# Bruckner



## Guest (Apr 12, 2014)

So, here I am on a self-educational tour of Western classical and my interest is piqued by an article in the Guardian on Anton Bruckner. I'd heard the name but not a note of his music. I duly obtained a collection of his symphonies (Gunter Wand) and have been blown away. Epic isn't in it!

Let's hear some love for Bruckner!


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

Love to Bruckner! I really like his 1st, 4th and 7th symphonies and the Helgoland chorus.


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## Guest (Apr 12, 2014)

I'm manfully wading through some other symphonies but these grand vistas seem like I have always known them. I'm up to number 6!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

There's a lot of love for Bruckner on this forum, which makes me happy; I'm a big fan.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Big fan here too. 
Go Anton


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## julianoq (Jan 29, 2013)

If you are on No.6 and is already loving it, just wait for the next three. Bruckner music is fantastic, I love it too.


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## Oskaar (Mar 17, 2011)

I am fan!

Here is a great tv-video production of his 9th symphony.

*Anton Bruckner
Symphony No.9 in D minor, WAB 109
Sinfonie Nr.9 d-Moll, WAB 109
("dem lieben Gott")

I. Feierlich, misterioso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (0:01:16)
II. Scherzo. Bewegt, lebhaft - Trio. Schnell . . . . .(0:28:38)
III. Adagio. Langsam, feierlich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (0:41:14)

Wiener Philharmoniker
(Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra)
Leonard Bernstein

Recorded live at the Große Musikvereinssaal, Vienna, 1990*


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

The essential classical, reduced collection:

Mozart Piano Concertos
Bruckner Symphonies


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

When I was built all those years ago, they forgot to connect the wires that would enable me to like Bruckner. It's a real shame - I've tried, oh how I've tried, but the magic simply eludes me.


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## nightscape (Jun 22, 2013)

Bruckner can definitely cause some divisiveness among listeners. I didn't originally care for Bruckner, I sort of enjoyed the 4th, but only moments of it. In some ways I found him rather boring.

I stopped myself from really listening to him, and in a way I actively avoided him. Then I heard the 6th and that changed everything.

I've been listening to his 9th almost non-stop the last couple of weeks to prepare myself for an upcoming concert in which the piece is performed. Fantastic stuff.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I started with the 4th and 8th. The 4th was wonderful, and the 8th was good but didn't really strike me. I then bought the Gunter Wand set and listened straight through. All his symphonies (including the 0th) are quite nice. My favorite is the 7th, but others are not far behind.

I also really like his Quintet for Strings and his Masses (Nos. 2 and 3 especially).


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Leave me with the 7th and 8th symphonies. I don't need the others.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I've never been a fan of Bruckner, but that says more about me than it does about him. 

I think I'd like to listen to some more of his works, without investing the money. My local library has CDs. A few weeks ago I got the eight symphony from the library for the Saturday symphony. It was okay, I'd listen to it again. 

But for me Bruckner's been a tough nut to crack. I haven't tried too hard though.


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## Guest (Apr 12, 2014)

Me, I dig that Bruckner's _Naturthemen_.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I'm simply into pithiness. Say what you mean; get on with it, attach a coda and leave!

Bruckner is an anathema.


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## Guest (Apr 12, 2014)

Mr HPowders, Gog is asking for _lurve_.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Ahhhhhhh.....well then, Bruckner's 7th and 8th are in my opinion, the choice of the litter.

The opening of the 7th symphony is as fine and lovely a musical statement as one will ever find.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

hpowders said:


> I'm simply into pithiness. Say what you mean; get on with it, attach a coda and leave!
> 
> Bruckner is an anathema.


But Bruckner does say what he means. It's just that the things he say take a bit of time to get out properly.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

The time it takes is also part of what he's saying.

But yea, he's written some of the most beautiful symphonies I've ever heard. Nice choice with the Wand cycle.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> But Bruckner does say what he means. It's just that the things he say take a bit of time to get out properly.


It was a different era and people had more free time to attend concerts and listen, I guess. How they did without Dancing With The Stars will forever remain a mystery.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

hpowders said:


> How they did without Dancing With The Stars will forever remain a mystery.


we have to do without it too - Mrs Hermit can't even watch it on-line. It used to keep her happy for hours - sigh!


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

There are very well done and passionate performances of Bruckner's symphonies on YouTube that may serve as ear openers. For example:

No.6: "that trumpet that melts your heart; the journey" 



No.7: "deep, weird, beautiful" 



 [I digest it better slow, but that's me]
No.8: "Die große"


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Headphone Hermit said:


> we have to do without it too - Mrs Hermit can't even watch it on-line. It used to keep her happy for hours - sigh!


The ladies can't seem to get enough of it. The phones stop ringing. The texters stop texting. The streets and the shops are empty. I can't explain it. I only report it.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

I need to listen to more Bruckner


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I kind of like number 7, mostly the scherzo.

I listened to 8 only once so far. It feels a bit like one big wait for this moment: 



and it shouldn't feel like that. I'm sure there's more to enjoy if my mind can adjust to it. 
I made my ringtone out of it so every phone call feels totally epic.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

I accidentally discovered Bruckner when I found some cds of his symphonies at the library. I'd never heard of him before, so I just checked out the only ones I saw at the time: Symphonies 1, 2, 3, 5, and 9. I listened to the first two while playing a video game (I was a kid, I made bad choices), and thought they were kind of meh.

Then I listened to the 9th and it blew me away. So I went back and slowly fell in love with the others. Then I found out that (of course) his more famous and revered symphonies were ones my library didn't have, so I listened to them on youtube and eventually bought them. Now, I consider Bruckner to be one of the greats. Despite everything I've said, I still haven't gotten around to listening to the 6th, but it will happen soon enough.

