Bruckner, Anton, (1824-1896)

DISCUSSING THE PERFORMANCE AND RECEPTION OF HIS WORKS, flattering him with the observation that no day goes by without his singing his praises as an artist and with regard to his character, criticising the conducting of  Gericke, observing how the Viennese would have been agog to hear his Te Deum performed by him and his choir, noting that he will never hear it performed like that again, commenting on the great success of the First Symphony ("one of my hardest and best [translation]"), noting that Hans Richter is crazy about it in private, "on account of Hanslick", stating that the orchestra first called it the work of a madman, then "phenomenal", remarking that Hanslick wrote nothing about it, and admitting that it is difficult to understand on one hearing; in the letter Bruckner also expresses his wish that he [Ochs] conduct his symphonies, eulogising him to the skies, describing him as his second artistic father, observing that other conductors promise him the world, but he, poor Bruckner, is the loser [as they do not keep their promises], and referring also to Weingartner and Bülow ("...Mein höchster Wunsch ist u. bleibt ewig der, Herr Director selbst sollten auch meine Sinfonien dirigieren. Sie sind für mich ein zweiter künstlerischer Vater!...")

4 pages, 8vo (22.4 x 14.4cm), autograph envelope, Vienna, 3 February 1892, strengthened at hinge with translucent adhesive tape, slight splitting along folds 

Max Auer, Bruckner. Gesammelte Briefe, pp. 255-56; Benjamin Korstvedt, '"Return to the pure sources": the ideology and text-critical legacy of the first Bruckner Gesamtausgabe', Bruckner Studies, ed. Timothy L. Jackson and Paul Hawkshaw, pp. 92-93

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An important letter by Bruckner to the Berlin choir-leader and composer Siegfried Ochs, who had founded the Philharmonic Choral Society of Berlin in 1882. A particularly noteworthy feature of the letter is the composer's expressed satisfaction with a performance of his first symphony, based as it was on the much-criticised text of the first edition.