“Please don’t change too much.”
Variants and versions of Bruckner’s symphonies

Anton Bruckner did not make it easy for his contemporaries – or for future generations. He worked on his symphonies again and again, revising, shortening or rewriting entire movements. Performers are spoilt for choice, and sometimes have to decide between several versions.

The question is justified: How many symphonies did Bruckner actually write? According to the official count – and if you take the composer himself at his word – there are nine. If we include the so-called “0th” and the Study Symphony from the early 1860s, the total would be eleven. Bruckner himself removed both from the series of numbered works. Nevertheless, it is possible to arrive at an even larger number: If we take into account all the revisions and new versions that Bruckner made to his symphonies long after their respective premieres, the bottom line is a massive 18 more or less different symphonic creations.

Bruckner revised almost all of his symphonies. Sometimes he focussed on details, sometimes he smoothed them out, eliminating a few bars here or shortened them extensively there. Sometimes he even completely recomposed entire movements. The fact that he saw his symphonies as “work in progress” was usually interpreted negatively. Was he a just procrastinator with low self-confidence? Even today, the judgement is often that Bruckner followed all well-intentioned but not always good advice, and always wanted to please orchestras, conductors and critics – as if the composer did not have a mind of his own. But there were also opposing voices, like that of the conductor Hermann Levi, who pleaded: “Please, please – don’t change too much – it’s all good as it is [...]!” Bruckner certainly made numerous changes because of specific performance situations; if he felt that he had overtaxed his audience with a first version, he later offered compromises. It is how it is; Bruckner’s music only poses a “version problem” to those expecting one simple truth.