The 1887 version of the Eighth Symphony has had a rather odd career. In the aftermath of Hermann Levi's negative appraisal in the fall of 1887, Bruckner set it aside, and it was soon eclipsed by the revised version of 1890. It was not until the appearance of Nowak's modern edition in 1972 that the score became available for study, performance and, inevitably, comparison against the canonical 1890 version. For several decades before this, however, the 1887 version, then known only by reputation, and the events surrounding its revision led a shadow existence. During the “Bruckner-Streit” of the mid-1930s – the debate in Germany and Austria about the authenticity of the previously available editions of Bruckner's works sparked by the appearance and promulgation of the initial volumes of Robert Haas's collected edition – Levi's reaction to the first version of the symphony occasioned far-reaching interpretation and speculation, some of it extravagant. For example, Haas asserted, without offering substantiation, that it depressed Bruckner to the point that he entertained “suicidal notions [Selbstmordgrillen].” A number of writers and scholars, including Haas, came to believe that the incident and its psychological after-effects were decisive in sending Bruckner into what they saw as a spiral of uncertainty and self-doubt, during which he undertook, at least partly at external behest, a series of ill-advised revisions of not only the Eighth Symphony, but also the First, Third, and Fourth Symphonies (all of which were revised between 1887 and 1890).