Symphony No. 4 in E‑Flat Major

Bruckner called his Fourth Symphony “Romantic”. While all his symphonies are clearly products of the 19th-century Romantic era, the Fourth has a special power to evoke scenes, especially the spacious forests and great rivers of his native Upper Austria. The opening, with a high solo horn sounding above quietly shimmering strings, is one of the most magical in the symphonic repertory; the second movement is like a slow, dreamlike processional through mysterious, birdcall-haunted woodlands; and the “Scherzo” is thrilling hunting music, with a gentler, cosily rural “Trio”. But there is something else to Bruckner’s music that has far less to do with the spirit of its times: a profound mysticism, almost medieval in its underlying calm confidence, with a feeling for intricate proportion like that of the older age’s cathedral architects. That feeling for “spiritual” architecture did not come without a struggle. As usual, Bruckner made several substantial revisions of the Fourth Symphony before signing it off in 1880 (the version normally performed today), and while the first three movements have a grand inevitability in that final score, many believe he never got the long finale quite right. Yet the final, thrilling crescendo is the most magnificent demonstration of steady climax-building Bruckner had yet conceived. The complete mastery of the later symphonies is only a step or two away.