Reportedly, composer
Hans Pfitzner accused his colleague Anton Bruckner of re-composing the same symphony nine times. How untrue that statement may be has been demonstrated by the now numerous recordings of Bruckner's symphonies. French conductor François-Xavier Roth (son of the legendary organist
Daniel Roth) is fully committed to the innovative nature of Bruckner's music with his own Bruckner
… cycle. Accordingly, in an interview he talks about "Bruckner, the progressive. Roth's starting point is to stay as close as possible to the "original" Bruckner. Roth ignores the many adaptations the composer himself made to his symphonies in later years; he concentrates on the original versions. On this album these are the Linzer version of the First Symphony (1868) and the first version of the Second Symphony (1872). What these two firsts show is how Bruckner breaks free from the straightjacket of the classical-romantic symphony. Bruckner subverts the ubiquitous sonata form by adding unique passages, often of an autobiographical nature. For example, the first movement of his First Symphony contains subtle references to Wagner's opera Tannhäuser, a composer for whom Bruckner was in almost divine awe. The Second Symphony abounds in self-citations. The Adagio, for example, contains a fragment taken from the Benedictus of Bruckner's Mass in f. Miraculously, Bruckner deleted this quotation and other bold passages in later versions. It is precisely these original versions that show how progressive Bruckner was already in his first symphonies. (JWvR)more
