Symphony no. 3 in D minor, “Wagner Symphony” (Original version of 1873)
- Gemäßigt, misterioso [Moderately, mysterious]
- Adagio. Feierlich [Slowly. Solemnly]
- Scherzo/Trio. Ziemlich schnell [Fairly fast]
- Finale. Allegro
Bruckner and his music constitute one of the strangest phenomena of 19th century music. He was universally acclaimed during his lifetime as one of the greatest organists and improvisers of his time, and cherished by his pupils as a teacher. His music, on the other hand, was the subject of great controversy. Then there was the problem of the man himself, who seemed utterly at odds with the music. The product of a peasant background, unprepossessing in appearance, possessed of a thick regional accent and filled with a religious devotion starkly at odds with the prevailing trends of artistic life in Vienna, even during his lifetime he was considered at best eccentric and at worst an idiot. Even Mahler, a great admirer, reputedly described him as “a naive man - half genius, half imbecile.”
During the 1860s Bruckner’s carer developed from provincial organist and teacher to internationally renowned musician. His own music was not so universally approved. His hero-worship of Wagner set many critics against him on principle, and he struggled to secure performances. The decade had begun traumatically when his beloved mother died in 1861; by 1867 overwork and stress took their toll and he suffered a nervous breakdown. He was diagnosed as suffering from “Numeromania”, a compulsion to count everything from the buttons on his shirt to the stars in the sky. After some months in a sanitorium the symptoms lessened and he was released, but his counting obsession remained (and would erupt in further breakdowns later in life). It seems likely that he suffered some form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, or possibly a form of what would now be diagnosed as Asperger’s Syndrome. This would certainly go some way to account for the eccentricities that made his contemporaries dismiss him as a naif or idiot savant.
Bruckner had written two symphonies before his breakdown. The first was written as part of his studies. His “official” First Symphony was composed in the wake of attending the premiere of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, and meeting Wagner himself for the first time, both overwhelming experience for him. After his release from the sanitorium he returned quickly to composing, and completed a new symphony in 1869, only to reject it. He marked the score “ø”, thus becoming the only composer to have written a symphony with the official designation “No. 0”. After another false start, Bruckner finally got into his symphonic stride, and by 1876 had completed his Fifth numbered symphony.
In 1873 Bruckner visited Wagner and presented him with the scores of his Second and the almost completed Third Symphonies, and requested permission to dedicate one of them to him. Wagner agreed to accept the dedication during an evening that must have been quite heady: the next day Bruckner was so hungover that he was unsure which symphony was to be dedicated to Wagner. He wrote to him: “Symphony in D minor in which the trumpet begins the theme?” Wagner’s reply was to the point: “Yes! Yes! Best wishes!” Having completed the symphony, he sent a copy to Wagner in 1874 bearing the dedication “in deepest reverence to the most honourable Herr, Richard Wagner, the unequalled, world famous and sublime master of poetry and music.” This may seem rather overwrought, but it was not untypical of Bruckner's manner. Many contemporaries noted his extraordinarily obsequious bearing with those he considered his superiors (which for a provincial Austrian meant most people in Vienna). His reaction on his first meeting with Wagner had after all been to fall to his knees and declare, “Master! I worship you!”, so Wagner cannot have been too surprised at Bruckner’s oleaginous dedication; indeed he probably considered it no more than his due.
It was at this point that one of Bruckner’s most notorious habits began to manifest itself in earnest: his predilection for revision. Much speculation has been advanced about why he reworked so many works so extensively. Many of the later versions of his symphonies were made by pupils and conductors such as the Schalk brothers, whose admiration of their teacher seems to be equal only to their conviction that he was incapable of producing a symphony without their aid. The degree to which Bruckner agreed with their amendments, or simply acquiesced in the hope of securing a performance, or was simply too feeble-minded to resist, is a subject of much controversy. Bruckner made sure, however, to preserve the manuscripts of all his original versions.
The Third Symphony exists, depending on how one counts these things, in upwards of of a dozen versions. As soon as he had delivered the score to Wagner, in 1874 he was already at work on a revision. Between 1876 and 1877 he worked again on it in preparation for its disastrous first performance in 1878. The conductor died days before the concert, and Bruckner took to the podium. Even if he had been an adequate conductor, the hostility of the orchestra did not help. The audience began leaving even before the performance had begun, and by the end there was almost nobody left (one of the few who did stay to the end was the young Mahler). The debacle prompted a further round of revisions before its was published in 1879, the first Bruckner symphony to see print. Bruckner could not leave it alone, though, and further revisions followed, this time with considerable input/interference from Franz Schalk, which eventually resulted in a “final” version in 1889.
Some of Bruckner’s initial revisions were concerned with niceties of notation, but others were undoubtedly made with a view to securing a performance, and this meant cuts. Particularly in the case of the finale, this did considerable damage to the music, making Bruckner’s original, carefully considered and paced movement into something that comes across as disjointed, with a final climax that appears bolted on rather than the natural progression of his original conception. This alone makes hearing the original score a revelation, but there are many other details to savour which are lost in the more familiar later versions.
Appropriately for the “Wagner” Symphony, the piece is filled with allusions to Wagner’s music, most of which were removed in the revisions that followed. How much these were apart of Bruckner’s plan from the outset, and how much they were inserted later in composition after Wagner accepted the dedication is not certain. Many of these allusions (it is perhaps overstating the case to describe them as quotations) derive from Bruckner’s favourite Wagner opera Die Walküre and Tristan and Isolde, which had made such an indelible impression on him at its premiere. This hints at a personal significance to Bruckner, an impression which is reinforced by quotations from Bruckner’s own music: The main theme of his Second Symphony is quoted several times, and at crucial points in the first two movements he also alludes to the “Miserere” from his own Mass in D minor, while the very opening of the symphony is reworked from his rejected Symphony “No. 0”. Many of these allusions may be connected to the fact that he wrote the symphony at least partly in memory of his mother.
The second movement is an expansive affair in its original form, alternating a prayer-like theme with a contrasting, more flowing idea. The memory of his mother is foremost here; he alludes to the “sleep” motif from Die Walküre, and the motif from his “Miserere” recurs. The dancing third movement comes as a complete contrast to the devotional mood that precedes it.
The finale begins in a turbulent fashion, before taking a most unlikely sidestep in the form of a polka, over which intones a solemn chorale. Bruckner explained this late in life to his biographer August Göllerich. Walking through Vienna, they passed the Sühnhaus, where the architect and restorer of St Stephen’s Cathedral, Friedrich Schmidt, was lying in state. From the house next door could be heard the sound of dancing. “Listen! Here in the house there is a ball, and next door the Master lies on his bier! That’s how life is, and this is what I wanted to describe in the last movement of my third symphony. The polka stands for humour and happiness in the world; the chorale for the sadness and pain.” For a composer such as Mahler, a juxtaposition such as this would demand a pitched battle between the two opposites; for Bruckner however, it is simply a fact of life and no contradiction that the two exist side by side. It is a cause not for conflict, but rather contemplation. There is a brief recollection of themes from earlier movements, before the opening movement’s trumpet theme returns in a blaze of glory to conclude the symphony.
The many pauses that occur throughout this movement (and indeed the whole symphony), were seen as eccentric by his contemporaries (and most were excised in the revisions). They are however an essential part of Bruckner’s style, a device for reflection on the many contrasts and contradictions his music presents. In these silences it is as though for a moment we peek behind the process unfolding, and for a moment see Bruckner himself, communing with God and asking: what next? And counting, always counting.