- Symphonies 1 and 2 I lump together in terms of quality [some like to say that the "real" Bruckner doesn't show his face until the 4th, I'll get to why I disagree in a moment]. While neither really have a genuine Bruckner feel to them, they're both have a decent flow of energy that feels very adventurous. I usually prefer the 1st to the 2nd.
- Symphony 3 is when the true Bruckner comes out. I really adore this symphony, and I think it's kind of underrated compared to his others. It goes through the minor/Major transition (which I love) and has a very grand feel to it. I would definitely consider it to be his "Eroica", though his hero struggles a lot before (s)he succeeds, like in Beethoven's 5th.
- Symphony 4 is not one of my favorites, mainly because I think the end is kinda weak, but it is probably his most fun-filled symphony. I always tell my roommate that Bruckner should have scored Lord of the Rings, or Skyrim, or Dark Souls, or any other fantasy movie/video game. For this work, the first movement is the best IMO, and always makes me think of a large, sunny forest. 
- Symphony 5. No matter how many times I've listened to this, I feel very distant from this work. I'm not sure why. It's one of my favorites, but it's definitely a work that you need to listen to multiple times before the music comes to you completely. The first movement and the finale are awe inspiring to me.
- Symphony 7. Probably my second favorite symphony, I feel that it's grandness is somewhat toned down, giving the work a more personal feel rather than trying to encapsulate larger-than-life feelings (?) sorry I can't articulate what I'm trying to get at.
- Symphony 8 is like the 5th in that I think it's brilliant, and has a lot of great moments, but overall it doesn't completely resonate with me. Further listenings are required!
- Symphony 9. My favorite. Despite the fact it is his unfinished, it feels just as complete (had he switched the order of the scherzo and adagio, it would feel the exact opposite of complete, so that was the best decision Anton, thank you). IMO, this one has his best music, and it is the most sublime. While the first two movements initially hooked me with their intense orchestral booms, the adagio is the most serene work I know of, and takes me to another world [again, I can't articulate how I feel. It's almost like a spiritual lift, at the risk of repeating a cliche). In fact, the whole symphony is kind of "other-worldly" in a sense. I just love it so much


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

DeepR said:


> I kind of like number 7, mostly the scherzo.
> 
> I listened to 8 only once so far. It feels a bit like one big wait for this moment:


Well, you should . . . Wow, look at all that brass! Uh . . . I lost my train of thought.


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## Nevum (Nov 28, 2013)

It is simple. Bruckner is the very best composer of all times. As simple as that.


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## Nevum (Nov 28, 2013)

Cosmos said:


> I accidentally discovered Bruckner when I found some cds of his symphonies at the library. I'd never heard of him before, so I just checked out the only ones I saw at the time: Symphonies 1, 2, 3, 5, and 9. I listened to the first two while playing a video game (I was a kid, I made bad choices), and thought they were kind of meh.
> 
> Then I listened to the 9th and it blew me away. So I went back and slowly fell in love with the others. Then I found out that (of course) his more famous and revered symphonies were ones my library didn't have, so I listened to them on youtube and eventually bought them. Now, I consider Bruckner to be one of the greats. Despite everything I've said, I still haven't gotten around to listening to the 6th, but it will happen soon enough.
> 
> ...


Great analysis. My favorite symphonies of his are #3 and #9. but every single symphony Bruckner wrote is simply amazing.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

Cosmos said:


> - Symphony 4 is not one of my favorites, mainly because I think the end is kinda weak, but it is probably his most fun-filled symphony. I always tell my roommate that Bruckner should have scored Lord of the Rings, or Skyrim, or Dark Souls, or any other fantasy movie/video game. For this work, the first movement is the best IMO, and always makes me think of a large, sunny forest.


Get yourself the 1988 EMI recording of Celibidache conducting the Munich Phil. Your life will change. Celi makes the end (the whole finale in fact) work in a way that will nearly have you thinking the 4th is the best Bruckner symphony of them all.
cheers,
GG


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Can you guarantee his life will change?


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

GraemeG said:


> Get yourself the 1988 EMI recording of Celibidache conducting the Munich Phil. Your life will change. Celi makes the end (the whole finale in fact) work in a way that will nearly have you thinking the 4th is the best Bruckner symphony of them all.
> cheers,
> GG


Huh, thanks I'll check it out


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## chalkpie (Oct 5, 2011)

I like this guy's adagios a lot. Other than that, he is more spotty for me.


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

Anybody heard the obscure Helgoland chorus? It's pretty good.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

shangoyal said:


> Anybody heard the obscure Helgoland chorus? It's pretty good.


Sure, it comes with the Barenboim/BPO symphony set, for example. I totally adore it, such overwhelming power and simplicity, I cannot resist not to sing along with it. A bit like his Te Deum actually.

But to me Bruckner can do nothing wrong, every note he wrote is infused with that rare Brucknerian magic. Of course his music is epic and powerful and vast, but it is always full of deeper levels on top of all that. It's about ecstasy and submission and impenetrable barriers and soul-searching and devotion and transgression and transcendence and inner conflicts and a lot of other things. His symphonies are almost like a genre of their own. If a symphony (after Beethoven) is a sort of "secular Mass", Bruckner creates a "Catholic symphony". He could have expressed his devotion with just Masses and Oratorios and the like, but, luckily for us, he chose the symphony, because that is the most natural form to his strange way of thinking. Bound to classical form but boundless in feeling, personal but universal, earthly (even rural) but cosmic, I could compare his symphonies to Loyola's _Spiritual Exercises_. Like Loyola, Bruckner repeats himself and adheres to strict order, but then frees himself with the visions that rise through that architechture.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I have long felt that Bruckner is the oddest first-rank composer in the entire history of music (well, there's Berlioz, but indulge me). This oddness doesn't reside in the elements of his musical language; his melodies are easily comprehended, his rhythms are foursquare, his harmonies mostly common practice, his orchestration distinctive in its division into "choirs" but not otherwise startling. What makes him unique, and, I suspect, problematic for some listeners, is his concept of time.

It's often remarked that Bruckner is constantly stopping in the middle of one idea and switching inexplicably to a different one, or that he keeps building up to climaxes but then frustrates expectations by breaking off before he gets there. Well, as peculiar and unpromising as it sounds, this is an accurate description of his typical formal procedures. It isn't merely that he constructs a movement in distinct sections, or that he alternates contrasting ideas. There's plenty of musical precedent for doing those things. No, the difficulty is that the harmonic idioms which Bruckner employed had been evolving for centuries to express a sense of time as _progression_. From the increasingly large scale movements of the Baroque, which used modulation to create tension and to heighten the pleasure of final release; to the dramatic dialectics of Classical sonata form, with its unstable harmonic narratives guided irresistibly through conflict and opposition to resolution; and then to the unprecedented harmonic exploration of the Romantic age in the pursuit of expression which reached a critical climax in the Wagnerian music drama - through all these changes of style and sensibility, Western music continued to embody, through tonal harmony (in which we speak of chord _progressions_), a sense of time as progress or movement toward a goal (how this teleological sense of time derives from our Greco-Judeo-Christian philosophical roots is a matter for a different discussion). This kind of progressive harmony is what Bruckner inherited and used. But he used it in the context of large scale forms which seem to contradict its very nature. And I'm inclined to think that this is what keeps many people from appreciating and enjoying his music.

