{"id":2722,"date":"2025-01-27T13:20:54","date_gmt":"2025-01-27T18:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/?p=2722"},"modified":"2025-04-18T13:54:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T17:54:17","slug":"the-fourth-is-with-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/research-highlights\/the-fourth-is-with-him\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fourth is with him"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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As one of the world\u2019s foremost authorities on 19th-century Austrian composer Anton Bruckner, musicologist Benjamin Korstvedt has closely studied his symphonies and life. In 2024, when Austria celebrated the 100th anniversary of Bruckner\u2019s birth, Korstvedt traveled throughout Europe and the U.S. to speak about the composer\u2019s music and often-contradictory images, from unsophisticated country bumpkin to dangerous musical radical. \u201cEvery characterization of Bruckner emerges in a specific time and place\u2014and is always shaped by the cultural tendencies and sociopolitical pressure of the moment,\u201d says Clark\u2019s Jeppson Professor of Music.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Musicologist recovers the legacy of composer Anton Bruckner<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most infamously, Bruckner\u2019s image and his music were exploited in the 1930s with the rise of Adolf Hitler, who claimed the composer as a fellow German, symbolically annexing him just as he would politically and militarily annex Austria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his research, Korstvedt<\/a> became aware of \u201cstriking contradictions\u201d in the historical evidence pertaining to Bruckner\u2019s Fourth Symphony. The version of the Fourth published during Bruckner\u2019s lifetime, the musicologist says, \u201cwas commonly believed to have been mutilated by editors and possibly even produced without his awareness or agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe more I delved into it, the clearer it became to me that much of that scholarly work was strongly shaped by the ideological context\u201d of Nazi Germany, Korstvedt says. He began to see that \u201cthe facts told a much different story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Austria, he examined a set of archival photographs of a crucial but long overlooked document from the symphony\u2019s compositional process: a copy of the score prepared by Ferdinand L\u00f6we, a former student of Bruckner\u2019s who later became a leading conductor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His research convinced him that this version of the Fourth was not a corruption of Bruckner\u2019s wishes but rather a clear expression of his final intentions. The photographs reveal that \u201cBruckner had worked over the score closely and made many of the most important changes,\u201d Korstvedt explains. \u201cHe was totally involved in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Korstvedt\u2019s discovery made waves in and outside of Austria. The managing editor of the Bruckner Collected Works<\/em> asked him to prepare a new critical edition of this version of the Fourth, which now has been performed across the world, fostering fresh insights into the composer\u2019s musical thinking and creative process. He also has published two books: Bruckner’s Fourth: The Biography of a Symphony<\/em> and Bruckner: Symphony No. 8<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Department of visual and performing arts<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As one of the world\u2019s foremost authorities on 19th-century Austrian composer Anton Bruckner, musicologist Benjamin Korstvedt has closely studied his symphonies and life, including his often-contradictory images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":2799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"research-initiaive","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[71],"class_list":["post-2722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-highlights","tag-department-of-visual-and-performing-arts"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Fourth is with him | Clark University | Clark University<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/research-highlights\/the-fourth-is-with-him\/\" \/>\n<meta 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