Luogo e data di registrazione		Alte Oper, Frankfurt (Germania) - maggio 1991
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Wolfgang Mohr - Hans Bernhard Bätzing / Detlef Kittler (HR) - Miachel Brammann
	Prima Edizione LP		-
	Prima Edizione CD		Teldec - 9031-72300-2 - (1 CD) - durata 46' 14" - (p) 1991 - DDD
	Note		Co-Produktion mit dem HR Franfurt.

Anton Bruckner was 31 years old when in December 1855 he took up the post of Cothedral Organist at Linz. He was already experienced in the art of counterpoint, had composed significant works such as the D minor Requiem and the Mass in B flat minor, and had acquired considerable knowledge of secular choral composition. But his keenness to learn knew no bounds. For six years after 1855 he studied thorough bass, harmony, counterpoint, canon and fugue with the noted Viennese theoretician Simon Sechter. On 22nd November 1861 he took his now famous final examination before the Jury of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. He must, however, have felt that his studies with Sechter, which he had so brilliantly completed, were not extensive enough, that he had not done justice to the art and, in porticular, that the field of orchestration was uncharted territory for him. He therefore turned to Otto Kitzler, a young conductor in Linz and devoted adherent of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt, asking to be allowed to study composition ond orchestration with him. Looking through the composition exercises which Kitzler set for Bruckner, it is clear that the teacher proceeded according to a plan. First of all he got Bruckner to write a movement of a piano sonata, thereafter a string quartet; only then did he proceed to orchestral works, with an overture and a symphony. The composition of this very first of Bruckner’s symphonies, a largescale work in F minor, took three and a half months, from l5th February until 26th may 1863. In his Musikalische Erinnerungen Kitzler mentions this Study Symphony and expresses the view that it was really no more than a "school exercise", in which Bruckner "was not particularly inspired", so that Kitzler had been unable to say “anything particularly complimentary” about it. He goes on to say: "He seemed to be hurt by my reticence, which I thought strange in view of his boundless modesty. Years later he laughingly conceded that I had been right.” In order to put his own opinion of the work into writing, Bruckner himself wrote the note “school exercise” on each of the four movements of the symphony in a copy held in the Vienna City Library. It is, however, characteristic of Bruckner that, although he regarded the orchestral works which he produced for Kitzler only as studies, he did not fail to show them to Franz Lachner, the court conductor in Munich, when he went there in September 1863. Lachner thought them remarkable "for the flow of thought, structure and nobility", and gave Bruckner to understand that he would not be averse to performing the Symphony in F minor in the following yeor. This performance did not, however, take place. What part did this "school exercise" play in Bruckner’s development? One answer might be that in this Study Symphony Bruckner had already created an architectural style which proved capable of development. The first movement and the finale each comprise three themes and an epilogue. Of the three themes, the second - as in the later symphonies - has a songlike character and the third is massive or vigorous. It is further of significance that it also contains the prototype of the dynamic principle which was so characteristic of Bruckner, notably numerous crescendi which, although they are generally not so long-breathed here as in the later symphonies, point the way to the celebrated build-ups in later works. Other features are conventional. Thus the setting of the middle section of the Andante in the minor is unusual for Bruckner, and the Trio section of the Scherzo makes a somewhat colourless impact. Bruckner drew his inspiration for this work from his diligent study of Beethoven's symphonies; however, the musical language is not that of Beethoven, but of high romanticism. Bruckner followed the Study Symphony with his First in C minor and only after that composed the so-called "No. 0" in D minor. A comparison of the themes of the final movements indicates how far he had travelled from the Study Symphony to "No. 0", that of the Study Symphony makes a decidedly academic impression, while the heroic theme of "No. 0” bears the hall-mark of Bruckner’s genius. Constantin Floros Translation: Gery Bramall