ABSTRACT
A new symphony to appear just before Brahms revealed his first at Karlsruhe on 4 November 1876 was the second written by Hermann Goetz, a German who lived in Switzerland from the age of 23 until his death at 36. He had written an earlier symphony in 1866, which was played once at Basel. The symphony was submitted to another competition, this time set up by the Leipzig Gewandhaus in October 1873 for performance that winter season and the jury was chaired by Carl Reinecke. This proved rather embarrassing for him judging by a surviving and somewhat indiscreet letter, which made no attempt to conceal the fact that he clearly favoured Goetz's composition but was in a minority on the panel and therefore compelled to announce Ferdinand Breunung from Aachen as the successful candidate. In England, Goetz's symphony was a work that, for half a century, enjoyed a popular success.
