francois@yale.ARPA (Charles B. Francois) (02/05/86)
The following was meant to be a reply to a private note, but I would be interested in hearing other people's thoughts about it. > Another Mahler fanatic, so it seems! > I wonder if you feel the same way about Bruckner. Many people > tend to lump M & B together. I find them quite different and > in some senses Bruckner's music is far more intense. I do agree that his music is quite different from Mahler's. In fact, while Mahler the conductor was one of the first champions of the Bruckner symphonies, Mahler the composer did not see eye to eye with Bruckner the Wagner groupie. For my own part, I've always had a certain stumbling block with Bruckner's music. An article I was reading recently described his music as "a mixture of sublimity and padding", and I'm afraid that sums up my feelings perfectly. The heights he sometimes scales are quite heavenly, but too much of the time I find myself waiting for something to happen or simply losing the thread of the symphonic argument. That's especially true with his finales. The only Bruckner symphony I don't find anti-climactic is the Ninth, and that's only because it's lacking a (completed) final movement. I do realize that in classical and neo-classical compositions, the closing movement is *traditionally* not meant to carry the rhetorical weight of the opening and slow movements, but Bruckner's finales typically strike me as, if not inconsequential, but without focus. Even in my favorite work of his (the Sixth), I find myself fidgeting and struggling to concentrate during the last movement. Granted, it's much easier to be swayed at a live performance by the sheer weight of the orchestra, but as absolute music his finales just don't do it for me. I guess I just can't understand how someone who can create so head-spinning an effect as he achieves in the opening measures of the Seventh symphony can spend so much time in the same symphony's last movement seemingly not saying anything. I do wish I felt differently, and would appreciate any insights into a perhaps more rewarding approach to take to the Bruckner symphonies. Any thoughts? --Charles B. Francois {...,decvax,allegra}!yale!francois Then again, didn't someone once say that one's true feelings for a composer's music are indicated by one's reactions not to the highlights, but rather to how he gets from one juicy part to another?
cmpbsdb@gitpyr.UUCP (Don Barry) (02/09/86)
In reference to a mention that Bruckner's finales are anticlimactic,
I can only wonder whether you are turning off the final few minutes of
every symphony past the third, or else placing too much emphasis on
the typically abrupt final cadence. I find the final 5 minutes of
each of the Bruckner symphonies 4-8 to be the most sublime of all, as
this is the point at which Bruckner ties the threads together, and achieves
unity out of diversification, which is the key to his symphonic style.
What some may perceive as "padding" is actually part of this process of
creation of new elements that are a source of conflict to be resolved.
In the codas of the symphonies, a final crystallization takes place which
affirms the triumph, wonderment, and uberraum of the work. Bruckner
symphonies end in light, and though the simple and sometimes forceful
knife-edge ending may startle some, it only affronts those that remember
the last phrase, and not those that consider the totality of a structure.
One of my favorite of all critical commentaries is "The Essence of Bruckner",
by Robert Simpson. Find it at a local library. Simpson not only divines
the inherent correctness of the Haas editions of Bruckner's
symphonies (as opposed to the all-too-often performed Nowak editions espoused
by the Bruckner society) but finds some interesting parallels between the
symphonies and some lost references within some of the symphonies that I
had never noticed. If you worship Bruckner, you will find new joys to
celebrate. If you merely enjoy him, you will learn to worship.
--
Don Barry (Chemistry Dept) CSnet: cmpbsdb%gitpyr.GTNET@gatech.CSNET
Georgia Institute of Technology BITNET: CMPBSDB @ GITVM1
Atlanta, GA 30332 ARPA: cmpbsdb%gitpyr.GTNET%gatech.CSNET@csnet-relay.ARPA
UUCP: ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!cmpbsdbgsmith@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Gene Ward Smith) (02/12/86)
In article <562@yale.ARPA> francois@yale.ARPA (Charles B. Francois) writes: >I do wish I felt differently, and would appreciate any insights into >a perhaps more rewarding approach to take to the Bruckner symphonies. >Any thoughts? It seems to me one of the striking features about Bruckner is that his time scale is so different. One needs to teach the ear to hear over a longer period of time. Listening in a kind of medatative trance is one possibility. ucbvax!brahms!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720 ucbvax!weyl!gsmith "When Ubizmo talks, people listen."
jeffw@midas.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (02/13/86)
In article <562@yale.ARPA> francois@yale.ARPA (Charles B. Francois) writes: > >I do realize that in classical and neo-classical compositions, the >closing movement is *traditionally* not meant to carry the rhetorical >weight of the opening and slow movements, but Bruckner's finales >typically strike me as, if not inconsequential, but without focus. >Even in my favorite work of his (the Sixth), I find myself fidgeting >and struggling to concentrate during the last movement. This is from memory, so there may be exceptions, but I think it's interesting in light of this comment that all of Bruckner's symphonies use the sonata-allegro form in their finales. In other words, their structure is identical to the opening movements. I seem to remember that many of them even have similar sounding opening themes. This is rare in the classical symphony tradition, and I think Charles's comment indicates why - it just doesn't work. The powerful sense of deja-vu thus created leaves you impatient for it to get over with, where with a simpler structure and contrasting style, you become interested in the new and further things being presented. This is one trait, by the way, in which Bruckner is very different from Mahler. Mahler's finales are generally in rondo form, although one in particular (Ninth) is hardly an allegro. (But it is sublime!) Bruckner's use of the sonata-allegro form in the finale may have been an attempt to attach more weight to it - to try to make it the climax of the overall work. Composers from Beethoven onwards have been interested in doing this (e.g., his Ninth, and later quartets and piano sonatas). Apparently it's more aesthetically satisfying to post-Enlightenment types. (And I agree.) However, I think Bruckner's method, if that's what it was, is a dead end. Jeff Winslow "Why do you hate the Socratic method?"