Homs and tubas are
left to sound a mournful chorale in B flat minor (over a dominant
pedal) which moves to 6/4 harmony on A major, and thence down
another step into the clouded dominant of A flat. So far no single
tonality has had security. Despondency reigns.
Now for the first time we hear an expected key, and in A flat comes
a new melody. Superficially it belongs to the same family as Ex. I I
in the First Symphony or Ex. 8 i n the Seventh (see p . 3 6 and p . 149)
but though it purports to be consoling, there is something forlorn and
wintry in it, partly due to the parsimony of its scoring :
It clings for a time to A flat major ; then at bar 57 the strings, with
a change to G flat, attempt to soar :
They reach clearer air and in a much warmer A major, Ex. 9 comes
back. But the light dims again and a solitary flute is left tracing a thin
line over an obscurely alien dominant. We cannot possibly realize it at
present, but it is the threshold (in the form of a German sixth) of the
key the music will finally discover. The first theme returns and already
its opening B has a dominant sound, as if in faint realization that E
major is what it is looking for. But the way is again missed. This time
the dominant of A (bar 83-this is emphatically not the key ofE major,
any more than it was at bar 7) is followed by C sharp minor and a
weirdly expressive mirror-combination of the first two bars of the
theme with its own image. This time the subject climbs to the dominant
of B, and in B minor the inversion of Ex. 8 (a) revolves about its own
axis in a melancholy-majestic fortissimo, with tramping scales beneath
SYMPHONY N O . 9, IN D M I N O R 193
and restless wide-leaping syncopations above. The tonality is raised in
effortful steps, B, C, D, E flat, E, F and at bar 101 there is a mystified
hush, and the same phrase, still inverted, is heard in a strange harmonic
atmosphere, which the bassoon, at the end of bar 104, timidly identifies
as the dominant of E (it is notated in flats).
But the strings fail to receive the message and at letter G the cellos,
playing Ex. 8 (a) the right way up, begin to explore G major. This
initiates another climbing process, and slow sequences labour upwards
to the extraordinarily luminous major-ninth harmony first heard at
bar 17, but now on the dominant of C; as ifaware that this is the wrong
direction it quietens and darkens into a more apprehensively dissonant
chord, and there is a pause. Now, for a while, it seems as if Bruckner
himself is groping-a different matter from skilfully and subtly
ordering the groping of the music. Again we must remember that this
score may not have been the definitive conception, and, as Bruckner
brings in Ex. IO, seemingly trying out A flat again, we may well
wonder if he would not have reconsidered its non sequitur and its ill
starred attempt to soar to somewhere or other. He might perhaps
have newly composed the rather laboured sequential growth from bar
105 to its climax at bar 121, cut out the interpolation of Ex. 10 and
joined K to J. Though I would not advocate a cut (and indeed would
wrathfully condenm the impudence) I do not think the proportions
would have suffered if Bruckner had omitted the passage between J
and K, and the following treatment of Ex. 8 (b) would be harmonically
natural after the pause at J, as well as being the next segment of the
main theme due for development.
Ex. 8 (b) now strains upward, becoming increasingly intense, and the
stem brass create a sense of doom as their sharp descending thrusts cut
across the rising chromatic phrases. Then the woodwind dispel the
fear with soft new light on the same material, in C major at first, and
bring about a beautiful variant of the horn and tuba chorale from bar
29, originally so funereal, now radiant in the strings (letter L). The
harmony is kaleidoscopic, but settles at bar 163 in G flat, as far away
from C major as possible. A new passage begins, full of expectancy,
treating Ex. 8 (a) and wheeling harmonically with a shrouded hint of
reassurance. Then, in an immensely slow tempo, Ex. 9 returns, and we
are at last in E major.
Hitherto a Bruckner slow movement has invariably built its last
great crescendo on the main theme ; now he departs from this habit
by evolving it from the second, which has not been recapitulated. The
194 THE E S S E N CE OP B R U C K N E R
tempo here can hardly be too slow, given a fine orchestra finely
conducted, and the whole passage has a supreme inevitability, a mighty
grandeur, and an originality of harmony that surpasses any possible
description. Its enormous culmination, however, is far from the
affirmation we are led to expect. Ex. 8 (a) suddenly emerges calamitous
and vast, surrounded by an affrighting halo of dissonance ; the summit
is an alarming chord that so shocked Ferdinand Loewe that he diluted
it in his notorious falsification of the score after the composer's death.
(We have not discussed this edition, which is still obtainable but which
should never be performed; Loewe conducted his version in 1903,
without indicating that it was not Bruckner's own, and the enormity
of its alterations in scoring and harmony, none of which could possibly
have been made with the composer's consent, are final proof of the
lamentable quality of the advice with which Bruckner was for so
many years plagued. The crime in this particular case was the publica
tion of this false score in 1903 and the suppression of the original until
1934, after the deaths of Loewe and Franz Schalk.)
This fearsome consummation of the crescendo is, despite its harshness,
plainly on the dominant of C sharp minor, and the gentle pleading
reaction from it, softly turning away wrath and the threatened tonality,
is the beginning of the most beautiful and sensitive of all Bruckner's
quiet codas. Opening with a literal recapitulation of the passage that
began at bar 9, it begins to swell, but instead of arriving at the massive
major ninth on the dominant of B (as it did at bar 17), it moves into a
new and hushed benedictory version of Ex. 9 (a), descending with
great and delicately unsentimental innocence to E major and a remini
scence of the Adagio of the Eighth, of deeper serenity than anything in
that. The very close is another memory, of the opening of the Seventh
Symphony. So ends Bruckner's uncompleted life's work; though we
may regret the absence of the vast background to all this that might
have been disclosed by an achieved finale, we may be grateful that this
last Adagio, though it is not his most perfect, is his most profound.
CHAPTER XI
R EFLECTI O N S
w RITING OP NIE L S E N in 1952* the thought occurred to me that

