# The Bruckner 'Thunderbolt'



## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

I found this link that's a list of people sharing their so-called Bruckner Thunderbolt moments - that moment when Bruckner suddenly clicks in a profound and vital way. Anybody have a thunderbolt moment to share? It seems the 4th is the most popular lightning rod :tiphat:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=b...i61j69i60l2.2321j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8


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## Omicron9 (Oct 13, 2016)

Cool thread. I think for me, it was Bruckner 8.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

An apt metaphor Tallisman: The chances of being struck by lightning where I live are about 1:5,000 over a lifetime.


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## nature (Jun 25, 2017)

The Adagio and Finale of the 8th symphony is really where it clicked with me.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

The 4th was Bruckner's first work I heard, and I liked it immediately. Soon after I got the Wand complete set of symphonies and was off and running. So I guess I never really had a thunderbolt moment.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> The 4th was Bruckner's first work I heard, and I liked it immediately. <snip> So I guess I never really had a thunderbolt moment.


This. I went 4 - 9 - 7 - 8 as my first Bruckner CD's, around 1990. All instant clicks. It took me a year or two to complete the 1-9 set (no boxes in the shops at the time). In recent years I added 0 and 00, because I'm a completionist at heart.


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

5:25 :angel:


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

Unquestionably the first movement of the 9th symphony.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Bruckner had no incubation period for me, so the 'thunderbolt' came with the first notes I heard, really. Symphony 7 with Furtwängler.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

My first recording was the 5th, conducted by Solti. I thought Bruckner was ridiculous. Then I got the Tintner cycle. I think the thunderbolt occurred in the first movement of the 4th symphony, the marvelous section right before the recap where Tintner makes it sound like time stops and the windows of heaven are open. I've been hooked ever since.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Mine happened near enough straight away as I was listening to Bruckner for the first time, and it was the fanfare near the beginning of the 5th after that deceptively quiet opening. After that I knew I was going to need to listen to pretty much everything of note by Bruckner, and within a couple of years I had.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Manxfeeder said:


> My first recording was the 5th, conducted by Solti. I thought Bruckner was ridiculous. Then I got the Tintner cycle. I think the thunderbolt occurred in the first movement of the 4th symphony, the marvelous section right before the recap where Tintner makes it sound like time stops and the windows of heaven are open. I've been hooked ever since.


Yeah the Tintner ones are excellent. His 4th is the best I've heard and he did brilliantly with an orchestra not generally considered in the top tier


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bruckner wasn't really on my radar until I heard a typically profound Furtwangler performance of the 8th and the gates of heaven were opened. I've never become an across-the-board fan of his works, which in my opinion are not all equally successful in justifying his peculiar formal procedures, but I enjoy most parts of the last 3 symphonies and a few other things.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

The first Bruckner I ever heard, as a junior high schooler, was a recording of the Seventh Symphony by Max Rudolf and the Cincinnati Symphony (on DECCA Gold Label DL710139, a vinyl Stereo record), one of my first classical records (purchased soon after my conversion via the Tchaikovsky _Capriccio Italien_). I still have that album, and I still listen to it, though it proves one of the noisier discs in my collection (though visually it is pristine) since I was playing my records at that time on low-fi equipment. I do have the Haydn House CD reissue from a few years back, but the vinyl gives me the goosebumps. I can still recall my first hearing of that work. I remember being startled by the Bruckner orchestration through the first two movements.

I read the sleeve notes (by Joseph Sagmaster) as I listened. Sagmaster writes of the first movement: "In listening to a Bruckner symphony, one should note that the exposition in the first movement is based on three distinct subjects, as differentiated from the classical tradition of two contrasted themes, dramatic and lyrical. The third theme usually underlines the rhythm, as a subdued yet stately pace." Three subjects! I recall shouting to myself. I had just started getting the hang of the classic sonata form which featured two contrasting themes, and now this Bruckner guy was giving us _three_ themes. _That _was a Wow! moment for me.

