Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 8 in C minor, WAB 108, is the last symphony he completed, and is dedicated to Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. It exists in two major versions of 1887 and 1890. It was premiered under conductor Hans Richter in 1892 at the Musikverein, Vienna.
This symphony is sometimes nicknamed The Apocalyptic, but this was not a name Bruckner gave to the work himself.
Composition and publication Bruckner began work on the Eighth Symphony in July 1884.Korstvedt, p. 11 Working mainly during the summer vacations from his duties at the University of Vienna and the Vienna Conservatory, the composer had all four movements completed in draft form by August 1885. The orchestration of the work took Bruckner until April 1887 to complete; during this stage of composition, the order of the inner movements was reversed, leaving the Scherzo second and the Adagio as the third movement.
In September 1887, Bruckner had the score copied and sent to conductor Hermann Levi. Levi was one of Bruckner's closest collaborators, having given a performance of the Symphony No. 7 in Munich that was "the greatest triumph Bruckner had yet experienced".Korstvedt, pp. 15–16 He had also arranged for Bruckner's career to be supported in other ways, including financial assistance from the nobility, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Vienna. However the conductor wrote back to Bruckner that:Korstvedt, p. 18
I find it impossible to perform the Eighth in its current form. I just can't make it my own! As much as the themes are magnificent and direct, their working-out seems to me dubious; indeed, I consider the orchestration quite impossible... Don't lose your courage, take another look at your work, talk it over with your friends, with Schalk, maybe a reworking can achieve something.
By January 1888, Bruckner had come to agree with Levi that the symphony would benefit from further work.Korstvedt, p. 19 Early work of revision was carried out in the first movement and the Scherzo, expressed as pencil notations in their score. A distinct version of the Adagio – now called the "intermediate Adagio" or "Adagio of 1888" – was also retrieved and edited in 2004 by Dermot Gault and Takanobu Kawasaki. Thereafter, Bruckner concentrated on the new versions of the Fourth and Third. He began work on the final version of the Adagio in March 1889 and completed the new version of the symphony in March 1890.
Once the new version was completed, the composer wrote to Emperor Franz Josef I for permission to dedicate the symphony to him.Korstvedt, p. 20 The emperor accepted Bruckner's request and also offered to help pay for the work's publication.Korstvedt, p. 21 Bruckner had some trouble finding a publisher for the work, but in late 1890 the Haslinger-Schlesinger-Lienau company agreed to undertake publication. Bruckner's associates Josef Schalk and Max von Oberleithner assisted with the publication process: Schalk prepared the musical text to be sent to the printer while Oberleithner corrected the proofs and also provided financial support.Korstvedt pp. 88, 22 The symphony was eventually published in March 1892. It was the only one of Bruckner's symphonies to be published before its first performance.Korstvedt, pp. 21–22
Premiere and reception By the time the 1890 revision was complete, Levi was no longer conducting concerts in Munich. As a result, he recommended that his protege Felix Weingartner, Kapellmeister of Mannheim, lead the first performance of the symphony. The premiere was twice scheduled to occur under the young conductor's direction during 1891, but each time Weingartner substituted another work at the last minute.Korstvedt, p. 23 Eventually the conductor told Bruckner that he was unable to undertake the performance because he was about to take up a new position at the Berlin Opera. However, Weingartner admitted, in a letter to Levi, that the real reason he was unable to perform the symphony was because the work was too difficult and he did not have enough rehearsal time: in particular, the Wagner tuba players in his orchestra did not have enough experience to cope with their parts.Korstvedt, p. 24
After a Munich performance by Levi was cancelled because of a feared outbreak of cholera, Bruckner focused his efforts on securing a Vienna premiere for the symphony. At last Hans Richter, subscription conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic, agreed to conduct the work. The first performance took place on 18 December 1892. Although some of the more conservative members of the audience left at the end of each movement, many of Bruckner's supporters were also present, including Hugo Wolf and Johann Strauss.
The well known critic Eduard Hanslick left after the slow movement. His review described the symphony as "interesting in detail, but strange as a whole, indeed repellent. The peculiarity of this work consists, to put it briefly, in importing Wagner's dramatic style into the symphony."Korstvedt, p. 4 (Korstvedt points out that this was less negative than Hanslick's reviews of Bruckner's earlier symphonies.) There were also many positive reviews from Bruckner's admirers. One anonymous writer described the symphony as "the crown of music in our time".Korstvedt, p. 5 Hugo Wolf wrote to a friend that the symphony was "the work of a giant" that "surpasses the other symphonies of the master in intellectual scope, awesomeness, and greatness".Korstvedt, p. 6
The symphony was slow to enter the orchestral repertoire. Only two further performances occurred during Bruckner's lifetime.Korstvedt, p. 26 The American premiere did not take place until 1909, while the symphony had to wait until 1929 for its first London performance.
