[2] According to Rudolf Kloiber, the third symphony "opens the sequence of Bruckner's masterpieces, in which his creativity meets monumental ability of symphonic construction.

"[3] The work is notorious as the most-revised of Bruckner's symphonies, and there exist no fewer than six versions, with three of them being widely performed today.

In September 1873, before the work was finished, Bruckner visited Richard Wagner, whom he had first met in 1865 at the premiere of Tristan und Isolde in Munich.

In the dedication, Bruckner referred to Wagner as "the unreachable world-famous noble master of poetry and music".

The conductor was meant to be Johann von Herbeck, though his death a month before the concert forced Bruckner himself to step in and conduct.

The concert was a complete disaster: although a decent choral conductor, Bruckner was a barely competent orchestral director: the Viennese audience, which was not sympathetic to his work to begin with, gradually left the hall as the music played.

)[7] Stunned by this debacle, Bruckner made several revisions of his work, leaving out significant amounts of music including most quotations from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and Die Walküre.

[9] Many typical elements of his later symphonies, such as the cyclical penetration of all movements and especially the apotheosis at the coda of the finale, which ends with the trombone theme, are heard in the Third for the first time.

In the original version, Bruckner quotes the "sleep motif" from Wagner's Die Walküre right before the recapitulation begins.

Near the end of the movement, there are (also depending on the version) one or two quotations from Wagner: one from Die Walküre and another from Tannhäuser that was cut in subsequent revisions.

The score calls for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings.

[12] According to Rudolf Kloiber, the third symphony "opens the sequence of Bruckner's masterpieces, in which his creativity meets monumental ability of symphonic construction.

Simpson later modified his critical view (expressed in the 1966 edition of his The Essence of Bruckner) after encountering the 1873 version, which he described in a programme note for the Royal Philharmonic Society in 1987 as "a great work – not perfect by any means but possessing a majestic momentum the later revisions altogether destroyed".

The oldest complete performance preserved on disc is by Eugen Jochum with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg from 1944.

The recording, from a live concert, was issued by the Allegro-Royale label with the conductor "Gerd Rubahn" (pseudonym for Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt).

With the dawn of the CD era, the 1877 and 1889 versions, as edited by Nowak, were more commonly used, by conductors such as Bernard Haitink and Karl Böhm.

Eliahu Inbal conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony for Warner Classics was in 1983 the first to record the 1873 version.

Georg Tintner conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra followed 15 years later on the Naxos label.

To facilitate comparison of the different versions, Johannes Wildner conducting the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen [de], in a studio recording (SonArte/Naxos) offers multi-disc sets.