this Danish master, were it not for the humane single-mindedness and
clarity of his outlook on life, might well have fallen victim to his own
versatility. That he did not do so is a mark of his stature. Bruckner, a
less comprehending and comprehensive artist both humanly and
musically, was never exposed to that danger; he spent most of his
creative life in the solving of one set of problems, in the pursuit of
which his instincts were sometimes at war with his prejudices.
Although he was not versatile, his problems and his instincts led him
into a variety of attempts and solutions, so that his symphonies are in
reality much more diverse in character and form than would appear to
the superficial critic. His originality is beyond question, and out
standing even in an age when individuality was avidly sought; yet it is
doubtful if Bruckner ever tried consciously to be original. It is more
likely that for many years he was deeply concerned to prove himself
orthodox and competent, in his own eyes as well as those of others
his lifelong desire for testimonials of all kinds is evidence of this. It is
probable that in his most imaginatively new designs he was endeavour
ing simply to expand classical conventions. So far as his conscious
mentality was concerned he was a much more conventional musician
than Brahms, who outgrew an early fascination for Liszt and Wagner
{for the latter, indeed, Brahms had a more than sneaking respect all his
life). Bruckner never ceased to abase himself before Wagner's music,
but he must have understood it in a general sense much less than
Brahms, who was its official enemy. It is fortunate that Bruckner's
grasp of Wagner was less than complete, for he might have gone the
way of many another composer if he had too easily been able to
reproduce its typical features and processes. But in every respect save
that of fatally accurate imitation, Bruckner was Wagner's slave.
Brahms was no one's, and his conscious wish to preserve the power of
classical music made him the god of the conservatives. The atmosphere
became such that the two men could not meet without strain. When
we consider the situation from our safe distance, a great irony reveals
* Carl Nielsen, Symphonist (Dent, 1952).
T HE ESSENCE O F B RU CKNER
itself: Bruckner, the conventional, provincial Austrian musician and
almost abjectly devout Catholic, completely bemused by Wagner;
Brahms, an intellectual of the highest powers, agnostic, subtle, pro
foundly German, yet openly antagonistic to Wagner. But Bruckner
and Brahms had more in common than either ever realized.
These two composers, very differently, sought to find new ways of
continuing the classical symphonic tradition, and it is demonstrable
that Brahms, though his symphonies are more obviously in line with
Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, was in many ways the less orthodox
of the two, mainly because he had no difficulty in understanding the
manifold unorthodoxies of the great classical composers. It is arguable
that Bruckner was more aware of classical patterns in the abstract than
of the intricate individualities of classical practice. The result was that
his own strange and potent instinct was undistracted by the subtleties
that sometimes made Brahms self-critical to the point of despair.
Bruckner's distractions were caused by intellectuals and by ideas he
could not understand; Brahms's were caused by those he could.
Brahms, whatever antagonisms he may have expressed, understood
Wagner ; Bruckner, whatever adoration he showed, did not. Bruckner
was bowled over by the sound of Wagner's music, but did not know
what it really meant, whereas Brahms, resisting its heady appeal, knew
and resented its significance. It is likely that Brahms was contemptuous
of Bruckner not because the latter admired Wagner, but because
Bruckner's admiration was patently without analytic understanding.
Dvorak, after all, never concealed his love of Wagner, but this did not
prevent Brahms from becoming one of his strongest advocates.
Bruckner's laborious erudition in academic counterpoint and harmony
must have struck Brahms as pedantry of the stupidest kind, myopically
insensible of the sort of life-giving subtlety he adored in Mozart or
Beethoven. It is not surprising that Bruckner's symphonies struck
Brahms as unholy monsters, cross-bred between incompatibles and
further deformed by inexpert midwifery. Yet if Brahms had taken a
more sympathetic interest in what Bruckner was really doing, he would
have found plenty of subtlety of a kind to understand, and might well
have seen that Bruckner's instinct was in its way as perceptive as
his own. Their attitudes to Wagner divided them ; yet they had more