Bruckner's odd formal procedures do, I think, have a "logic" which transcends their paradoxical appearance. But paradox itself is the very essence of that "logic," to comprehend which we are compelled to invoke ideas as fundamental to our perception of reality as they are resistant to final understanding: ideas, in short, of the "spiritual." This will come as no surprise to lovers of the composer, or probably to most listeners who have sensed that Bruckner's music is "about" something rather far removed from everyday experience and common emotional categories. Certainly something like this can be said about much great music; transcendence of the mundane or the "normal" may even be to some extent a defining characteristic of greatness. But Bruckner is stunningly explicit about it: by his unblinking stylistic eccentricity he lays down the gauntlet and virtually dares us to follow him to vistas of the soul largely unexplored by most of the music of his time.

In my view, what Bruckner is doing is this: by setting up expectations of formal development through harmonic progression and dynamic growth, yet refusing to allow his musical ideas to fulfill directly the expectations thus set up, but rather parceling them out over a vast soundscape and developing them incrementally, in disjunct stages, he is refusing to allow time to be the final arbiter of form in the very art - namely, music - which most essentially _exists_ in time. And in so refusing, he is stating that what is of ultimate significance in life (of which art is an analogue) is something which includes and pervades the temporal world but exists, unchanging, beyond it.

For Bruckner, this was God. For us who listen to Bruckner, it may be whatever we feel to be transcendent within us. But however we conceive it, it is the thing which makes our experience of his music magnificent and unique.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

I think I agree, also sensing a sort of fragmentation and underlying stasis in his works, suggesting an even wider space beyond them.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

How about a recording of all the final movement codas?

Hey Anton! I don't have all day!


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

I love Buckner and loved your post Woodduck.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

_But paradox itself is the very essence of that "logic," to comprehend which we are compelled to invoke ideas as fundamental to our perception of reality as they are resistant to final understanding: ideas, in short, of the "spiritual." _

Well, maybe... but surely, there are less pedantic ways of expressing the point you wish to make here.


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

KRoad said:


> _But paradox itself is the very essence of that "logic," to comprehend which we are compelled to invoke ideas as fundamental to our perception of reality as they are resistant to final understanding: ideas, in short, of the "spiritual." _
> 
> Well, maybe... but surely, there are less pedantic ways of expressing the point you wish to make here.


It's not pedantic, it's called "eloquent".


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## revdrdave (Jan 8, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> In my view, what Bruckner is doing is this: by setting up expectations of formal development through harmonic progression and dynamic growth, yet refusing to allow his musical ideas to fulfill directly the expectations thus set up, but rather parceling them out over a vast soundscape and developing them incrementally, in disjunct stages, he is refusing to allow time to be the final arbiter of form in the very art - namely, music - which most essentially _exists_ in time. And in so refusing, he is stating that what is of ultimate significance in life (of which art is an analogue) is something which includes and pervades the temporal world but exists, unchanging, beyond it.


Woodduck, I think this is pretty brilliant. I've listened to Bruckner for years and sensed what you have so eloquently put into words here in a way I never could--thank you.

Serendipitously, I was listening to Bruckner's 3rd this morning while walking around a lake at the foot of the Rocky Mountains (the Schuricht/VPO recording I grew up listening to). Perhaps it was the setting but I experienced anew how sublime this music is.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

revdrdave said:


> Woodduck, I think this is pretty brilliant. I've listened to Bruckner for years and sensed what you have so eloquently put into words here in a way I never could--thank you.
> 
> Serendipitously, I was listening to Bruckner's 3rd this morning while walking around a lake at the foot of the Rocky Mountains (the Schuricht/VPO recording I grew up listening to). Perhaps it was the setting but I experienced anew how sublime this music is.


I don't know about Woodduck's traversal, but you made a good choice with that Schuricht 3. :tiphat:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KRoad said:


> _But paradox itself is the very essence of that "logic," to comprehend which we are compelled to invoke ideas as fundamental to our perception of reality as they are resistant to final understanding: ideas, in short, of the "spiritual." _
> 
> Well, maybe... but surely, there are less pedantic ways of expressing the point you wish to make here.


I am happy to accept instruction in English usage so long as the tuition is free.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

revdrdave said:


> Woodduck, I think this is pretty brilliant. I've listened to Bruckner for years and sensed what you have so eloquently put into words here in a way I never could--thank you.
> 
> Serendipitously, I was listening to Bruckner's 3rd this morning while walking around a lake at the foot of the Rocky Mountains (the Schuricht/VPO recording I grew up listening to). Perhaps it was the setting but I experienced anew how sublime this music is.


Thanks. :tiphat: I have that very recording and like it very much. Schuricht seems pretty much forgotten these days but shouldn't be.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

KRoad said:


> _But paradox itself is the very essence of that "logic," to comprehend which we are compelled to invoke ideas as fundamental to our perception of reality as they are resistant to final understanding: ideas, in short, of the "spiritual." _
> 
> Well, maybe... but surely, there are less pedantic ways of expressing the point you wish to make here.


I don't know. Two wrongs, surely, don't make a right. And if you spill the beans you open up a whole can of worms. I mean, how can you let sleeping dogs lie if you let the cat out of the bag? You bring in a new broom and if you're not very careful you find you've thrown the baby out with the bath-water. Change horses in the middle of the stream, next thing you know you're up the creek without a paddle. Then, obviously, the balloon goes up. They hit you for six. 
An own goal, in fact. Ah, well. That's the way the cookie crumbles -- we can talk like this till the cows come home, but we can't change the ways of the world.


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## revdrdave (Jan 8, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Thanks. :tiphat: I have that very recording and like it very much. Schuricht seems pretty much forgotten these days but shouldn't be.


Agreed. I don't have wide experience of Schuricht outside of Bruckner but his EMI recordings of the 3rd and 9th (on a couple of old Seraphim LPs) we're my introduction to Bruckner. That, and an old London recording of Hans Knappertsbusch conducting a butchered version of the 5th.


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## Polyphemus (Nov 2, 2011)

Real pity for me was when Philips cut short Haitink's proposed VPO cycle (3,4,5 & 8 released). For me the Eight was superb and if I dare say it better than Karajan's over produced and overpraised Eight which won every award known to man. Haitink's grasp of Bruckner has always been a model of exemplary study, knowledge and overview of the structure of the work as a whole. His superb treatment of the tricky Sixth with the Dresen Orchestra on Profil (Hanssler) is testament to his ability.


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## albrecht (May 29, 2014)

I am actually interested in his choral works. Ave Maria, Locus Iste, Vexilla Regis and Os justi are some of my favorites.


