The Master, a Manuscript, and a Mug of Beer: Bruckner’s Third Symphony
The story of Anton Bruckner’s Third Symphony is one of the most memorable, and endearingly awkward, encounters in music history. It involves two composers, a pile of manuscripts, a fair amount of beer, and a moment of hero-worship so intense it nearly ended in farce. The object of this worship was Richard Wagner, and for Bruckner, a humble and devout musician from rural Austria, Wagner was nothing short of a god. In September 1873, clutching the scores of his Second and newly completed Third symphonies, Bruckner undertook a
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The Master, a Manuscript, and a Mug of Beer: Bruckner’s Third Symphony
The story of Anton Bruckner’s Third Symphony is one of the most memorable, and endearingly awkward, encounters in music history. It involves two composers, a pile of manuscripts, a fair amount of beer, and a moment of hero-worship so intense it nearly ended in farce. The object of this worship was Richard Wagner, and for Bruckner, a humble and devout musician from rural Austria, Wagner was nothing short of a god. In September 1873, clutching the scores of his Second and newly completed Third symphonies, Bruckner undertook a pilgrimage to Bayreuth to beg "the Master of all Masters" to accept a dedication.
Wagner, initially preoccupied, eventually agreed to look at the scores. As the two men sat together, Bruckner, growing ever more nervous, watched as Wagner examined his work. To Bruckner’s immeasurable joy, Wagner expressed his profound admiration for the Third Symphony, calling it a masterpiece. The two spent the rest of the afternoon in deep conversation, fueled by several mugs of beer. The problem came the next morning, when the teetotaling Bruckner, still giddy from the previous day's success (and libations), could not for the life of him remember which symphony Wagner had actually accepted. He had to send a desperate, panicked note back to the Wagner household, which read simply: "Symphony in D minor, where the trumpet begins the main theme? A. Bruckner." Wagner famously scribbled "Yes! Heartiest greetings!" on the note, and from that day forward, the Third was known as Bruckner's "Wagner Symphony."
This charming, slightly "sauced" anecdote gives a very human entry point into a work of monumental ambition. Bruckner’s reverence for Wagner is woven directly into the symphony's original 1873 score, which contained direct quotations from Wagner's music dramas, including Die Walküre and Tristan und Isolde. It was a bold, almost radical gesture, an attempt to fuse the symphonic form of Beethoven with the harmonic language and epic scope of Wagnerian music drama.
However, the symphony’s journey to the stage was anything but smooth. After its completion, Bruckner endured four years of rejections. When he was finally given the chance to conduct the premiere with the Vienna Philharmonic in December 1877, it was an unmitigated disaster. The orchestra was openly hostile to the music, the audience began to leave en masse after the first movement, and by the end, only a handful of loyal students (including a young Gustav Mahler) remained in the hall to applaud the distraught composer.
True to form, Bruckner’s lifelong insecurity led him to extensively revise the work. The original, Wagner-quote-filled 1873 version was shelved, replaced by a tightened 1877 version (used at the disastrous premiere), and later by a more heavily cut 1889 version. It is this complicated history that makes any performance of the Third a unique event, as conductors must choose which version of Bruckner’s vision to present.
What the audience hears in any version is a work of immense power and grandeur. It opens with one of the most arresting ideas in all of music: a solitary, heroic trumpet theme sounding over a mysterious mist of shimmering strings. From this single seed, a vast structure grows. The symphony unfolds with colossal brass chorales, intimate moments of prayerful string writing in the Adagio, a rustic, stomping Austrian dance for a Scherzo, and a Finale of immense complexity that pits a festive polka against a solemn chorale. It is a work of breathtaking contrasts, reflecting the personality of its creator: a man of simple faith who dared to build cathedrals in sound.