in common with each other than either had, in truth, with his own
supporters in the feud. There is evidence that Brahms came at last to
an inkling of this, for he was seen to applaud vigorously a performance
of Bruckner's F minor mass and afterwards persuaded the conductor,
REFLECTIO N S 197
Richard von Perger, to perform the Te Deum. This is more than
Bruckner's beloved Wagner ever did for him. Given a few more
years, Brahms might well have come to see the virtues of Bruckner's
symphonies.
The Brahms-Wagner opposition did more harm to Bruckner than
to anyone. Most of his admirers were ardent Wagnerians who were
keen to use him as a stick to beat Brahms. There was no other sym
phonist of any stature at that time who could be press-ganged into the
role. When Dvorak came forward, his earlier Wagnerian works were
still unknown and the heat of the battle had cooled. Dvorak, in any
case, was moving into the Brahmsian ambit. Bruckner, moreover, was
na1ve and malleable ; he could easily be persuaded that his music
needed certain adjustments to make it "go down", and perhaps did not
sense that such adjustments were often made with specifically
Wagnerian motives. In saying this, we must not fall into the old error
of accusing these advisers of ruthless and calculated distortion of the
music for nefarious ulterior motives. There can be no doubt that the
Schalk brothers, Ferdinand Loewe, and others genuinely believed they
were of real assistance to Bruckner. His simplicity led them to think
they were helping him discover his own dimly perceived intentions.
The trouble is that they were wrong. Although the composer himself
did in fact have no more than the dimmest explainable idea of his own
goal, their conception of it, though lucid to themselves, was a complete
misunderstanding based on what they found in Wagner. Their cham
pionship of Bruckner antagonized many who might have understood
him better than they, and their copious advice, far from reassuring the
timid composer, threw him into agonies of uncertainty and protracted
bouts of revising, without which he might have written much more
music. As a result of their labours, Bruckner was for decades mis
apprehended as a Wagnerian symphonist. They had little idea of
symphonic construction {Franz Schalk's version of the Finale of the
Fifth is typically crass), and their notions of Wagner's own methods
were rudimentary-for they saw nothing wrong with "bleeding
chunks" from the music dramas, so long as their edges were decently
trimmed. But we have seen some of the results of their aid to Bruckner
in the foregoing chapters and there is no need to continue the tale. It
is a pity that there are still those who are prepared to perpetuate the
confusion by using musicological pedantry where only insight will
do ; as we have frequently seen, the facts are often impossible to find
out by normal scientific research methods.
THE ESSENCE OP B RUCKNER
The essence o f Bruckner's music, I believe, lies in a patient search
for pacification. This does not mean a mystical longing for "peace'',
and I do not share the view that only a religious man (and some
would insist, even, only an Austrian Catholic) can understand Bruckner.
If that were so his work would be abhorrent to many {including
myself) who love it. Bruckner's devoutness in the Catholic faith was
one of his few defences against a world he was mentally and psycho
logically ill-fitted to face ; as he became less able to defend himself, so
it developed more surely into religious mania. His natural timorousness
and his upbringing in the almost feudal conditions of nineteenth
century pastoral Austria, under the stern authoritarianism of the
church, made it almost impossible for him to be other than what he
became. This means, of course, that his music often expresses the
emotional condition of religious conviction, but that cannot be said
to be its essence any more than were the sonata forms he sometimes
must have thought he was creating. There is something in Bruckner's
art that appeals to mentalities unsympathetic to his religious beliefs as
much as it does to those that share them. Each side will accuse the other
of misunderstanding it, or of trying to explain it by special pleading ;
the religious man will say that the infidel who is profoundly moved by
Bruckner is touched by religious instincts he is unprepared to admit,
while the heretic will reply that the other is placing a religious or
mystical interpretation on matters that originate otherwise. I have
already indicated which side I am on. Ignoring my own sympathies,
it seems to me an incontrovertible fact that neither side is able to prove
to the other that it derives the deeper and more satisfactory experience
from the music, and I cannot help wondering how much of this argu
