Synopsis

On today’s date in 1885, at a public rehearsal at the Old Metropolitan Opera House, the New York Symphony, led by fresh-faced 23-year-old conductor Walter Damrosch, performed 61-year-old Austrian composer Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3 for the first time in America.

The New York Times critic, in fairness to this unfamiliar composer, attended both the rehearsal and concert before venturing an opinion:

“As to form and workmanship, it is a highly commendable achievement,” he wrote. “The composer’s motives are distinct and fluent, the instrumentation is rich, though not cloying … Unfortunately, there is not in the whole composition a measure in which a spark of inspiration, or a grain of inventiveness is discernible.” 

Other New York papers were more blunt: “A dreary waste of sound … formless, weird, flimsy, uncongenial and empty” according to The Sun.

The Post observed, “The first movement is marked ‘misterioso’, but the only mystery about it is how it ever came to be written, printed and performed.”

In fairness to those critics of 1885, it would take many decades before American audiences started to acquire a taste for Bruckner’s particular blend of music and mystery.

Music Played in Today's Program

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896): Symphony No. 3; BBC Scottish Symphony; Osmo Vänskä, conductor; Hyperion 67200