Wolfgang Hiltl, who undertook a meticulous examination of the 293-
bar long manuscript in the light of Bruckner's contemporary pieces, came to the conclusion that the most likely assumption would be that Bruckner had given a score to Krzyzanowski, perhaps as an exercise in instrumentation. It seemed clear that the entire musical substance was by Bruckner himself, most likely as an "emerging autograph score", with all string parts, some important lines for woodwind and brass, and perhaps a few passages already entirely completed.
Setting Krzyzanowski's copy is laid out only for Bruckner's typical orchestra of double
woodwind, four
horns, two
trumpets, three
trombones, bass-
tuba,
timpani, and
strings, the orchestration (except for a third trumpet) used by Bruckner in his
Fifth Symphony, composed in 1875/1876, revised in 1877/1878. The first theme, which contains the core of the main themes of the
First and
Second Symphony in C minor, as well as allusions to the Sleep motif of
Die Walküre, is repeated in tutti (bar 43), leading into a dark
chorale (bar 59), pre-shadowing the structure of that from the Finale of the Ninth Symphony, and even a significant epilogue (bar 73), which is used later in the development (bar 160). The second theme (bar 87) reflects ideas of the Third Symphony and the
miserere of the
D minor Mass. The closing theme is an energetic trumpet call with a repeated
minor ninth, as at the beginning of the Adagio from the Ninth Symphony, which is also pre-shadowing the end of its first movement. The second part (bar 148) brings two elements from the main theme in variants, leading into a threefold outburst of it in the
dominant (bar 195),
tonic (bar 201) and
subdominant (bar 207). The recapitulation of the second theme is a
fugato (bar 221) with a development section, which again reflects the Third Symphony (bars 249), leading into a climax, in which both first and second themes appear simultaneously (bar 267). The rather short coda is merely a final cadence with almost no thematic material left, only reflecting the closing theme, as a repeated chain of
minor seconds. One may assume that this elaboration by Krzyzanowski, which sounds rather provisional, may have been filled-up later with more concise motivic derivations. It seems indeed clear from Hiltl's stylistic examination that the musical material itself is all Bruckner's, because some of these ideas even anticipate some music from the
Ninth Symphony, composed some 25 years later, which nobody can have known already in 1876. In all, this "Symphonic Prelude" constitutes an extremely advanced, "experimental"
sonata movement, with a dramatic, almost radical second part combining development, recapitulation and coda to a unified and radical second part. The musical language and structure anticipate much of Bruckner's last composition, the symphonic choralwork
Helgoland (1893). == Discography ==