John Dalmas ([log in to unmask]) wrote of Bruckner's Third:

>...  I would ask Griegel or anyone else) to produce Wagner's dedication
>score.  At the same time, it is comforting that we have someone living
>today who can tell us exactly what Bruckner was thinking at any given
>moment.  Too self-effacing and eager to get along, Bruckner often complied
>with "considerable improvements" much to his private despair.  The record
>will show his eventual annoyance with his "improvers."

To which David Griegel replies:

Wagner's dedication score is kept at Bayreuth.  Nowak used this score
for his edition of the 1873 Third.  This is not some mystical nonexistent
entity.  It can be produced.  It represents Bruckner's original thoughts
with absolutely no possible influence from others.  In addition, the 1874
revision was instigated and performed solely by Bruckner.  He was thus only
complying with his own desires.  The primary change was to make the brass
parts similar in style to those in the 1874 Fourth, another score Bruckner
composed with absolutely no outside influence.

No one living today can tell us exactly what Bruckner was thinking at any
given given moment.  Do I really need to back up this statement?

>Griegel distorts my statement Dika Newlin suggested that for a "clearer
>idea" of the original, one should turn to the Mahler transcription.  Newlin
>did not say or imply the transcription was one and the same with the
>original.

The Mahler transcription is not based on the original form of the symphony,
so it cannot give a clear or even a clearer idea of the original.  Nowak's
edition of the 1873 Third is a clean reproduction of the original, so if
you want to get a perfectly clear (not just a clearer) idea of the
original, go to Nowak's edition of the 1873 version.

>And Mahler, if not Griegel, almost certainly had a "clearer idea"
>what Bruckner was "thinking." As a teenage college student, Mahler was
>a frequent visitor at Bruckner's lodgings during 1877-79; it was a relief
>to Bruckner to have found the earnest young man, who was willing to respect
>his intentions in the Third and not try to "improve" upon them.  In fact,
>Bruckner not only entrusted Mahler with the task of transcribing the
>symphony, but also (along with Mahler's piano teacher Julius Epstein)
>supervised Mahler and his roommate and fellow musician Rudolph Krzyzanowski
>in doing the arranging.  For that reason alone, I would give more weight to
>the Mahler transcription than to Nowak 1, etc.

The fact is that Mahler favored a revised version of the Bruckner Third.
Mahler's transcription corresponds to the first published form of the
symphony.  I call this the 1879 version.  If you want you can call it the
1877 version without being far off the mark.  Between the 1873 original and
the 1877 revision there were two other clearly defined periods of revision
in 1874 and 1876.  Nowak, on the other hand, obtained a clean copy of the
original score and published it.  Given this information, I cannot see
how one can continue to claim that Mahler's piano reduction should be
considered a better representation of the original Third than Nowak's
edition of the original 1873 version of the Third.

Deryk Barker <[log in to unmask]>