This book is a magnum opus, the summation of Korstvedt's three decades of work on Bruckner's Fourth Symphony. The book recounts the history of the work and describes the differences between the various versions in detail. In the process, Korstvedt clears up many misconceptions. In particular, the arguments surrounding the printed first editions are masterfully summarized and weighed against each other. This book is timely, unique, comprehensive, well researched, vividly written, and of great relevance. It will be welcomed by both Bruckner scholars and a wider audience. * Professor Felix Diergarten, Musikhochschule Luzern, author of Anton Bruckner: Ein Leben mit Musik * Benjamin Korstvedt's new book about Bruckner's Fourth Symphony is a marvelous achievement. I know Korstvedt's musicological work from previous experience, so I had no doubts about its quality and reliability. What is remarkable about this book, however, is not the author's indisputable erudition. Korstvedt does uncompromisingly pursue the musicological truth resulting from documents, detailed knowledge of every single note of the composer and everything he said about his work in his lifetime. Yet he does it with such love for Bruckner and with such an awareness of the relevance of his music that the result is a very non-dogmatic and honest book in the truest sense of the word-and a delight to read. * Jakub Hra, Chief Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony * Marking the 150th anniversary of the Fourth's initial creation, this meticulous, impassioned, deeply researched 'biography' is a scholarly tour-deforce, elucidating a beautiful, complex work by a diffident, yet self-willed artist, whom the conductor Hermann Levi, writing in 1891, hailed as 'by far the most important composer of symphonies since Beethoven'. * Andrew Barker, Austrian Studies *