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

It's funny how we can have silly preconceived notions about certain composers and then along comes a piece that just floors you. For me and Bruckner, that piece is his String Quintet. ESPECIALLY the Adagio. I was just listening to this piece as I laid down for a short time to rest my eyes and I happened to get into one of those perfect and magical listening states of mind as the Adagio came on where you are halfway awake and halfway asleep, yet still hearing the music. Somehow being on the edge of consciousness amplifies the feeling of the music 100 fold. With that in mind, that Adagio just took me straight to heaven. What a divine and hugely moving piece of music that is.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Bruckner...OMG Back in the Eighties when I lived in a tiny flat in Thornton Heath. Bruckner kept me sane...Klemperer Blomstedt Ormandy whoever!
Neighbours never complained bless 'em! 7 & 8 for me.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Though I cherish all the Bruckner Symphonies -- they have been stalwarts of my listening habit for near a half century -- and though I have several complete sets in my collection and listen to all of the symphonies regularly, I favor the Fourth and Seventh over the others, with the Seventh taking precedence. My preferred recording for years has been the Max Rudolf interpretation which I originally acquired as a vinyl LP. That version is currently available on a CD transfer by Haydn House. Perhaps I favor this recording only because it was the very first Bruckner I ever heard. A happy accident of fate, perhaps.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I have long felt that Bruckner is the oddest first-rank composer in the entire history of music (well, there's Berlioz, but indulge me). This oddness doesn't reside in the elements of his musical language; his melodies are easily comprehended, his rhythms are foursquare, his harmonies mostly common practice, his orchestration distinctive in its division into "choirs" but not otherwise startling. What makes him unique, and, I suspect, problematic for some listeners, is his concept of time.
> 
> It's often remarked that Bruckner is constantly stopping in the middle of one idea and switching inexplicably to a different one, or that he keeps building up to climaxes but then frustrates expectations by breaking off before he gets there. Well, as peculiar and unpromising as it sounds, this is an accurate description of his typical formal procedures. It isn't merely that he constructs a movement in distinct sections, or that he alternates contrasting ideas. There's plenty of musical precedent for doing those things. No, the difficulty is that the harmonic idioms which Bruckner employed had been evolving for centuries to express a sense of time as _progression_. From the increasingly large scale movements of the Baroque, which used modulation to create tension and to heighten the pleasure of final release; to the dramatic dialectics of Classical sonata form, with its unstable harmonic narratives guided irresistibly through conflict and opposition to resolution; and then to the unprecedented harmonic exploration of the Romantic age in the pursuit of expression which reached a critical climax in the Wagnerian music drama - through all these changes of style and sensibility, Western music continued to embody, through tonal harmony (in which we speak of chord _progressions_), a sense of time as progress or movement toward a goal (how this teleological sense of time derives from our Greco-Judeo-Christian philosophical roots is a matter for a different discussion). This kind of progressive harmony is what Bruckner inherited and used. But he used it in the context of large scale forms which seem to contradict its very nature. And I'm inclined to think that this is what keeps many people from appreciating and enjoying his music.
> 
> ...


All to the good and no doubt true- but enjoying Bruckner is more _simpliste_ with me: its all about the sweeping strings, heroic brass chorales, and climactic buildups.

What did Furtwangler say about Bruckner when someone made a dismissive remark about him?: 'Yes, but where are such climaxes to be found?' (I'm paraphrasing here, but it was something to that effect.)


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## Rangstrom (Sep 24, 2010)

For some reason as much as I enjoy the symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler, if I find myself particularly attuned to one then I become disconnected to the other. This ebb and flow goes on for months (years?) at a time. The past two years were Bruckner years, but recently I'm back to Mahler (the Jansons' Bruckner 4th that I listened to last night failed to connect at all). I don't know what it is in the sound of these two composers that make them incompatible for me, but it has gone on for some 40 years. 

This doesn't happen with any other composer, even those with similar styles (few as those may be). I thought the Tyberg symphony 3 with its many Mahler and Bruckner fingerprints would cause me a major short circuit, but I found it quite enjoyable.

Sorry for the detour. I expect that I'll be back in a few months to share some Bruckner love.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Rangstrom said:


> For some reason as much as I enjoy the symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler, *if I find myself particularly attuned to one then I become disconnected to the other.* This ebb and flow goes on for months (years?) at a time. The past two years were Bruckner years, but recently I'm back to Mahler (the Jansons' Bruckner 4th that I listened to last night failed to connect at all). *I don't know what it is in the sound of these two composers that make them incompatible for me, but it has gone on for some 40 years. *
> 
> This doesn't happen with any other composer, even those with similar styles (few as those may be). I thought the Tyberg symphony 3 with its many Mahler and Bruckner fingerprints would cause me a major short circuit, but I found it quite enjoyable.
> 
> Sorry for the detour. I expect that I'll be back in a few months to share some Bruckner love.


Back up one page in this thread and read my remarks on Bruckner from April 20, 2014. They are implicitly a discussion of what Mahler is not. I too (and other people I've known) feel these composers as deeply antithetical, even with the superficial resemblances that account for their traditional bracketing as "Mahler-Bruckner," manufacturers of huge Teutonic symphonies.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Back up one page in this thread and read my remarks on Bruckner from April 20, 2014. They are implicitly a discussion of what Mahler is not. I too (and other people I've known) feel these composers as deeply antithetical, even with the superficial resemblances that account for their traditionally bracketing as "Mahler-Bruckner," manufacturers of huge Teutonic symphonies.


I agree with you here. Both Mahler and Bruckner worked with the scale of epicness and time which are relatively abstract here in fact. (Also count in Feldman as well for even more exaggerated use of time here.) What makes each composer interesting is how they articulate their own ideas for the listener.

Bruckner transitions his themes is a very different way than that of Mahler. Although honestly, I never saw Mahler as being Teutonic in nature. His work is too ironic for me to be of that moniker.


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## Rangstrom (Sep 24, 2010)

Woodduck,

It was your post that got my mind rambling down this path. I also find it interesting that most great conductors of Bruckner or Mahler tend to stick to just one. Of course there are exceptions: Horenstein and Haitink come to mind.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Rangstrom said:


> Woodduck,
> 
> It was your post that got my mind rambling down this path. I also find it interesting that most great conductors of Bruckner or Mahler tend to stick to just one. Of course there are exceptions: Horenstein and Haitink come to mind.


