Bruckner: Symphony No.4, E-flat Major, "Romantic"
Edition: the Haas 1881 version.
Karl Bohm, Staatskapelle, Semperoper Dresden
Recording on June 9-11, 1936
Record by: Victor ("Scroll" label)
Catalog number: M 331 (14211 - 14218)
Matrix number: 02077 - 02092
Original Issue: Electrola DB 4450-4457 (2RA 1350-1357)
Topics: 78rpm, 12", Mono
Sound Quality: 192hz / 24bit Flac & MP3
Statement: The records are from my personal collection and I have produced the sound and video myself from the original records, which are over 89 years old.
1st Movement - Allegro ma non troppo 00:00
2nd Movement - Andante quasi allegretto 17:58
3rd Movement - Scherzo 34:20
4th Movement - Finale - Allegro ma non Troppo 40:17
INTRODUCTION
The present score corresponds with Anton Bruckner's autograph, which he bequeathed in his will as the final version to Vienna's imperial Hofbibliothek and today is preserved as manuscript 19476 in the music collection of the Nationalbibliothek in Vienna. In it the first three movements of the second version of this symphony (1878) are combined with the Finale in its third version (1880).
The same four movements were engraved and published as early as November 1889 by the publishing house of Albert J. Gutmann in Vienna. This first edition of the score, however, departs conspicuously from the text that is here made accessible for the first time. The changes include, along with confusing additions of tempo indications and questionable dynamic revisions, a thoroughgoing reorchestration of the entire symphony and serious meddling with the form of the Scherzo and Finale. The most important examples of the last type are the disturbing of the balance in the first Scherzo through premature interruption (at m.250) and the addition of a diminuendo transition, and, further, the elimination of the beginning of the recapitulation in the Finale, where 48 measures (mm.383-430) were omitted. In the first edition the recapitulation begins with the cantabile passage in D minor (12 measures), while in the autograph it appears transposed to F sharp minor.
Although it is certain that the first edition appeared in the master's lifetime, the circumstances that accompanied its publication can today no longer be verified. The draft mentioned above, in any case, takes absolutely no notice of the text of the first edition, which under closer investigation turns out to be a murky source for the specialist-that is, the result of the conception of practitioners about Bruckner. This represented a point of view whose justification appears to have been grounded in the special, unfavorable circumstances of the time of the publication, when inadequately developed orchestral technique, possibilities of performances only with orchestras of the second rank, and in general the limited power of comprehension of the listener had to be taken into consideration, but which today has been superseded, since it gave a different meaning to the well-considered and significant intent of its creator and must have been accepted by Bruckner as, at best, an unavoidable expedient. (The more detailed discussions of the difficult question of the sources are found in the source commentary. [The latter has been omitted from the Dover volume.] )
This volume of the complete-works edition, which had to be divided into two half- volumes, thus does not contain the text of the first edition in its entirety; on the contrary, it provides the beautiful, unknown Finale of the second version of 1878 and the entire first version of the score of 1874. [Note: The Dover volume reproduces only the score as described in the first paragraph and published as an individual volume by the Bruckner- Verlag, that is, without the 1874 version of the symphony or the Finale of 1878.]
Vienna, February 1936
Professor Robert Haas
In addition to the editor, Siegmund von Hausegger and Elsa Krüger participated in the redaction of the score.