Description:
This article takes a fresh look at Anton Bruckner's poetic remarks on his fourth symphony by contextualizing them within the notorious nineteenth-century quarrel between the New German School and the proponents of so-called absolute music. Bruckner—not recognized as an ally by either side—initially addressed his remarks to Wilhelm Tappert, an apologist for program music; when addressing the poet Paul Heyse, it was in his own defense against a critique by Wagnerian Heinrich Porges, who had described Bruckner as an epigonic composer of absolute music. While phrasing his remarks to please one party, he kept them unobtrusive enough to not provoke the other.