# Bruckner: Chamber Music and Juvenalia



## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

I wanted to make a thread because it's a niche that doesn't often garner much discussion. Chamber music makes up so little of his output and most people tend to think of Bruckner as first and foremost a symphonic composer (and rightfully so) and then secondmost a choral composer. I'm not inclined to say that his chamber music has any world beaters but there's some good stuff in there worth listening to.

I think the biggest flaw with his chamber music is his stylistic approach to the medium: he's so accustomed to writing on a grand symphonic scale that it just doesn't fit with intimate chamber settings like quartets and quintets. I've seen this argument before and I think it holds a lot of water. He doesn't write _individually_ for the instruments enough and instead of missing the forest for the trees, he misses the trees for the forest. Nonetheless at a baseline I do like it, I can nitpick all I want and that doesn't means it's not good music still.

There's a lot of piano music from his juvenelia works I actually find quite pleasant and even exciting. I've been fond of the Sonata in G Minor for many years now. Again, not world beaters but they don't necessarily have to be. Side thought: Even though he was an organist I don't think I've ever heard an organ piece by him. Can anyone else recommend or share anything from this part of his ouevre they enjoy?


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Bruckner known in his lifetime as a great organist, but actually left behind very little organ music. It seems that all he wrote would fit easily on one disc. Apparently, he was big on organ improvisation. 

I can't speak on his chamber music as I've heard none of it, but I am curious about the String Quintet.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I like his string quintet actually. Not Brahms or Dvorak quality, but well worth listening to.

I also have his organ music on one CD (Horn on Novalis), but that was a bit disappointing.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I love both his string quartet (yes he did write one) and the string quintet. There's quite a few recordings of both but I'll mention one which combines both and that's the lovely Fitzwilliam recording on Linn. I can enthusiastically recommend this to anyone. Its a cracker. As the OP states, these aren't world-beating pieces of writing but there's enough lovely and engaging music in here to keep anyone's interest.


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## Sequentia (Nov 23, 2011)

I don't think he recorded the work commercially, but here's Glenn Gould playing a transcription of the Adagio from the String Quintet:


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