Programme
In an 1891 letter to conductor Felix Weingartner, Bruckner gave extramusical associations to several parts of the symphony:
In the first movement, the trumpet and horn passage based on the rhythm of the theme in the Todesverkündigung, which gradually grows stronger, and finally emerges very strongly. At the end: surrender.
Scherzo: Main theme – named deutscher Michel. In the second part, the fellow wants to sleep, and in his dreamy state cannot find his tune: finally, he plaintively turns back.
Finale: At the time our Emperor received the visit of the Czars at Olmütz; thus, strings: the Cossacks; brass: military music; trumpets: fanfares, as the Majesties meet. In closing, all themes ... thus as deutscher Michel arrives home from his journey, everything is already gloriously brilliant. In the Finale there is also the death march and then (brass) transfiguration.
Bruckner's associates report other comments that the composer is said to have made about the symphony. The coda to the first movement is how it is when one is on his deathbed, and opposite hangs a clock, which, while his life comes to an end, beats on ever steadily: tick, tock, tick, tock while in the slow movement I have gazed too deeply into a maiden's eyes.
In an unsigned programme note at the 1892 first performance Joseph Schalk elaborated Bruckner's program, adding references to Greek mythology (Aeschylus's Prometheus, Zeus or Kronos, etc.) mixed with a few Christian references such as the Archangel Michael.
Read more about this topic: Symphony No. 8 (Bruckner)
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