I knew a Mahler lover (a professional psychiatrist) who couldn't comprehend Bruckner at all. His feeling was that Mahler was intensely "psychological" - that his music was very much about himself, perpetually struggling with the meaning of life. I feel the same way. Bruckner is virtually the diametric opposite; listening to Bruckner, I have little sense of him as a person, and the feelings he evokes are akin to the experience of looking down from a mountaintop or entering a cathedral. Mahler seems possessed by his emotions and pressed to "deal" with them by elaborating them into musical forms; Bruckner's forms contain expressive events but are not determined by them. If Mahler is existential, Bruckner is metaphysical. It makes sense to me that certain conductors feel attuned to one and not to the other, since I do myself.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Lovely post again, Woodduck. I adore your insight into Bruckner (and other things). Maybe it's something like this with Mahler and Bruckner: with Mahler, there is a personality that tries to grasp its surroundings, the world. Everything relates to the personality. It tries to understand its surroundings, but things soon start to contradict themselves. Bravely, the personality does not shirk from those aspects of reality that do not seem to fit, but tries to take them all in, and to form a some kind of sum of reality, even if it undercuts the fact that we'd like reality to be logical. The personality ends up holding a wild web of threads in its hands, and survives by some kind of cathartic experience that affirms a sense of reality, even if it is self-contradictionary... because, at the end, personality, or at the very least a unified experience remains as a some kind of corner-stone.

With Bruckner, it's the other way around, and the world speaks to us directly. The world is unified, it's us who are in trouble. We try to form a personality, but are interrupted, time and time again. At the end, the personality is revealed to be the tangled mess, held in a grip of a greater, unshaken reality. We gaze at our glorious ruin, fall to our knees and bow in front of that reality, and paradoxically, that frees us.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

From Neville Cardus' autobiography.
Mairecker was a Vienna Phil. leader in the 1920s:

After lunch we go over the fields to Hellbrunn. There is talk of 
Bruckner, and as an Englishman not yet in the secret of this 
composer, I mention Mahler, with whom the name of Bruckner is 
associated in England. Mairecker picked a wild flower from the 
grass. "This is Mahler!" he said. He then apostrophised the great 
Untersburg mountain. "And that," he said, "is Bruckner!"

cheers,
Graeme


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I doscovered Bruckner over 40 years ago as a teenager ( my god, I'm a dinosaur compared to most of the other people on this forum !) , when I bought the LP version of the 9th with Schurich and the VPO on EMI's budget Seraphim series (anybody remember these LPs ?), and I was overhwlemed by the power and profundity of the music . I began to listen to every LP I could get and fortunately, my local library had an first rate collection of classical LPs .
I They had the Klemperer /Philharmonia 5th , and various other versions of the symphonies by Furtwangler, Mravinsky, Van Beinum , Rosbaud, Karajan ,Haitink and others . I was hooked for life on
Bruckner .


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

At first it seems like Bruckner would be just plain inferior to Mahler, besides the obvious of advantage of not ruining his symphonies with singing. He's more repetitive, he isn't as good in developing his musical ideas, his orchestration less colorful, his themes sometimes very banal/dull/simplistic. But in practice I find that I listen to him as much as (maybe even more than) I listen to Mahler. I guess there's something about the grand, confident and spiritual atmosphere he creates.


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## Guest (Mar 23, 2015)

Dim7 said:


> the obvious of advantage of not ruining his symphonies with singing.


Gasp! I didn't think you were allowed to say that! Yes, that's a demerit for Mahler and LvB, for me.

Bruckner's a sort of proto trance metal in places!


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## Lord Lance (Nov 4, 2013)

*Recommendations - Part I*

*Cycles to hear before you die [or cryogenically frozen]:*


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## Lord Lance (Nov 4, 2013)

*More cycles to groove out to - Part II*

*More recommendations:
*


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## Lord Lance (Nov 4, 2013)

*Do the Bruckner - Part III*

*Final List of Recommendations: [Includes partial Bruckner cycles]*


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## Polyphemus (Nov 2, 2011)

Bruckner Master :-


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## Lord Lance (Nov 4, 2013)

Polyphemus said:


> Bruckner Master :-
> 
> View attachment 66838


I have heard much of Haitink being the last great Brucknerian and of his RCO cycle. What view do you keep of the cycle?


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## padraic (Feb 26, 2015)

I was thinking about getting the Karajan box - don't have a complete Bruckner cycle as of yet. I'd be welcome to opinions regarding alternatives for an "intro" cycle.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

padraic said:


> I was thinking about getting the Karajan box - don't have a complete Bruckner cycle as of yet. I'd be welcome to opinions regarding alternatives for an "intro" cycle.


I'd go with either Karajan, Jochum either one, or Wand. mho


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Wand with NDR SO - I would go with this one, great balanced performances.
Tintner set is also very good.
Jochum... is overrated imo. There is too much Jochum in his Bruckner, so to speak.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

You won't get any love from me for Bruckner. However I do respect his symphonic efforts, 7 and 8.


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## Lord Lance (Nov 4, 2013)

hpowders said:


> You won't get any love from me for Bruckner. However I do respect his symphonic efforts, 7 and 8.


Why don't you listen more.....

No, I am not the Bruckner fanboy who is endlessly going to convince you to change your ways and become one of the enlightened ones. Your loss. But, you already know vast swathes of music - so, I suppose, you're fine!


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

hpowders said:


> You won't get any love from me for Bruckner. However I do respect his symphonic efforts, 7 and 8.


Try listening to the earlier versions for the symphonies... those versions are better in general than the struck latter versions.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

Albert7 said:


> Try listening to the earlier versions for the symphonies... those versions are better in general than the struck latter versions.


Around 1875-1880, he rewrote the early symphonies, but on his own accord. (Later revisions during the 1890s are a different matter, though.) He certainly felt he had improved them, and I would agree. During the composition of the Fifth, he found his definitive style and reworked previous pieces accordingly. They became more austere and disciplined, less extravagant. Or more classical, less romantic. At least that's how I feel. It's a matter of taste, of course, which one prefers. The original versions, however, offer a more accurate picture of his development as a symphony composer.


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## Guest (Mar 24, 2015)

Azol said:


> Wand with NDR SO - I would go with this one, great balanced performances.


This is the set I have:


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

mahlerian and I wished that Bruckner had composed more chamber works  particularly in his later period.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

I posted some info concerning what I believe to be the current best choice for completed 4-movement Ninth, but to avoid crossposting, I just link it here:
http://www.talkclassical.com/37262-current-listening-vol-iii-post909497.html#post909497


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## Steve Wright (Mar 13, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I have long felt that Bruckner is the oddest first-rank composer in the entire history of music (well, there's Berlioz, but indulge me). This oddness doesn't reside in the elements of his musical language; his melodies are easily comprehended, his rhythms are foursquare, his harmonies mostly common practice, his orchestration distinctive in its division into "choirs" but not otherwise startling. What makes him unique, and, I suspect, problematic for some listeners, is his concept of time.
> 
> (...)
> 
> ...


My, this is good. Thank you!


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> I have long felt that Bruckner is the oddest first-rank composer in the entire history of music (well, there's Berlioz, but indulge me). This oddness doesn't reside in the elements of his musical language; his melodies are easily comprehended, his rhythms are foursquare, his harmonies mostly common practice, his orchestration distinctive in its division into "choirs" but not otherwise startling. What makes him unique, and, I suspect, problematic for some listeners, is his concept of time.
> 
> It's often remarked that Bruckner is constantly stopping in the middle of one idea and switching inexplicably to a different one, or that he keeps building up to climaxes but then frustrates expectations by breaking off before he gets there. Well, as peculiar and unpromising as it sounds, this is an accurate description of his typical formal procedures. It isn't merely that he constructs a movement in distinct sections, or that he alternates contrasting ideas. There's plenty of musical precedent for doing those things. No, the difficulty is that the harmonic idioms which Bruckner employed had been evolving for centuries to express a sense of time as _progression_. From the increasingly large scale movements of the Baroque, which used modulation to create tension and to heighten the pleasure of final release; to the dramatic dialectics of Classical sonata form, with its unstable harmonic narratives guided irresistibly through conflict and opposition to resolution; and then to the unprecedented harmonic exploration of the Romantic age in the pursuit of expression which reached a critical climax in the Wagnerian music drama - through all these changes of style and sensibility, Western music continued to embody, through tonal harmony (in which we speak of chord _progressions_), a sense of time as progress or movement toward a goal (how this teleological sense of time derives from our Greco-Judeo-Christian philosophical roots is a matter for a different discussion). This kind of progressive harmony is what Bruckner inherited and used. But he used it in the context of large scale forms which seem to contradict its very nature. And I'm inclined to think that this is what keeps many people from appreciating and enjoying his music.
> 
> ...


I think Bruckner is simply kneeling before his God and this 'kneeling' you can trace back as "_constantly stopping in the middle of one idea and switching inexplicably to a different one, or that he keeps building up to climaxes but then frustrates expectations by breaking off before he gets there_". This is the difference between Bruckner and Beethoven; Beethoven's God is (=) the teleological goal that the Classical sonata form projects progressively out of itself, but Beethoven doesn't kneel before God. Never. With Bruckner I feel the whirl, the overwhelming inspiration pacing its own pace, walking His own walk, and the composer following these blows, respecting these divinely paced, spiritually stepped up & down movements musically. With Beethoven no one ever has to doubt for a split second who is in control, with Bruckner both the composer and the listener loose control and are being humbled by the music. Well, that's the reason I cannot stand Beethoven and that's why I love being overwhelmed by Bruckner. 
My favourite Bruckner conductors are Eugen Jochum, Riccardo Chailly, Bernard Haitink and Lorin Maazel. Maazel's EMI recording of Bruckner's 7th moves me to tears...


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

TxllxT said:


> I think Bruckner is simply kneeling before his God and this 'kneeling' you can trace back as "_constantly stopping in the middle of one idea and switching inexplicably to a different one, or that he keeps building up to climaxes but then frustrates expectations by breaking off before he gets there_". This is the difference between Bruckner and Beethoven; Beethoven's God is (=) the teleological goal that the Classical sonata form projects progressively out of itself, but Beethoven doesn't kneel before God. Never. With Bruckner I feel the whirl, the overwhelming inspiration pacing its own pace, walking His own walk, and the composer following these blows, respecting these divinely paced, spiritually stepped up & down movements musically. With Beethoven no one ever has to doubt for a split second who is in control, with Bruckner both the composer and the listener loose control and are being humbled by the music. Well, that's the reason I cannot stand Beethoven and that's why I love being overwhelmed by Bruckner.
> My favourite Bruckner conductors are Eugen Jochum, Riccardo Chailly, Bernard Haitink and Lorin Maazel. Maazel's EMI recording of Bruckner's 7th moves me to tears...


You have not only described why I love Bruckner but also why I love Beethoven. It's a bit like Leibniz and Voltaire, isn't it? "Best of all possible worlds" vs. "We have to cultivate our garden".


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Xaltotun said:


> You have not only described why I love Bruckner but also why I love Beethoven. It's a bit like Leibniz and Voltaire, isn't it? "Best of all possible worlds" vs. "We have to cultivate our garden".


Beethoven's adagium is _per aspera ad astra_ (through hardship(s) towards the stars) and his quest resembles that of Robinson Crusoe or Odysseus: the Classical Hero who struggles and solves all problems on his own and conquers the unknown by his own might. This mindset is typical for perhaps the bulk of western civilisation. With Bruckner however his mindset resembles that of the Annunciation, Mary being visited by God (by His messenger Gabriel). No heroism on the side of Mary (Bruckner), just agreeing to become His servant.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

TxllxT said:


> Beethoven's adagium is _per aspera ad astra_ (through hardship(s) towards the stars) and his quest resembles that of Robinson Crusoe or Odysseus: the Classical Hero who struggles and solves all problems on his own and conquers the unknown by his own might. This mindset is typical for perhaps the bulk of western civilisation. With Bruckner however his mindset resembles that of the Annunciation, Mary being visited by God (by His messenger Gabriel). No heroism on the side of Mary (Bruckner), just agreeing to become His servant.


Seems right; beautifully put! But Beethoven also has moments when he's trying to reconcile the uncompromising way of the "will" with a "natural" way, the active with the passive; I'm thinking of symphonies 6 and 4 and some moments in _Missa Solemnis_. This surely echoes Schiller, who was trying to "soften" Kant's "hard" ethics with something more natural and merciful.

You know, when I was thinking of your Annunciation example, I realized something. Mary's emotions must have been first frightened awe, then ecstatic acceptance. Sounds rather Brucknerish, doesn't it - the fear alternating with the ecstasy. So --- Bruckner is always passive, but he shows us different sides of passivity.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Xaltotun said:


> Seems right; beautifully put! But Beethoven also has moments when he's trying to reconcile the uncompromising way of the "will" with a "natural" way, the active with the passive; I'm thinking of symphonies 6 and 4 and some moments in _Missa Solemnis_. This surely echoes Schiller, who was trying to "soften" Kant's "hard" ethics with something more natural and merciful.
> 
> You know, when I was thinking of your Annunciation example, I realized something. Mary's emotions must have been first frightened awe, then ecstatic acceptance. Sounds rather Brucknerish, doesn't it - the fear alternating with the ecstasy. So --- Bruckner is always passive, but he shows us different sides of passivity.


When Mozart wrote down a musical composition people wondered: the music seemed ready-made, Mozart somehow received this music completely (the beginning and the end sharing the same instant conception in time, every moment becoming one/eternal) and he just made a copy of it in music notation. Beethoven's beginnings and endings show everywhere the traces of having been construed. Yes, construed by a Genius, but still: construed. Mozart almost accidentally happened to be present when the music came to him, Beethoven did/does not believe in accidentalness: everything in Beethoven is being dictated/constructed by necessity. Beethoven's 'music' is systematic and if you believe in ideal system thinking he probably is the genial horse to ride on. But I hear no Siren's song singing in Beethoven, where is the music behind/before the 'music'? With Bruckner the accidentalness of music enters anew as a kind of peaceful tsunami.


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## Lord Lance (Nov 4, 2013)

Polyphemus said:


> Real pity for me was when Philips cut short Haitink's proposed VPO cycle (3,4,5 & 8 released). For me the Eight was superb and if I dare say it better than Karajan's over produced and overpraised Eight which won every award known to man. Haitink's grasp of Bruckner has always been a model of exemplary study, knowledge and overview of the structure of the work as a whole. His superb treatment of the tricky Sixth with the Dresen Orchestra on Profil (Hanssler) is testament to his ability.


I am conflicted: I love Karajan like I love puppies but Haitink is such a master...


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

I don't understand Bruckner at all. I've tried numerous recordings and symphony cycles that were highly recommended, and I just don't get it. I can't follow it. It just feels like nothing but transitions without ever stating a point or arriving anywhere. Maybe that's the point but it feels unpleasant, like walking on quicksand.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

TxllxT said:


> When Mozart wrote down a musical composition people wondered: the music seemed ready-made, Mozart somehow received this music completely (the beginning and the end sharing the same instant conception in time, every moment becoming one/eternal) and he just made a copy of it in music notation. Beethoven's beginnings and endings show everywhere the traces of having been construed. Yes, construed by a Genius, but still: construed. Mozart almost accidentally happened to be present when the music came to him, Beethoven did/does not believe in accidentalness: everything in Beethoven is being dictated/constructed by necessity. Beethoven's 'music' is systematic and if you believe in ideal system thinking he probably is the genial horse to ride on. But I hear no Siren's song singing in Beethoven, where is the music behind/before the 'music'? With Bruckner the accidentalness of music enters anew as a kind of peaceful tsunami.


Part of me wants to agree with this, but I can only go so far with you. Beethoven may have struggled with his material, but the result doesn't necessarily sound that way. If you do hear a lack of spontaneity and flow - is that what you hear? I hear both in abundance - I wonder if your perception isn't partly guided by your image of the composer's personality and knowledge of his methods. Mozart's music certainly "sings" more continuously, but the gods may not always communicate by singing. When I listen to works as unlike as the _"Pastoral" Symphony_ and the _Grosse Fuge_, I hear _something_ behind/before the music. It may not be sirens, and in the case of the fugue I can't begin to say what it is, but it definitely transcends "construction."

For a composer whose "construction" actually shows, I'd suggest Brahms. A wonderful composer, but expanding his fundamentally lyrical inspiration into complex forms sometimes results in a too-audible effort, with the joins showing in a way that Beethoven's don't. And Bruckner? The tsunami is felt when his eccentric procedures succeed - but even in his best work I don't always feel that they do. Sometimes his patiently timeless episodes become just episodes, and I find myself wondering what time it is.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> Part of me wants to agree with this, but I can only go so far with you. Beethoven may have struggled with his material, but the result doesn't necessarily sound that way. If you do hear a lack of spontaneity and flow - is that what you hear? I hear both in abundance - I wonder if your perception isn't partly guided by your image of the composer's personality and knowledge of his methods. Mozart's music certainly "sings" more continuously, but the gods may not always communicate by singing. When I listen to works as unlike as the _"Pastoral" Symphony_ and the _Grosse Fuge_, I hear _something_ behind/before the music. It may not be sirens, and in the case of the fugue I can't begin to say what it is, but it definitely transcends "construction."
> 
> For a composer whose "construction" actually shows, I'd suggest Brahms. A wonderful composer, but expanding his fundamentally lyrical inspiration into complex forms sometimes results in a too-audible effort, with the joins showing in a way that Beethoven's don't. And Bruckner? The tsunami is felt when his eccentric procedures succeed - but even in his best work I don't always feel that they do. Sometimes his patiently timeless episodes become just episodes, and I find myself wondering what time it is.


With 'construction'/'construed' I only want to point towards: where does the music originate,- and indeed, Brahms has presented even more construed compositions than Beethoven. I am able to enjoy Brahms only for a limited period of time (let's say, one whole symphony no.4 only with Kleiber & VPO is the absolute maximum stretch), and after that I have to have a long no-Brahms-please break. With Bruckner I have no such backlashes, I can listen to many interpretations by many conductors for hours and days; why? I guess it has to do where the music originates... Not inside, enclosed in a construction, but being there already before, behind...


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

It seems weird to hear Beethoven be accused of lack of spontaneity; if he was master of anything, it was improvisation. His difficulty often lay in choosing which to pursue of the very many ways that occurred to him in forming virtually any composition. It's quite clear from examining his sketchbooks. But once he decided on a course, there was seldom any looking back---his continuity drafts rarely differ very much from the finished composition. There are exceptions of course (he changed his mind twice about the ending of the first movement of the Eighth Symphony, for instance, after it had been premiered), but for the most part that's how he worked.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

gardibolt said:


> It seems weird to hear Beethoven be accused of lack of spontaneity; if he was master of anything, it was improvisation. His difficulty often lay in choosing which to pursue of the very many ways that occurred to him in forming virtually any composition. It's quite clear from examining his sketchbooks. But once he decided on a course, there was seldom any looking back---his continuity drafts rarely differ very much from the finished composition. There are exceptions of course (he changed his mind twice about the ending of the first movement of the Eighth Symphony, for instance, after it had been premiered), but for the most part that's how he worked.