And of the second movement Sagmaster notes: "This movement, perhaps the most beautiful in all of Bruckner's works, is often referred to as his memorial to Richard Wagner. Actually, it was written before Wagner's death, but Bruckner had a premonition of that event." Another Wow! moment. This is music of a psychic!

But it was the third movement Scherzo that grabbed my soul forever. Sagmaster wrote: "Here, in one of the most impressive of all scherzos, the peasant in Bruckner emerges." It brought out the peasant in me, too. I was hooked, and I don't believe that "cock's crowing" trumpet call (Sagmaster's suggestion) has ever left my inner ear; it's with me daily, a call to life itself.

With my hearing of that Seventh Symphony recording, I became a Brucknerian, which explains why my Bruckner collection remains among the largest of any composer on my shelves. Thunder, lightning, call it what you will. For me Bruckner is among the supreme beings.

Sagmaster writes, concerning this E Major Symphony: "Now at last ... the general concert going public also realized that Bruckner was not imitation-Wagner but had something original and important to say." And of Bruckner himself he noted: "He was, by temperament, awkward, shy, even obsequious. His character was that of a simple, industrious, God-fearing man." I understood those emotions back in my teener years, and I embraced Bruckner. His music has always struck me as an attempt to probe the heavens for the ultimate answer to the mystery of God himself. His music, to me, is like gazing into the sky, a sky full of clouds; but every once in a while the clouds part and a shaft of sunlight peaks through, a moment of recognition, of confirmation."

I may not today believe in the Spirit that compelled Bruckner's music, but I know what the composer's Heaven looks like. And sounds like. And I still believe in Bruckner. With all my soul.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

This 'thunderbolt' has still not happened for me yet. I've listened to Bruckner's symphonies (mostly the 4th, 7th and 9th) on and off over the years, trying to get into them, but it never works. It always sounds like a Wagner-Mahler mash-up, even though his thematic constructions are different. The finales always feel interminable.

I'll always go back and try though.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

I think Bruckner 8 and 9 are spectacular. I don't know the symphonies well enough yet to mention specific moments or movements, but those had the strongest impression


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Listened to Symphonies 3 and 4, didn't really click. Symphony 2 was the first I liked, and the 5th was the one that made me a believer. I now count 4-9 as among my favorite symphonies and any of the last 3 I could think of as my very favorite.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

I've mentioned before that the only Bruckner I had heard before hooking up with TC was the 7th, and I couldn't understand the repetitiveness of the rhythms in the first movement. So I asked about it (one of my first posts) and someone responded "if you don't like repetition, you won't like Bruckner." Shortly thereafter, I read a poster refer to Bruckner's 8th as "everybody's favorite symphony" (which may have been somewhat ironic). So I listened. Then I YouTubed Celibidache conducting the 8th with the Munich live in Tokyo. While watching him conduct the "Deutscher Michel" theme of the Scherzo, just before the beginning of the second section, it clicked: "Oh...THAT'S why the rhythm!" I'm not even sure I can explain what that means, but after that, Bruckner was no problem.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

nature said:


> The Adagio and Finale of the 8th symphony is really where it clicked with me.


Same for me, but it was also my first exposure to Bruckner.
At first I didn't know what to make of the 8th. So I decided to focus on individual movements for a while, in reverse order for no particular reason. After listening to quite a few different recordings of the finale of the 8th I started to like it a lot. Later I realized that the adagio is even better, absolutely sublime in fact. And of course the entire symphony is great, which I heard live a couple of months ago.
I also like the 5th, 7th and 9th, but haven't listened to the others yet.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

There was none for me. In my first year of university a friend introduced me to the 4th which I immediately liked. Over the years I got to know the 7th, then the 6th, 8th and 9th. The 5th took some time until I finally discarded a Karajan set and listened to Wand. The 3rd took even longer and it was only a recent recording of the original version with Nezet-Seguin and the Leipzig Gewandhaus that it made sense. The 1st and 2nd are still non-entities to me.


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