Description The symphony has four movements. The total duration varies by performance and the edition of the score used, but is typically around 80 minutes, thus vying with the 5th as the composer's longest. In the first version (1887) they are: In the second version (1890 “apocalyptic”) they are:
First movement
The symphony begins in a tonally ambiguous manner with a theme rhythmically reminiscent of the main theme of the first movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor and of the March in D minor of 1862. According to theorist Heinrich Schenker this passage is "like the beginning of the world."
A more song-like second subject group uses the Bruckner rhythm:
The third subject group, which is strikingly dissonant, forms a smooth transition to the development:
In structure, the opening movement is therefore a typically Brucknerian three-subject sonata form, though handled with more panache than in his previous works. The development was substantially refined in 1890. In both versions, this section of the movement contains a massive, augmented three-part statement of the main theme, impressively given on full orchestra in combination with the Bruckner rhythm of the second subject group. This combination of the main two themes of the exposition rises pitch-wise by a third until the orchestra drops away, leaving a single flute accompanied by a timpano.
In the recapitulation, the third theme leads to a great climax for the entire orchestra, in which the bare rhythm of the main theme is dominant:
This suddenly breaks off, leaving just the trumpets and three of the horns hammering out the rhythm, timpani thundering beneath. When the strings and woodwinds rejoin, it is in a very dejected mood. At this juncture the two versions differ significantly. In the 1887 version, this solemn passage leads to what many consider an unconvincingly premature victory coda, which sounds the main theme in C major. For the 1890 version, the triumphant ending was cut, and the despondent passage extended by a few bars to form a pianissimo coda in itself (thus becoming the only instance of a first movement ending softly in Bruckner's symphonic œuvre). This quiet, sombre ending is for low winds and low strings in a thoroughly bleak C minor, that remembers the music at the corresponding spot in the Symphony in F Minor. There is no doubt from contemporary letters of Bruckner that it represented death in some way.
It has been suggested by some scholars that the coda was inspired by the climax of the Dutchman's monologue in Wagner's Der fliegende Hollander, with the words, "Ihr Welten endet euren Lauf, ewige Vernichtung, nimm mich auf!".
Second movement
The five-note Deutscher Michel theme, accompanied by tremolo figures in the upper strings, is a reminiscence of the Credo of the Mass in E minor:
The main part of the Scherzo is fundamentally the same in both versions, though somewhat more repetitive in the first version. The orchestration and dynamics are more refined in the second version, helping to give the movement a rich and original sound. The Trios, however, are quite different: the 1890 version was rewritten as an adumbration of the ensuing Adagio movement, featuring the harps, and the tempo was slowed down:
This Scherzo is Bruckner's largest, lasting around 14 or 15 minutes in most performances.
Third movement
The main difference between versions is at the climax, for which in the 1887 version Bruckner managed to insert six cymbal clashes. He must have thought that excessive, as he pared it down to two in the 1890 version. The key of this climax was also altered from C major in 1887 to E-flat major in 1890. The coda of this movement is recalled in the coda of the Adagio of the Ninth Symphony.
This Adagio differs from those in other symphonies by the composer in that the second thematic group is not presented in a more flowing tempo. The two themes are, first, a recollection of the slow movement of Schubert's Wanderer Fantasie for Pianoforte and an answering descending passage, both over throbbing, richly scored strings; and, secondly, a tonally unstable passage radiant with ecstasy. The structure and scale of the Adagio as it develops these themes is grander than any of Bruckner's previous slow movements.
The movement opens in an unusual way; while it is in time, the string accompaniment is made up of a mix of uneven triplets and eighth notes. Simon Rattle describes this as a "fascinating rhythmic hall of mirrors."
This eventually leads to a great chorale in the strings that starts in G major but leads to F major:
The second part of the movement begins with a cello melody:
The Adagio is the most controversial of all the movements in terms of different versions. For example, Robert Haas inserted one quiet, solemn passage in his edition of the 1890 score which restored a cut between two loud passages (before the main climax of the movement), whereas in the Leopold Nowak edition these two loud passages are joined. This difference greatly affects the impression given to the listener for this section of the movement as it heads towards the great E major climax. The 1890 Adagio, in both the edition of Robert Haas and that of Leopold Nowak, remains shorter than the 1887 original.
Fourth movement
Beginning belligerently (by Bruckner's standards), this movement reaches a triumphant conclusion using themes (or at least rhythmic impressions of these) from all four movements. The form of this movement is complex, derived from a three-subject sonata structure but, like the opening movement of Symphony No. 7, highly individualised. The scale and complexity of this movement are both on a different level from that in the opening of the Seventh Symphony, however, not least in that this movement must synthesise the entire symphony (as it reworks old ideas and new ones into a coherent whole), and forms what must be a satisfactory conclusion for the whole work.
The opening theme is a powerful chorale, originally given over a march, in which the rhythmic thundering of the timpani recalls certain passages in the opening movement:
The second subject, a song theme, is remarkable in that it recollects not only its counterpart in the first movement but also the Adagio: