No composer — not even Robert Schumann — has had his symphonies so frequently and radically altered as Anton Bruckner, a fact touched upon in a very entertaining talk by Leon Botstein preceding the performance of the Austrian master’s Symphony No. 7 in E Major by the American Symphony Orchestra at Miller Theatre on Sunday afternoon.

The lecture, part of the ASO’s Classics Declassified series, was most interesting for its exploration of the work of Hans Rott, a Bruckner student at the University of Vienna, who, like his classmate Hugo Wolf, was confined to an asylum later in life. Rott, also a friend of Gustav Mahler, wrote only the one symphony and its debt to Bruckner’s Seventh was manifest in the four excerpts performed at this concert.

Professor Botstein warned the audience — twice — that if they loved Bruckner performed in the traditional way, they would probably hate this current realization. As he so often is in musical matters, Mr. Botstein turned out to be absolutely correct. This current revisionism had as its stated goal an emphasis on Bruckner’s Schubertian side. This sounded a lot better when stated during the lecture than in actual performance.

Leaving aside some fudginess in the horn section, the ensemble sounded quite good, except for the insoluble problem of too little room on the small Miller stage for a full orchestra. The inclusion of the four Wagner tuba players probably meant that a quartet of strings was left at home. So the heft was a little anemic in spots. But the overall string sound was fine and the wind playing was often crystalline and notably nimble.

What made this performance unsatisfying, however, were the fast tempi and the rather light and airy approach to the phrasing. Missing was a good deal of the dramatic power and virtually all of what, at the end of the day, is the essence of Bruckner, his religiosity. Mr. Botstein, ironically, spent a good deal of time explicating and demonstrating the coloristic side of this composition during his lecture, but then flitted rather cavalierly through these kaleidoscopic changes in his lighter-than-air rendition.

Although the Allegro moderato was acceptable, and moved along at a brisk but not hurried pace, the magnificent Adagio, one of the most sacred movements in all of music, seemed rushed and superficial. One waits for those diapasonal tones with such excited anticipation. In this version, however, they were fleeting.

Bruckner’s delightful Upper Austrian dance, slightly clumsy and out of rhythmic whack, was smoothed over by this conductor, I can only surmise, to make it seem more Schubertian, more like a traditional Laendler. This was disturbing enough, but Mr. Botstein took little advantage of the normally intense trumpet figures of the Scherzo, relentless notes of titanic power in other versions, but here simple repetitions without much emotional impact. With such scholarly and talented resources at his disposal, this seemed a profligate exercise.

In this age of apostasy, Bruckner may be considered by some as out of step, not able to fulfill the prophesy of his pupil, Mahler, who stated, “our time will come.” But those of us with a longer view know this is but a temporary disconnect. Performances like this one, which so blatantly ignore the paradisiacal, dilute the material and ultimately distort the meaning behind every chord change, every modulation. Would the ASO play Bach this way as well?

Mr. Botstein does so many things so well that it may be difficult to pinpoint his most extraordinary talent, but a strong case can be made for his role as provocateur. Why else would he pronounce the recordings of Bruckner by Wilhelm Fuertwaengler and Gunther Wand “ponderous and grandiose”? At least he was right about one thing: We true Brucknerians find his the minority view.