Continuity in the Fourth Symphony (first movement)

It is generally held that despite the noble grandeur and magnificent sonorities of Bruckner's music, continuity, in a technical sense, is not a hallmark of his way of composing. Even the most considerable theorist of this century, Heinrich Schenker, Bruckner's erstwhile pupil, though he could find much to admire in Bruckner the artist and the symphonist, nonetheless throughout his life steadfastly denied Bruckner this compositional sine qua non – indeed any compositional technique at all. ¹ The present consideration of the first movement of the Fourth Symphony will respond to this charge, and claim on the contrary that Bruckner's compositional technique does indeed encompass a logical and highly sophisticated way of composing, not only in proceeding from one point to the next, but also in binding together adjacent or non-adjacent sections by subtle associative means: in a word – continuity.