When Otto Desshoff read through the score of Bruckner's Second Symphony to determine its suitability for performance by the Vienna Philharmonic, he declared "What nonsense this is", dooming the work to a life of revisions. Composed in 1871, the work was then known as The Third, since the original second, Zeroeth, hadn't yet been removed from the catalogue of Bruckner's numbered symphonies. Although the premiere of The Second Symphony was quite well received, Bruckner and his team of assistants set about reworking it in 1877, trimming it of any superfluous material, most significantly in the Finale, where a full 193 bars were pruned. This recording of the 1877 version observes all those cuts, without affecting Bruckner's original, expansive structure.