ment would have flourished if nothing had been known about
Bruckner's personal life. One thing is certain-the artistic problems
with which he wrestled, whatever their psychic origins, produced
characteristic artistic phenomena appreciable by people of directly and
profoundly opposed beliefs. It is these phenomena this book has been
concerned with, and I do not think this to be an evasion of the issue,
for art and biography have often proved contradictory.
By speaking of a search for pacification in Bruckner's music I mean
its tendency to remove, one by one, disrupting or distracting elements,
to seem to uncover at length a last stratum of calm contemplative
thought. The supreme achievement of this kind is the Eighth Sym
phony, in which the m�vements seem successively to reveal each other.
The stormy turbulence of the first movement having passed, we
REFLECTIONS 1 99
perceive in the Scherzo the energy behind it ; when that is spent, the
Adagio slowly and often with effort uncovers the serene and powerful
Finale. It is difficult to explain in words what the music itself explains
in its own terms. I am sure that the characteristic Brucknerian process
is essentially the reverse of the kind which raises the tension until it
explodes into a finale. Human tensions in Bruckner are usually
gradually pacified, and this is a positive, not a negative, process ; they
are at once balanced, directed, and strengthened in the Finale of the
Eighth, and in this Bruckner differs radically from the type of romantic
who relieves rather than calms his own tensions. In every one of
Bruckner's symphonies except the First and the Seventh we find this
tendency towards gradual pacification. Sometimes the disturbing
elements themselves are allowed to develop slowly during the course
of a symphony, as in the Sixth, where the process results in mysterious
disclosures. But even here the tensions, although they are bared for the
first time in the Finale, at length achieve a fine balance-at no time is
there any feeling that the music is driving towards some all-embracing
emotional climax. The massive endings of all Bruckner's symphonies
are (with the exception of that of the Fifth) not really culminative in the
old sense ; they are formal intensifications that blaze with calm. Even
in the Fifth there is ultimately this sense of a calm fire, and the last
movement of the Seventh, though it activates rather than quiets the
energies of the symphony as a whole, creates more an equilibrium than
a dramatic denouement. When a Bruckner finale is not successful it is
not because it fails to achieve an accumulative climax in relation to the
rest of the symphony; it is because the process of pacification has
become dangerously near petrification. He has failed, not to resolve
conflicting tensions in a burst of unidirectional energy, but to balance
them in a statuesque structure.
The quality most notable in the search for such an expression is
patience, and this is what I think Bruckner's music really defines. In
emphasizing the need for patience in both understanding and per
forming Bruckner, and for pointing out that this quality is indeed one
of the chief things his music expresses, I have been accused of a some
what priggish form of special pleading.* But patience is a state of mind,
and I doubt if there is any state of mind music cannot express. Love
music demands from its hearers a knowledge (and preferably the
experience) of what love is. Patience is, if you like, an aspect of love.
It is not easy to cultivate, especially for some people, and it is under-
* "Pecksniffian" was the kindly term employed.
200 THE E S S E N CE OF B R U CKNER
standable that music born o f and expressing patience might well be
too much for some mentalities, which cannot be blamed for regarding
its advocacy in these terms as a kind of moralistic preaching. But if
you want to get the most out of Bruckner, you must have great
patience in order properly to appreciate it in him. This is neither
preaching nor special pleading ; it is practical advice, to be taken or
left. At his greatest, Bruckner is able to achieve a deep composure,
which he can transfer to a receptive listener. The search for this
composure is his life's work. It is his search for form, for a new type
of symphony that he was never able to rationalize to himself or anyone
else, and even his blunders can move while they exasperate us if we
comprehend their nature.
All this makes Bruckner really very remote from Wagner. There
used to be a legend that Bruckner's symphonies were not only very
long but were scored for a Gotterdiimmerung-sized orchestra. In actual
fact, he was very slow to absorb Wagner's influence. It was not until
