Symphony No. 8 in c minor, WAB 108

Composer: BRUCKNER, Anton
  • Bruckner wrote his original version of this symphony (WAB 108/1) in July 1884 – Aug 10, 1887. This version didn’t premiere until 1954 in Munich (first movement only) and 1973 in London (entire symphony.1
  • Bruckner offered the first version of this symphony to Hermann Levi in 1887, hoping he’d premiere the work in Munich. Bruckner was devastated when Levi said he couldn’t understand the work and rejected it. Bruckner then began a series of revisions on the symphony.2
    • Bruckner could be a very sensitive and insecure person, and this discussion was clearly painful for everyone involved: 

“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 – Keep me in your good books! Consider me an ass, I don’t mind, but don’t think that my feelings for you have changed in any way or could ever do so.”

Hermann Levi, letter to Bruckner, Oct. 7, 18873

“Your report has hit Professor Bruckner very hard. He feels eternally unlucky and will hear no words of consolation…”

Josef Schalk to Hermann Levi, Oct. 18, 1887[efn_noet]Ibid.[/efn_note]

“I certainly have reason to be ashamed of myself – at least this time – because of the Eighth. I am an ass. Now I see things differently.”

Bruckner, to Levi, Feb. 4, 18884
  • Bruckner’s second version of this symphony (WAB 108/2, composed Oct 1887 – March 10, 1890) premiered in Vienna on Dec. 18, 1892. It was published in 1892, edited by Joseph Schalk and Max von Oberleithner.5
    • There is evidence that Schalk and von Oberleithner did not have Bruckner’s final authorization for the version of the symphony which they had printed in 1892.  
    • Bruckner also wrote an Adagio for this symphony in October 1887 – March 1889. This movement did not premiere until 1994, in Tokyo.
  • Bruckner dedicated his 8th Symphony to Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria.6

Sources

  1. Paul Hawkshaw and Timothy L. Jackson, “Bruckner, (Joseph) Anton,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed April 1, 2022,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040030.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Benjamin Korstvedt, ed., Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 18.
  4. Ibid., 19.
  5. Hawkshaw and Jackson, “Bruckner, (Joseph) Anton,” Grove Music Online.
  6. Korstvedt, ed., Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 8, 20.

Cut IDs

10249 17277