Anton Bruckner - Sinfonie c-Moll Nr. 1 (WAB 101)
(app. 100 pages, 30 €)
Anton Bruckner did not work on any other symphony for longer or more intensively than on the Symphony in C minor No. 1. Although he began sketching a new symphony ('Linz version') soon after the positive response to the performance of his Mass in D minor in November 1864 in Linz and based on suggestions from his sponsor Moritz von Mayfeld in early 1865, he was only able to finish it 16 months later, in April 1866. In contrast, he composed his first four-movement Symphony in F minor, with which his studies with the Linz theater conductor Otto Kitzler culminated in July 1863, in just five months.
"With the 'cheeky broom' I didn't care about a cat, about criticism or an audience, I composed as I liked, not to please people"..., is how Bruckner later expressed himself about his Symphony in C minor No. 1. His cheeky broom not only frightened the audience in the provincial capital Linz in 1868, even 23 years later the second performance on December 13, 1891 in Vienna by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra did not receive enthusiastic approval.
Brahms biographer Max Kalbeck began his review with the sentence: In Anton Bruckner's first symphony everything is inspiration and almost nothing is work. How beautifully the work begins and how nasty it ends! At the end of the Bruckner year 2024, the Symphony in C minor No. 1 is, astonishingly, still the least performed of his symphonies.
(Dr. Rudolf Innig)