¹ Bruckner's studies under Kitzler were important in that they made possible his acquaintance with the works of Wagner and with the developments of the so-called New German School; they also provided the composer with the opportunity to write his first works in genres such as string quartet, concert overture and symphony. The notebook is preserved in the music manuscript section (Musikhandschrift Abteilung) of the Austrian National Library (ÖNB) in Vienna, catalogued as Mus. Hs. 44706.

² Two complete editions of Bruckner's music were published in the twentieth century: the first Complete Edition (Alte Gesamtausgabe) of 1934–1944 under the general editorship of Robert Haas, and a Neue Gesamtausgabe edited by Leopold Nowak from 1951 until 1989 – and by an international team of scholars from 1990 onwards. The Anton Bruckner Complete Edition (Anton Bruckner Gesamtausgabe) is a third publication of the composer's complete works. This project has been recently undertaken by the International Bruckner Society (IBG, for Internationale Bruckner Gesellschaft) and its publishing house, the Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag, in cooperation with the Austrian National Library. For chronological lists of the volumes containing both the scores and the critical reports published by the Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag in each of these editorial projects, the user can click on ‘Gesamtausgaben’ from the ‘Drucke’ drop-down menu of the top navigation bar (more on this presently). For a recent historical synopsis of these complete-edition projects, see Ramirez, Miguel, ‘The First Volume in the New Bruckner Edition’, Notes 74/3 (2018): 490–97Google Scholar.

³ The WAB numbers refer here to the Digitales Werkverzeichnis Anton Bruckner (dWAB), a revised and expanded catalogue of the composer's works based on Renate Grasberger's Werkverzeichnis Anton Bruckner (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1977).

⁴ The image viewer is not enabled on either of the two ‘Kitzler-Studienbuch’ links furnished on the home page, but I will address presently another way to the notebook's contents.

⁵ See Franz Scheder, Anton Bruckner Chronologie (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1996).

⁶ With this document, the composer bequeathed the autograph scores of his numbered symphonies and other large-scale works to the Royal and Imperial Court Library (now Austrian National Library) with instructions for the manuscripts to be made available for publication purposes. On the bequest, see Leopold Nowak, ‘Das Bruckner-Erbe der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek: Zu Anton Bruckners 70. Todestag (11. Oktober 1896)’, in Über Anton Bruckner: Gesammelte Schriften (Vienna: Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1985): 87–92.

⁷ The autograph score is preserved in the Austrian National Library under the catalogue number Mus. Hs. 19477. As with most of his autographs, in the sketches and score of the Fifth Symphony Bruckner invariably recorded the beginning and ending dates for the composition and revision of each movement.

⁸ Unlike Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 8, Symphonies Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 9 are preserved in one version each. The absence of further versions does not mean that Bruckner abstained from making thorough revisions of those symphonies. In fact, he revised his Fifth Symphony between May 1877 and January 1878, and the type and extent of those revisions are consistent with those found in most of his large-scale works.

⁹ In an attempt to overcome the lack of performing opportunities for Bruckner's music, some of his former students gave piano-duet performances of his symphonies and other large-scale works in the Hall of the Bösendorfer piano company. Thus, the Fifth Symphony was first heard in a two-piano version on 20 April 1887, when Bruckner's one-time student Josef Schalk and former Vienna Conservatory student Franz Zottmann played it in the Bösendorfer hall. When the work was premiered in Graz, in 1894 (in its intended orchestra version), the composer was not able to attend the concert due to poor health.

¹⁰ The deception of the composer by the Schalk brothers is well documented in their correspondence. See Leibnitz, Thomas, Die Brüder Schalk und Anton Bruckner: Dargestellt an den Nachlaßbeständen der Musiksammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1988)Google Scholar: esp. 178–203.

¹¹ The information provided in the ‘Werkverzeichnis’ also shows that Bruckner's orchestra is much closer to Brahms's than to Wagner's – at least in terms of the type and number of instruments he typically used. Unlike other composers identified with the New German School, Bruckner did not use instruments such as English horn, bass clarinet, contrabassoon, and percussion instruments other than timpani. Moreover, the composer abstained from using harps except in his Eighth symphony, and he used Wagner tubas and/or slightly larger groups of woodwind and brass instruments only in his last three symphonies.

¹² The autograph score is preserved in the Austrian National Library, Mus. Hs. 19480.

¹³ The relevant correspondence includes a letter of Bruckner to Levi dated 19 September 1887; Levi to Josef Schalk of 30 September; Levi to Bruckner of 7 October; Levi to Schalk of 14 October; and Schalk to Levi of 18 October. See Anton Bruckner: Sämtliche Werke – Briefe II, vol. 24/2, ed. Andrea Harrandt and Otto Schneider (Vienna: Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag, 2003): 22–5.

¹⁴ ‘Bitte sehr, das Finale so wie es angezeigt ist, fest zu kürzen; denn es wäre viel zu lange u. gilt nur späteren Zeiten und zwar für einen Kreis von Freunden und Kennern’; letter dated 27 January 1891, in Anton Bruckner: Sämtliche Werke, vol. 24/2, 114. My citation in English is from Crawford Howie, Anton Bruckner: A Documentary Biography (Lampeter: Edwin Mellen, 2002): 616.

¹⁵ ‘Bitte nur zu verfügen wie es ihr Orchester erfordert; aber die Partitur bitte ich nicht zu ändern; auch bei Drucklegung die Orchesterstimmen unverändert zu lassen, ist eine meiner innigsten Bitten’; letter dated 27 March 1891, in Anton Bruckner: Sämtliche Werke, vol. 24/2, 128. My citation in English is from Howie, Anton Bruckner, 620–21.

¹⁶ Like all links to Austrian and German newspaper reviews of Bruckner's music, incidentally, the ANNO link for the Eighth's premiere is accessed from the ‘Aufführungen' option of the ‘Werkverzeichnis’ section.

¹⁷ ‘Es ist die jüngste Symphonie des Meisters; so ausgedehnt, daß die Philharmoniker ihr im Concerte auch nicht eine Ouverture voranstellen. . . . Eine erschöpfende Analyse des Riesenwerkes kann an dieser Stelle nicht gegeben werden, die Vorführung der Hauptgedanken aber wird den Concertbesuchern die Aufnahme der complicirten Schöpfung erleichtern und den Lesern, welche dem Concerte nicht beiwohnen, wenigstens eine Vorstellung von dem Gedanken-Inhalt des Werkes ermöglichen’; author who signed as r. h., ‘Concert-führer’, in Die Presse of 18 December 1892, 17 (my translation).

¹⁸ Suffice it here to note that the Bruckner–Hanslick conflict – and the epiphenomenon of the Bruckner–Brahms dichotomy – is but a Viennese manifestation of the broader aesthetic and personal feud between Wagner and Hanslick that had originated in the 1850s.

¹⁹ See Göllerich, August and Auer, Max, Anton Bruckner: Ein Lebens- und Schaffensbild, vol. 4/3 (Regensburg: Gustav Bosse Verlag, 1936; reprinted 1974): 280–302Google Scholar. More recent literature on the reception of the Eighth Symphony includes Wagner, Manfred, ‘Zur Rezeptionsgeschichte von Anton Bruckners Achter Symphonie’, in Bruckner-Jahrbuch 1991/92/93, ed. Wessely, Othmar et al. (Linz: Musikwissenschaftlicher Verlag, 1995): 109–15Google Scholar; and Korstvedt, Benjamin, Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000): esp. 64–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ Although Bruckner-online offers no English version of its contents, the Google Chrome browser provides users with a Google Translate option. Users, though, are presumably aware of the inherent limitations of this type of translation.