No accusation intended, just that there is a difference when you work with sketchbooks or when you - like Mozart - just write down the first & final registration of one complete opus. This last phenomenon opens the way for the interpretation, that Mozart didn't 'labour' at all, but *received* the music - just as if the music was already present before Mozart showed up as the prodigy who surprised everyone. Compared with Mozart Beethoven is a typical labourer, if you want a typical labourer full of spontaneity - but there is no music already present before the hard sketchy labour _per aspera ad astra_ started. Comparing Bruckner with Beethoven we are being drowned in sketchbooks, in all kinds of versions etc., but - - - Bruckner's mindset is receptive, Bruckner's music has this being-already-present-before quality which reminds me of Mozart.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I could twist these terms a little bit and call "accidental" "objective" and "construed" "subjective". Accidentally, one stumbles upon something - an object; a construction is an expression of subjectivity. So - Beethoven subjective, Bruckner objective - seems fine, but there's more to it than that, I think. The most beautiful thing happens when the division between a subject and an object disappears; Wagner was aiming for this, I think, and in literature, the very ending of Dante's Paradise is not the annihilation of the self, but the merging of God's and the Poet's will, where they can no longer be separated.

Signs of this merging are to be found both in Bruckner and in Beethoven, I think; with Beethoven, the very _necessity_ of the construction seems to hint at a law originating from the outside of the person. So - while he's subjective, the agent of the music, he's not guided by whim; he's looking for what's necessary. Also, you can put Beethoven to Hegelian terms: he's aiming for the ultimate object, the absolute, the point in history when all objects are revealed to be one great subject - then, nothing is strange, nothing is foreign, but also, we cease to be enslaved by our subjective desires. So, all this subjective striving and construction by Beethoven may be seen as a struggle for the loss of ego, the great merging.

Bruckner, on the other hand, washes over us with his visions of horror, strangeness and the sublime - we see the object, and we're terrified that it's _something else_ than us. There is _something_ and we are not it. But he shows us something subjective: the response. From fear to ecstasy, denial to acceptance, he shows the subject alternating in response to the overwhelming power of the object. This is his genius and the reason why I refuse to see his music as purely "cosmic" - there's a strong human element in it, the _witness._ When Bruckner succeeds, the subject no longer quibbles and alternates, but finds its own true will, and finds it to be the same as the object's will. So, the end result may be seen as the same as with Beethoven, even if he's taken the completely opposite route to get there.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

TxllxT said:


> ...or when you - like Mozart - just write down the first & final registration of one complete opus.


My understanding is that, especially in his later years, Mozart used sketches extensively in preparing his works. From Wiki: "He often made sketches and drafts; unlike Beethoven's these are mostly not preserved, as his wife sought to destroy them after his death."


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Xaltotun said:


> I could twist these terms a little bit and call "accidental" "objective" and "construed" "subjective". Accidentally, one stumbles upon something - an object; a construction is an expression of subjectivity. So - Beethoven subjective, Bruckner objective - seems fine, but there's more to it than that, I think. The most beautiful thing happens when the division between a subject and an object disappears; Wagner was aiming for this, I think, and in literature, the very ending of Dante's Paradise is not the annihilation of the self, but the merging of God's and the Poet's will, where they can no longer be separated.
> 
> Signs of this merging are to be found both in Bruckner and in Beethoven, I think; with Beethoven, the very _necessity_ of the construction seems to hint at a law originating from the outside of the person. So - while he's subjective, the agent of the music, he's not guided by whim; he's looking for what's necessary. Also, you can put Beethoven to Hegelian terms: he's aiming for the ultimate object, the absolute, the point in history when all objects are revealed to be one great subject - then, nothing is strange, nothing is foreign, but also, we cease to be enslaved by our subjective desires. So, all this subjective striving and construction by Beethoven may be seen as a struggle for the loss of ego, the great merging.
> 
> Bruckner, on the other hand, washes over us with his visions of horror, strangeness and the sublime - we see the object, and we're terrified that it's _something else_ than us. There is _something_ and we are not it. But he shows us something subjective: the response. From fear to ecstasy, denial to acceptance, he shows the subject alternating in response to the overwhelming power of the object. This is his genius and the reason why I refuse to see his music as purely "cosmic" - *there's a strong human element in it, the witness.* When Bruckner succeeds, the subject no longer quibbles and alternates, but finds its own true will, and finds it to be the same as the object's will. So, the end result may be seen as the same as with Beethoven, even if he's taken the completely opposite route to get there.


Thank you for this witness. However, the merging of God's will and the Poet's will - like Adam and Eve becoming one flesh - with Hegel constructing the idea of the _Gottmensch_, there I miss humility and I miss the regard/honouring for the AND that stands like a guardian angel between I AND THOU. Why to annihilate this AND (will the gates of paradise open up, when this AND disappears?), when true witnessing begins & ends with: AND.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

This thread was started mentioning a Guardian article about Bruckner, so it's to be continued with another from the same Guardian.http://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/oct/06/anton-bruckner

I haven't heard his symphonies with Furtwängler,and after reading the article I'll certainly give it a try. Last time I've heard Bruckner's symphony with Wand and to say the truth I expected more, but was slightly disappointed which makes another good point is just to see, not to expect


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## padraic (Feb 26, 2015)

Is there anyone else that finds Celi's 8th to be close to a religious experience? I have never been as profoundly affected by a piece of music as I am with this.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

I believe you are talking about his 8th with Munchner Phil on EMI, where Adagio takes over 35 minutes to run its' course?
Yes, this single movement is pure wizardry, unbelievably powerful and it does not sound slow!
Have you seen the Tokyo 1990 performance which is available on DVD?


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

padraic said:


> Is there anyone else that finds Celi's 8th to be close to a religious experience? I have never been as profoundly affected by a piece of music as I am with this.


yes, yes, I definitely find it to be so....and not only 8th, but almost all his symphonies. It doesn't matter how we define it "religious", "spiritual", "enlightening" , etc , they are sort of a life summary, especially inner life, life of a soul or mind whatever one would like to call it.


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## padraic (Feb 26, 2015)

Azol said:


> I believe you are talking about his 8th with Munchner Phil on EMI, where Adagio takes over 35 minutes to run its' course?
> Yes, this single movement is pure wizardry, unbelievably powerful and it does not sound slow!
> Have you seen the Tokyo 1990 performance which is available on DVD?


Yes indeed - and as incredible as the Adagio is, the Finale really transports me to another dimension.

I've just recently ordered the DVDs you mention, but mostly for the bonus CDs of a performance of the 4th which has gotten amazing reviews. The DVDs are a nice bonus but people have complained about the video quality. I may investigate trying to extract the audio only.


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## padraic (Feb 26, 2015)

helenora said:


> yes, yes, I definitely find it to be so....and not only 8th, but almost all his symphonies. It doesn't matter how we define it "religious", "spiritual", "enlightening" , etc , they are sort of a life summary, especially inner life, life of a soul or mind whatever one would like to call it.


"Soul-stirring" to be sure!


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

padraic said:


> "Soul-stirring" to be sure!


absolutely! all his works are about a soul, for a soul, written with a soul and by a soul


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