Repeat play...

[Richard Barrett]

Not many repeat the same bar 8 times without noticeable variation.

Bars 16-26 of the first movement of Beethoven's 6th symphony are more repetitive than anything Bruckner ever wrote. But the way Bruckner builds his structures is quite unique; either you appreciate it or you don't.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Bars 16-26 of the first movement of Beethoven's 6th symphony are more repetitive than anything Bruckner ever wrote. But the way Bruckner builds his structures is quite unique; either you appreciate it or you don't.

Yes and no. I do appreciate the way he does it, but sometimes when you have a good idea, it isn’t always wise to do the same thing again and again - in one symphony after another. I take your point about Beethoven’s Pastoral, but he didn’t go on to do the same in such a predictable way in subsequent works.

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes and no. I do appreciate the way he does it, but sometimes when you have a good idea, it isn’t always wise to do the same thing again and again - in one symphony after another. I take your point about Beethoven’s Pastoral, but he didn’t go on to do the same in such a predictable way in subsequent works.

Examples from Bruckner Symphonies....?

***

Anyway......

The first three symphonies could scarcely be more contrasted: No.1, fiery, volatile, with an almost manic energy; 2, Bruckner’s “Pastoral”, expansively lyrical yet with a wildly contrasted, rapidly moodswitching, often angry finale; 3, his first attempt on the far-flung symphonic citadel which he returned to scale again in the very different 4th, 5th and 8th; but structurally, the finale of No.5 is utterly contrasted with anything he’d done before, and a total triumph. The finale of No.7 has an astonishingly original formal fluidity, a remarkably contrasted orchestral weight and lightness (and very little literal repetition - the themes are in a state of continuous evolution - “developing variation” if you like!)… and so on.

As for the 9th...it often has a remote, ethereal, otherworldly atmosphere to its moods, ideas and textures; it is very hard to think of anything resembling it, in Bruckner's music or anyone else's....

Most composers have signatures running through their output. Bruckner's best known, the 2+3 rhythm, underpins many thematic ideas. But how different are the first allegro themes of the 4th and 6th symphonies based on that figure…..there it is again, changed utterly, at the start of No.8…. in the flowingly melodic rise of the second theme….then that very figure builds with great harmonic tension into the central climax….
This motivic intensity - the creation of large-scale contrasted structures with minimal means - is surely an essence of great classical symphonic thinking. Nielsen would be another good example. (Another formal innovator...!)...

And so on….