My comment on this broad-based overview of the Bruckner symphonies is simple, but it has implications for the appreciation of the Symphonies as a career-spanning effort by the composer.
If the intent to use the common "00" and "0" designations for the Symphony in F-Minor 1863 and the Symphony in D-Minor 1869 remains, then *at least* the chronological listing of all eleven symphonies should be correct; ie:
00 Symphony in F-Minor 1863
1 Symphony No. 1 in C-Minor 1866
0 Symphony in D-Minor 1869
2 Symphony No. 2 in C-Minor 1872
3 Symphony No. 3 in D-Minor 1873
et seq.
The moniker "00" was a fabrication by the Chant du Monde record label, first used with its pioneering release of a double-disc set by Rozhdestvenski of his recordings of the F-Minor and D-Minor Symphonies. It has 00 legitimacy!
The moniker "0", while justifiable from notation on the score - subject to interpretation - from the composer, continues to distort the overview of Bruckner when used in a chronological line-up. For example, this MWI overview in its chronological listings by each reviewer places "0" out of the correct sequence and gives the false impression to the casual observer that this work was composed before the officially numbered symphonies. It was not. It was written after the official No. 1. We cannot ascertain precisely what reasoning Bruckner used to annul (German "annulierte") this symphony and reassign its original number - 2 - to his immediate next work of 1872, but it is not unreasonable in my opinion that the Composer in the midst of a truly revolutionary rethinking of his emergent Vienna-period symphonic style felt that his initial three efforts in the form no longer represented his emerging vision of "symphony" going forward.
Dieter,
Ralph Moore has convinced you - very rightly - of the merits of Simone Young's Bruckner cycle. You may be intere4sted to know that Patrick Waller and I also covered the Young cycle in the 2020 revision of our survey of Bruckner recordings. You can find that at http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2020/May/Bruckner_symphonies_revisited.pdf
Thank you for taking part in the MusicWeb International Forum.
Len Mullenger - Founder of MusicWeb