He's the thinking man's Philip Glass.
classical music ping
classical music ping
I'm a Russophile; Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky, Borodin etc. Would I like Bruckner?
I just recently picked the Szell recording at a garage sale. I'll be converting it to CD.
Bruckner was also a master of the choral motet. He wrote some of the most lush, spine tingling choral music I have ever sung and heard. Look up some Bruckner choral motets and you will not be disappointed.
Bruckner = the Man. His life was tragic and is one of my favorite stories to bore my non-classicly inclined friends with. Hanslick!
I own his complete symphonies and was able to hear many of them performed at the Musikverein when I lived in Vienna. They worship him there, as he should be everywhere. I couldn't pick a favorite, but the parts of his works that affect me the most are the "Sweet Remembrance" them in the slow movement of the Seventh (my name for it) and the coda of the Finale of the Eighth.
Bruckner's life story is impossibly moving. A provincial organist who showed little compositional skill until his genius was unlocked by listening to Wagner. He then realized most of his dreams; meeting Wagner (and dedicating the Third to him), meeting the Emperor FJ (and dedicating the Eighth to him), becoming famous, and instructing the next generation of composers at the Conservatory. But his life was tormented by musical factions, well-intentioned friends who did not understand him, an unfulfilled desire for domestic bliss, and the inability to complete his most treasured work, the Ninth.
Here's to you, Anton.
One of Bruckner's techniques was to end a movement without a long held note, for example, a fermata over a whole note. He would end a movement on a shorter note, and making the ending sound convincing has always been difficult for conductors. The ends of both the first and fourth movements of the Seventh Symphony are textbook examples. By pacing the ritardando just right, Jochum could make these endings work perfectly.
He's the thinking man's Philip Glass.
All of that is so true.
It is a short throw from the sublime to the maudlin to the ridiculous.
Bruckner covers it all. Not the easiest of 19th century composers, but really worth the effort.
The ninth, the eighth, the seventh and naught 00 symphonies are monumental and really grow on you.
Si vale la pena.
The critic's point about a great performance being necessary to appreciate Bruckner is right on the mark. Bruckner ("trumpeter") is above all the greatest composer for brass, ever, building on and surpassing Richard Wagner. Bruckner symphonies regularly feature Wagner tubas, and Bruckner was about the only composer to use them besides Wagner himself. I can tell you that playing in a full brass section belting out Bruckner is an ecstatic, transcendent experience. Here in the United States our premier brass sections have always been in the Cleveland and Chicago symphonies. In Europe it's any of the great Vienna orchestras of course, the Berliner Philharmonik, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. These orchestras, and particularly their angelic brass sections, can be counted on to elevate the playing for most any conductor, and particularly those Germanics with a mystical connection to Bruckner. Viva Bruckner!
seen this?
When I worked in London, the building Bloomberg News was located in (City Gate House) had a plack saying that Anton Bruckner lived there. I don't know if many people noticed it, but I was happy to. So, I do have a connection to him.