the last three symphonies that he brought himself to use Wagner
tubas. He never employed even a piccolo or cor anglais, let alone bass
flute, bass clarinet, bass trumpet, or contrabass trombone, and he used
percussion on only two occasions-the cymbals and triangle in the
Seventh and Eighth, in the first case at the instigation of someone else.
His idea of the orchestra is positively puritanical compared with
Wagner's. The harp he uses but once, in No. 8 ; he does not return to
it in the Ninth. The sound of the Brucknerian orchestra is totally
individual, in general plainer than Wagner's and blocked out with
massive contrasts. The various sections are often juxtaposed like organ
registrations (Tovey pertinently points out that Bruckner's scoring
often sounds organ-like because it is entirely free from the mistakes
of the organ-loft composer). In his attitude to sonorities Bruckner has
more in common with a seventeenth-century master like Giovanni
Gabrieli than he has with his own romantic contemporaries. And
this is another reflection of his essentially pacific mentality. He is apt
to create internal echo effects that demand the depth of a spacious
acoustic. Nothing is more damaging to his orchestral imagination than
the dry and clinical acoustics of present-day concert halls. The sound
of the great church at St. Florian is always in his ears, and the silent
pauses he so frequently makes are not really such-they should be
filled with awesome reverberation. The opening of the Fifth
Symphony is but a shadow of itself in the Royal Festival Hall. If it be
held a reprehensible limitation that the music should need special
REFLECTIO N S 201
conditions, then not only Bruckner but almost the whole of fifteenth-,
sixteenth-, and seventeenth-century church music is punishable.
Ultimately every kind of music, from Bach's solo violin partitas to
Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony, requires its own ideal acoustic
conditions.
If the influence of Wagner on Bruckner's orchestra is limited, so is
it on the substance of his music itself. The earliest marked effect of
Wagner is not on its melody or harmony, and certainly not on its
structure. At first it is almost entirely undigested, as in the first version
(unpublished) of the Third Symphony, which contained open quota
tions from Wagner, afterwards significantly removed. Later mani
festations are confined to occasional Wagnerian fingerprints like the
gruppetto in Ex. 2 of the Seventh Symphony {see p. 144), or a touch of
harmony {see, for instance, bars 337-9 in the Finale of No. 4), or a
rhythmic reminiscence (see No. 8, Finale, second tuba, bars 692-3).
Such things do not alter Bruckner's unmistakable individuality. On
the rare occasions when something like one of Wagner's moods is
evoked, as in the Sachs-like wistful kindliness of the coda of the
Adagio of the Sixth, it is transmuted into something more innocent.
{Poor Bruckner was always falling in futile love with young and
unsuitable girls whom he could merely worship from a distance ;
how often must he have felt the poignancy of Hans Sachs's music
presuming he bothered to find out what Die Meistersinger was all
about !) The beginning of the Adagio of No. 9 has often been compared
with Tristan, and some of its later passages with Parsifal, but there is a
whole world between the raw direct pain of Bruckner and the subtly
powerful sensuality of Wagner. The attempts of his friends to Wagner
ize his scores always stand out with dire obviousness against the
background of Bruckner's natural character.
Bruckner belonged to the romantic era only in so far as he happened
to live in it, sometimes picking up stray influences that appealed to
him. He showed a childlike pleasure in encountering anything new and
never stopped to ponder its significance in general terms. Occasionally
he found its incidental discoveries useful-sounds that interested his
musician's curiosity-but not often, for he lived in an inimical world
whose products were too often the result of attitudes he could not
understand. It is probable that his grasp of the meanings, trends, and
processes of society was even less sure than his knowledge of the plot
of The Ring, almost non-existent. The artistic fashions and movements
of his day meant nearly nothing to him as broadly discussable ideas,
202 THE ESSENCE OF B R UCKNER
and what he vaguely perceived he found unsympathetic. To him
romanticism meant the naive "programmes" with which he would
sometimes try to interest his up-to-date colleagues in his music; he
had little idea of the significance of the passionate arguments he must
have heard around him Bruckner once went to hear a performance of
.
Berlioz's Damnation of Faust and was introduced to the composer ; the

