Your first Bruckner record

[makropulos]

I never got on with the Dresden Ninth from Jochum but I wonder if that was the cheap vinyl of the HMV Master Series pressing.

I'm somewhat with you on that Dresden Ninth – it's a little disappointing. I certainly prefer his two earlier recordings for DG (the early one reissued on Heliodor and the stereo version with the Berlin Phil), and indeed at least two late live performances.

[jonfan]

My first experience of No 5 was Jochum with the BRSO in 1958 and what a stunning sound they make; the ending still gives me goose bumps with the 13 extra brass, so not PC but wow.
1958 - stereo really took off when some spectacular recordings and performances hit the shelves:- Solti Das Rheingold, Beecham Ein Heldenleben with the RPO.

[cloughie]

My first experience of No 5 was Jochum with the BRSO in 1958 and what a stunning sound they make; the ending still gives me goose bumps with the 13 extra brass, so not PC but wow.
1958 - stereo really took off when some spectacular recordings and performances hit the shelves:- Solti Das Rheingold, Beecham Ein Heldenleben with the RPO.

I think that is still my top No5 and the original LP set coupled the equally good Wagner Parsifal Prel & GFM - a recording I play on the appropriate Friday each Easter!

[Barbirollians]

…and now some of us think maybe £1.99 for a CD in a charity shop is expensive - would have been a bob in 1959!

I bought 3CDs for £1 today - in 1964 3 pop singles would have cost £1. Aren’t we musically rich in 2021?

Yes - I noted that when I bought the Warner box that included his 1958 Bruckner 8 it costs about £20 - the original double LP in 1958 cost about £4 then probably over £100 now in real terms.

[JasonPalmer]

I discovered bruckner via a radio 3 evening concert many years ago where I would listen to radio 3 after work until I fell asleep listening. Classical music became an obsession, this was before I discovered I have Aspergers which is common with people who develop nerdy special interests. Moved on from radio 3 obsession but now listening again and rediscovering my cd collection.

[smittims]

My first Bruckner record was almost certainly ECS 571, the Seventh, by the Concertgebouw and Eduard van Beinum. I still love the way the horns 'bark' in the coda of the Adagio. Jochum's DG recordings were then reappearing on mid-price, and I much enjoyed Knappetsbusch in the 5th, a bargain on one disc at 99p, even though it was the corrupt Schalk version: a glorious peformance all the same, which I think out-Klemperers Klemperer at the climax of the finale.

An unlikely contender was Bernstein's Ninth on CBS Classics (their 1970s mid-price series). I still don't think of Lenny as a Brucknerian, but this was very good .

[Master Jacques]

JasonPalmer, please don't let the social 'norms' of our wretched country nudge you into accepting that obsession with real music is in any way 'nerdy'. That's what our commercial rulers want their infantilised consumers to think, by spooning musical pap into their mouths, for the whole of their lives. Real music promotes self-knowledge, and a pride in being individually yourself which doesn't suit their book at all. Less commercially-driven countries, such as Germany, the Czech Republic or Poland, don't demean art music or jazz like we do - they are viewed as vital components of a healthy society.

I remember sitting down with my own first Bruckner record - the same as for smittims, that Concertgebouw 7th Symphony on Decca Eclipse LP, conducted by Eduard von Beinum - and suddenly finding my whole world doubled in size. That's what real music can do for us, and it is not nerdy at all.

[Ein Heldenleben]

JasonPalmer, please don't let the social 'norms' of our wretched country nudge you into accepting that obsession with real music is in any way 'nerdy'. That's what our commercial rulers want their infantilised consumers to think, by spooning musical pap into their mouths, for the whole of their lives. Real music promotes self-knowledge, and a pride in being individually yourself which doesn't suit their book at all. Less commercially-driven countries, such as Germany, the Czech Republic or Poland, don't demean art music or jazz like we do - they are viewed as vital components of a healthy society.

I remember sitting down with my own first Bruckner record - the same as for smittims, that Concertgebouw 7th Symphony on Decca Eclipse LP, conducted by Eduard von Beinum - and suddenly finding my whole world doubled in size. That's what real music can do for us, and it is not nerdy at all.

