Dear Friend:
I take the risk of writing to you, even though I cannot find your letter and know
neither your address nor title. Thank you very much for your nice letter. All my friends have abandoned me! These words tell you the whole situation. Hans Richter calls me now a musical fool, because I did not want to make enough cuts (as he puts it). And, of course, he does not perform anything at all; I stand alone at the moment. I hope that things will be better for you and that you will soon succeed. … Good luck! Your A. Bruckner
—Anton Bruckner, whose bicentennial year is 2024, wrote this letter to an unknown correspondent on November 13, 1883. At the time, Bruckner’s monumental symphonies were still more or less neglected, and his frustration stemmed from having been told by the conductor Hans Richter to make significant cuts to his recently completed Seventh Symphony. The advice would have especially stung, given Richter’s prior championing of Bruckner’s work—he had premiered the composer’s Fourth Symphony only a few years before.
The Moldenhauer Archive/Library of Congress; translation by Jürgen Thym
