Anton Bruckner is a somewhat enigmatic figure. On the one hand, his symphonies’ rich harmonic language, meandering tonality, and extreme length place his music at the very end of the symphonic age, aligning him with some of the more radical composers of his day. At the same time, Bruckner was notoriously deferential to other composers, even asking them to participate in his extensive and frequent revisions. Many of his contemporaries were ambivalent as well, especially the notable Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick. As Hanslick wrote of Bruckner’s third symphony,

...his artistic intentions are honest, however oddly he employs them. Instead of a critique, therefore, we would rather simply confess that we have not understood his gigantic symphony. Neither were his poetic intentions clear to us...nor could we grasp the purely musical coherence. The composer...was greeted with cheering and was consoled with lively applause at the close by a fraction of the audience that stayed to the end...the Finale, which exceeded all its predecessors in oddities, was only experienced to the last extreme by a little host of hardy adventurers.

Interestingly, the Symphony No. 6 in A Major, composed between 1879 and 1881, was the only symphony Bruckner never revised. Although it is sometimes described as the "ugly duckling" of Bruckner's symphonic output, the Sixth Symphony is often considered a reflective response to the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies. As a result, it is sometimes called the "Philosophical" Symphony. While Bruckner did not revise the work, his followers edited it extensively—and the printed edition that emerged three years after Bruckner's death is today considered significantly different from the composer's original intentions. 

Only two movements of the Symphony No. 6—the Adagio and Scherzo—were performed in Bruckner's lifetime. Gustav Mahler conducted the first performance of the complete work, albeit radically cut and reorchestrated, on February 11, 1899, more than two years after the composer's death. The first uncut performance using Bruckner's orchestration took place in Stuttgart on March 14, 1901, under the direction of Karl Pohlig. Consisting of four movements, the first movement is marked Majestoso rather than the more conventional Maestoso, perhaps in a gesture to the Latin “maiestas,” or “sovereign power,” The second movement, marked Adagio: Sehr feierlich (very solemnly), is in sonata form—unusual in Bruckner’s repertoire. The ensuing Scherzo: Nicht schnell (not fast) is also distinctive in its unusually relaxed tempo. In the concluding Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell (moving, but not too quickly), a rich profusion of themes takes the symphony to a grand conclusion.

-Jennifer More 2024