Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 3 in D minor, WAB 103 ("Wagner"), was indeed originally dedicated to Richard Wagner, who proclaimed it a masterpiece. The story of the dedication is amusing and is recounted in the booklet to this BIS release. The symphony went nowhere (the young Mahler was one of its few early champions, while the critic Hanslick famously said it was a vision of how Beethoven's Ninth befriended Wagner's Walküre and ended up being trampled under her horses' hooves) and was revised by Bruckner many times, ...
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Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 3 in D minor, WAB 103 ("Wagner"), was indeed originally dedicated to Richard Wagner, who proclaimed it a masterpiece. The story of the dedication is amusing and is recounted in the booklet to this BIS release. The symphony went nowhere (the young Mahler was one of its few early champions, while the critic Hanslick famously said it was a vision of how Beethoven's Ninth befriended Wagner's Walküre and ended up being trampled under her horses' hooves) and was revised by Bruckner many times, shortening the work and deemphasizing the Wagner quotations in the original, which did not have its modern premiere until 1978 and has rarely been performed. Perfect Brucknerites will probably want this release by Thomas Dausgaard and the Bergen Philharmonic for this reason alone. However, there are other reasons to check it out, even beyond the fact that Wagner's endorsement ought to carry some weight. Dausgaard's Bruckner symphonies tend toward the quick side, but he has never been quite...
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