This Complete Bruckner Symphonies Edition includes all versions of the symphonies, either published or to be published under the auspices of the Austrian National Library and the International Bruckner Society in the Neue Anton Bruckner Gesamtausgabe (The New Anton Bruckner Complete Edition). Bruckner himself reckoned that his career as a professional composer began when he was thirty-nine. With only an exercise for a symphony under his belt – the unnumbered F Minor – he was now ready to write his first true symphony. The world, however, was not ready to receive it. First performed, badly, in 1868 in Linz, the work flopped and was put aside until nine years and five symphonies later, when it was gently reworked. A subsequent performance in 1884 was Bruckner’s “most successful Viennese performance to date”, which perplexingly led to a thorough revision that would become the 1891 ‘Vienna’ version. This recording uses the original 1868 ‘Linz’ version.