imagination is staggered by the thought-if there were any conversa
tion between the two, what can it possibly have been about? The
weather, perhaps, if Bruckner had noticed it. Yet within this oddly
humble and puzzled little man was hidden a majesty he discovered for
himself with infinite patience and a sublime conscientiousness typical
of a great artist. His surroundings and he himself have vanished, and
many a sparkling and scornful intellect can bewilder and plague him
no more. Though there are Hanslicks still with us, they can no longer
trouble him The frothing tide that often threatened his work and his
.
sanity has long drained into crevices in the soft earth, but the hard
and jagged rock of his life's achievement is still there. It has survived
all seeming odds. The cracks in the stone are honourable scars on its
mighty face.
INDEX
INDEX
Alkan, 123 No. 2, in C minor, 24. 45ff, 64,

66, 71, 103 , 125, 1 37, 100
Bach, J. S., 12, 201 No. 3 , in D minor, 1 5 , 24, 45,
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1 3 , 14, 16, 64ff, 8 1 , 82, 86, 89, 94, 95,
20, 23, 24, 26, 43 , 5 1 , 52, 66, 67, 71, 103, n o, 123, 125, 1 3 5. 1 3 8 ,
83, 94, 109, n 7, 124. 125, 128, 160, 1 82, 1 8 3 , 201
130, 1 3 4. 165, 166, 182, 1 8 3 , 196 No. 4, in E flat major, 22, 24,
Berlioz, Hector, 46, 202 25, 39, 45, 8 1 ff, 103 , 107, I I O,
Borodin, Alexander, 21 125, 1 3 8 , 1 56, 100, 201
Brahms, Johannes, 38, 123, 125, 142, No. 5, in B flat major, 17, 24, 25,
1 8 5 , 195. 196, 197 38, 39, 55, 59, 81, 82, 94, l02ff,
Brian, Havergal, 1 59, 201 123, 125, 126, 134. 1 3 5, 140,
Bruckner, Anton 1 00, 176, 179, 197, 199, 200
Abendzauber, 25 No. 6, in A major, 17, 24, 27,
Libera in F minor, 1 5 86, 95, 103, l23ff, 142, 179,
Magnificat, 1 4 199. 201
Mass No. 1 , in D minor, 16, 17, 19, No. 7, in E major, 17, 27, 36, 37,
23 , 179 38, 47, 49, 98, 103, 123, 125,
Mass No. 2, in E minor, 1 3 , 17-18, l42ff, 1 59. 160, 169, 171, 1 74 .
19, 22, 23, 24, 179 176, 179. 192, 194, 199, 200,
Mass No. 3, in F minor, 19, 23, 27, 201
54, 59, 62 No. 8, in C minor, 24. 29, 38, 59,
Missa solemnis in B flat minor, 14, 65, 66, 70, 81, 94, 95, 98, 103 ,
1 5 , 23 125, 1 3 5. 1 5 1 , 1 59ff, 179, 1 80,
Overture in G minor, 14, 16 194. 198-199, 200, 201
Psalm n 4, 14 No. 9, in D minor, 14, 17, 22,
Psalm 150, 25, 27, 28 24. 29, 3 5 , 54, 67, 69, 82, 103,
Requiem in D minor, 12, 13 123, l79ff, 200, 201
String Quintet in F major, 25, 2- Te Deum, 22, 25, 27-28, 1 52,
27, 179 1 8 1 , 1 82, 197
Symphonies : Busoni, Ferruccio, 123
F minor (Studiensymphonie), 14, 16
D minor (No. "O"), 19ff, 24, 46, Cherubini, Luigi, 84
48, 56, 64, 103 Calles, H. C., 142
No. l, in C minor, 17, 19, 20, Cooke, Deryck, 1 80
24, 27, 29ff, 45, 46, 48, 56,
64, 103, 1 50, 100, 179, 192, 199 Dessoff, Otto, 20, 21, 48
206 T HE ESSENCE OP B RU CKNER
Doemberg, Erwin, 77 Nielsen, Carl, 1 56, I95
Dvorak, Antonin, I6, 42, 125, I96, Nikisch, Arthur, I 5 I , I 57. I 59
I97 Nowak, Leopold, 65, B I , IOI, 157.
I 58, I6o, I 74. I75
Elgar, Edward, u 3 , 126
Oberleithner, Max von, I 74
Furtwangler,Wilhelm, 82 Oeser, Fritz, 65, 68, 73
Orel, Alfred, I Bo
Gabrieli, Giovanni, 200
Gollerich, August, 75 Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da, I7,
23
Haas, Robert, 45, 46, 47, 52, 54, 8 1 , Perger, Richard von, I97
I24, I 44, 1 5 I , I57. I 5 8 , I6o, I 70, Pope, Stanley, I I4
I7I, 172, I 74. I75. I76
Hanslick, Eduard, I 59, 202 Rattig, Theodor, 64, 65, 69
Haydn, Josef, I 3 , I4, I6, 23 , 24, 28, Redlich, Hans F., 20, 102, I8o, I B I
125, I96 Richter, Hans , I 59
Hellmesberger, Joseph, 26 Rossini, Gioacchino, 2I
Herbeck, Johann, I5, 46, 52, 54, 64,
I02 Schalk, Franz, 26, 65, 73 , 79, 82, I02,
Hynais, Cyril, I24, 1 3 2 103, I24, 194, 197
Schalk, Joseph, 65, I24, I 57, I 5 8, I59.
Jeffrey, Francis, 84, 90 I 74. I97
Johnson, Samuel, 89 Schoenberg, Arnold, I2I
Schonzeler, Hans-Hubert, I4, 1 8 1
Keller, Hans, 61 Schubert, Franz, I 3 , I4, 1 6 , 22, 23, 26,
Kitzler, Otto, I 5 , 16, 22 36, 43, 5� 125, 1 3 1 , 172
Krzyzanowski, Rudolf, 64 Schumann , Robert, 16, 29
Sechter, Simon, I2, 1 5 , 16, 22
Lam, Basil, 128 Sibelius, Jean, 2I, 23, I 3 8
Levi, Hermann, 29, 65, I 59, I6o, 179
Liszt, Franz, 16, I95 Tovey, Donald Francis, 3 5 , 5 5 , 57, 82,
Loewe, Ferdinand, 82·, Io3, I24, I 5 8, 84, 89-90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97,
I94. I97 I I2, I I 7, 123, 129, 1 32, 134, 148,
Ludwig II of Bavaria, 1 59 178, 200
Mahler, Gustav, I9, 64, 65, 97, 123, Wagner, Richard, 16, 22, 23, 32, 64,
133. I62, 1 80 66, 73, 82, 89, 99, I29, I 3 3 . 134.
Mayfeld, Moritz von, 1 02 1 5 1 , 173. 195. 196, 197, 200, 201
Mendelssohn, Felix, I2 Walter, Bruno, 89
Milton, John, 1 66, I 86 Weiss, J. B., I I
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, I 3 , 23,
I25, I96 Zottmann, Franz, 1 5 8

