Bruckner's Fourth: The Biography of a Symphony

Anton Bruckner's Fourth Symphony is one of the most beloved and frequently performed works in the orchestral repertoire. Despite this, a great deal about the work and its genesis has been either unknown, poorly understood, or starkly misrepresented. The work's extraordinary history is the source of much of this confusion. Bruckner worked on the Fourth over fifteen years before he finally published the score in 1889. During the process, he created several earlier versions of the work, which remained unknown until decades after his death. The first attempts to comprehend the work's compositional history were made by German scholars in the 1930s, but these not only proved partial but sowed the seeds of a long tradition of misunderstanding. This book offers the first complete and coherent account, which draws upon numerous previously overlooked sources, of the extraordinary compositional evolution of this magnificent symphony. What emerges is the story of Bruckner's remarkable efforts to produce a symphony that would, as he put it, be able to "make its effect" in performance.

The heart of the book is an exploration, based on comprehensive archival research and critical analysis, of the creative development of the Fourth Symphony. It explains the nature and significance of the different versions through which the work passed, considers the impact of early performances, delves into the complicated roles played by Bruckner's collaboration with other musicians in the later stages of the work's evolution, and situates all of this in Bruckner's biographical, social, and musical context. The book also critiques the conventional wisdom about the so-called problem posed by the versions of Bruckner's works by deconstructing long-established myths, developing new insights, and bringing the musical logic of Bruckner's approach into clear focus. The book offers a searching yet accessible account of the music of the Fourth and a critical survey of the varying ways the work has been interpreted in performance and, starting in the 1930s, on recordings.