The Bruckner Problem and The Study of Musical Form

Abstract

This study proposes an analytical methodology and theoretical framework that seeks to turn the textual multiplicity often associated with Bruckner’s large-scale works (a scholarly issue often referred to as the “Bruckner Problem”) into a Bruckner Potential. Because textual multiplicity does not sit comfortably with traditional notions of authenticity and authorship, Bruckner scholarship has operated under aesthetic premises that fail to acknowledge textual multiplicity as a basic trait of his oeuvre. The present study circumvents this shortcoming by conceiving formal-expressive meaning in Bruckner’s symphonies as growing out of a two-dimensional dialogue comprising 1) an outward dialogue, characterized by the interplay between a given version of a Bruckner symphony and its implied genre (in this case, sonata form); and 2) an inward dialogue, characterized by the interplay among the various individualized realizations of a single Bruckner symphony. The analytical method is exemplified through a brief comparison of two renditions of the slow movement of Bruckner’s First Symphony, WAB 101 and a detailed consideration of each of the surviving realizations of the slow movement of his Third Symphony, WAB 103.