All true. Im not a great believer in historic diagnosis but there is some evidence that Bruckner had autism or Asperger’s. I think it’s more common in musicians especially performers as they can tolerate and enjoy the large amount of solo repetitive practice needed to build a major technique.
My first encounter with Bruckner was not a recording but a live performance of Bruckner 7 by The Hallé (superbly) conducted by James Loughran. I sat in the choir behind the Wagner tubas. Despite this elementary error I’d never heard anything quite like it - absolutely magnificent.

[Petrushka]

All true. Im not a great believer in historic diagnosis but there is some evidence that Bruckner had autism or Asperger’s. I think it’s more common in musicians especially performers as they can tolerate and enjoy the large amount of solo repetitive practice needed to build a major technique.
My first encounter with Bruckner was not a recording but a live performance of Bruckner 7 by The Hallé (superbly) conducted by James Loughran. I sat in the choir behind the Wagner tubas. Despite this elementary error I’d never heard anything quite like it - absolutely magnificent.

An interesting thread variant there! My first live Bruckner performance was also with the Halle/Loughran: the 8th Symphony in October 1977 The first half consisted of Alfred Brendel in the Schumann Piano Concerto. I could never have guessed then that in less than two years I'd be in the Royal Festival Hall, London, to hear Karajan and the BPO in the very same work!

[Ein Heldenleben]

An interesting thread variant there! My first live Bruckner performance was also with the Halle/Loughran: the 8th Symphony in October 1977 The first half consisted of Alfred Brendel in the Schumann Piano Concerto. I could never have guessed then that in less than two years I'd be in the Royal Festival Hall, London, to hear Karajan and the BPO in the very same work!

You’re making me think this was the same concert and I’ve got the wrong symphony !

[Master Jacques]

My first encounter with Bruckner was not a recording but a live performance of Bruckner 7 by The Hallé (superbly) conducted by James Loughran. I sat in the choir behind the Wagner tubas. Despite this elementary error I’d never heard anything quite like it - absolutely magnificent.

Well, well ... assuming you were at the Free Trade Hall, rather than seeing the orchestra "on tour", that was my first experience of live Bruckner, also. I wasn't in the choir, though (wish I had been) but the gallery. One of Jimmy's very best nights, I remember.

I lived near his house in Bowdon, and once (from a friend's bedroom over the road) saw him practising his conducting in his mirror. I suppose he could have been doing worse!

[Master Jacques]

You’re making me think this was the same concert and I’ve got the wrong symphony !

For what it's worth, my Loughran/Hallé experience was definitely the 7th - it was the only one I knew at the time, from the Eclipse disc, so I was particularly keen to hear it.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Well, well ... assuming you were at the Free Trade Hall, rather than seeing the orchestra "on tour", that was my first experience of live Bruckner, also. I wasn't in the choir, though (wish I had been) but the gallery. One of Jimmy's very best nights, I remember.

I lived near his house in Bowdon, and once (from a friend's bedroom over the road) saw him practising his conducting in his mirror. I suppose he could have been doing worse!

No RFH… phew . But I was there for Karajan Bruckner 8 also at RFH - though Id migrated to the stalls for that with an eye watering ticket price. Once you’ve got the bug…
Tremendous conductor JL ..all that practice paid off.
I bet H V K had an extra large mirror.

[ChandlersFord]

I started listening to 'serious' music properly in 1990, and Wagner was my gateway.

Am I wrong, but was Bruckner was not such a 'big thing' back in the early 90s? There were complete cycles from Jochum (two) and Karajan and Hatink on the market, but I Bruckner was not a household name, in the way Mahler was then (and still is now).

[smittims]

I think Bruckner was pretty much as popular then . The change had come earlier, between the 1950s and '60s, when there was little interest in him, if you look at the range of available recordings then. I was listening this morning to Herbert's Ninth, recorded in 1966 ; that was only his second Bruckner symphony on disc, an this was a conductor who was allowed to record anything he wanted. .

Regarding James Loughran, I well recall going to the Royal Festival Hall around 1980 to hear the Halle with him do a passionately magisterial Bruckner Ninth, a few weeks after I'd heard the BBC S.O . undre another conductor give a good but notably cooler performance .