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THE ESSENCE OF BRUCKNER

Austrian Na.tional Library

Printed in Great Britain by

II Symphony No. 1, in C minor 29

T HIS BOOK ATTEMPTS to consider Bruckner through the ears of

T HE STRANGE CASE of Anton Bruckner almost defeats the imagin­

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It is perhaps not often thought that Bruckner might have made a

T HERE ARE TWO authentic versions o f the official No. 1 . The

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The accompaniment loses all its thrilling inevitability in the revision,

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Bruckner confirms this by drawing a double bar-line. The slower

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B flat is treated as if it were a key, and the melody is joined by

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This ends the exposition and, as in the first movement, Bruckner

For a time the mood is reflective, as always at this stage in a Bruckner

As WE HAVE seen in discussing the First Symphony, the fears and

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Although (b) is a variant of(a) it is treated in the coda as an idea in its

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G major proves not to be a real key as we swing gently back to E

turbed. The calm main theme opens beautifully in five-part harmony :

Coming after a C major chord, this seems to begin in F minor, but

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It makes some delectable modulations as, with a sense of infinite

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With a childlike and almost sublime unawareness of problems or

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It is treated at some length, not quite coherently, first falling into

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The slight tipsiness of this music becomes downright alcoholism

Even in this felicitous inspiration there are traces of that unclear

Despite Bruckner's remarks, the predominant effect of this passage

SYMPHO NY N O . 4 , I N E FLAT MAJ O R

T o T u RN TO the dean lines and structural mastery of the first three

"The orthodox critic has no right to complain of a shock to his

The first observation to make about this is that Tovey is right in

Because there can be no question of any counterstatement of the

T HE STRANGE CASE of Anton Bruckner almost defeats the imagin

necessary, but it would do no worse than slightly spoil the half

The music floats through various harmonic regions, returning faith

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I T IS S O METIMES suggested that the Sixth Symphony, with its rich