Not good pieces by good composers

[cloughie]

Well I have tried to get into it but obviously failed miserably to me Bruckner, unlike myself, got very, very much better with age and I realise 0 is not the first......

00

[crb11]

I'd agree with those above that Bruckner's earliest symphonies aren't a patch on his later ones (but he's hardly unique in that). But if we're looking for weak mature works, then the obvious one is Helgoland. I've only heard the Barenboim/BPO recording, but it doesn't do anything to convince me that its widespread neglect is unfair. Was Bruckner just not inspired by the text?

[verismissimo]

IMO the Fantasy for piano and orchestra op.56 deserves to be mentioned in the thread more than either 1812 or the piano sonata op.37.

Maybe they should couple the Fantasy op56 with the 3rd Piano Concerto, Roehre.

OMG, they have! Michael Ponti the poor pianist. In the Tchaikovsky Brilliant box, which is an amazing bargain.

Hard to choose between as painful experiences.

[Roehre]

I'd agree with those above that Bruckner's earliest symphonies aren't a patch on his later ones (but he's hardly unique in that). But if we're looking for weak mature works, then the obvious one is Helgoland. I've only heard the Barenboim/BPO recording, but it doesn't do anything to convince me that its widespread neglect is unfair. Was Bruckner just not inspired by the text?

It was a commission (a very rare occurrance for Bruckner, the quintet IIRC the only other example), and what's even more irritating about Helgoland is, that with the time Bruckner spent composing this work, he most likely would have been able to complete his Ninth.....

[Parry1912]

But if we're looking for weak mature works, then the obvious one is Helgoland.

I couldn't disagree more.

[salymap]

I got into Bruckner's music with symphony no '0'. I shocked people on the old boards by comparing this work with Bernard Hermann's music for 'North by North West' but there are similarities and I am sure Hermann knew the work and especially the scherzo. I still have trouble with the length and thickness of scoring in Bruckner but will persevere.

[Serial_Apologist]

I got into Bruckner's music with symphony no '0'. I shocked people on the old boards by comparing this work with Bernard Hermann's music for 'North by North West' but there are similarities and I am sure Hermann knew the work and especially the scherzo. I still have trouble with the length and thickness of scoring in Bruckner but will persevere.

Percy Verance is my middle name; but even he eventually abandoned me when it came to appreciating Herr Bruckner...

[jayne lee wilson]

I always heard the 9th's finale as "a rondo including variation form" - didn't Hans Keller describe it that way once?
And didn't LVB's sketchbooks show that he considered using the finale's first theme fron the Op.132 String Quartet for that of the 9th? How different it might have been.
It is a fascinatingly, blazingly original conception of how to end a symphony, blending structural complexity and fluidity with an almost "popular" (or "vulgar" in an older sense) melodic appeal. And remember it has been hugely influential in many ways since, precisely because of these emotional and structural qualities.

But Roehre, wouldn't "grandeur" be too conventional here? Rather like the Soviet Apparatchiks expecting DSCH's 9th to be a crowning glory after the war - look what they got! I think the sheer wildness of Beethoven's choral finale makes sense as a breaking free from any real precedents, and the most intense of all his essentially humanist affirmations in the face of the suffering he lived with for so long. Whatever his own doubts, I believe his instincts were good.

A parallel case occurs in Op.130 - do you prefer the (too?) obvious contrast, the grander sonority, of the Grosse Fuge finale, or that deceptively lighthearted, skittish little dance?

Beethoven's Ninth finale is a difficult one.
In itself it certainly is not a bad mvt. But as finale following the preceding 3 brilliant movements is another story.
Even Beethoven himself was full of doubts of this solution ending the Ninth, so who are we to accept this mvt fully then?
I for one don't think the finale is the crowning mvt of the Ninth, for technical reasons (2 variation sets following each other), as well as a certain lack of "grandeur": the connection which caused the composer so much trouble, and which is fundamentally childish.
But: is it in itself bad music? No, I don't think so.

[antongould]

Percy Verance is my middle name; but even he eventually abandoned me when it came to appreciating Herr Bruckner...

I would still recommend you, Percy and saly hang in there.........

[Op. XXXIX]

A parallel case occurs in Op.130 - do you prefer the (too?) obvious contrast, the grander sonority, of the Grosse Fuge finale, or that deceptively lighthearted, skittish little dance?

Is it fair enough to answer: 'that depends on my mood'?

[Roehre]

A parallel case occurs in Op.130 - do you prefer the (too?) obvious contrast, the grander sonority, of the Grosse Fuge finale, or that deceptively lighthearted, skittish little dance?

I prefer the Grosse Fuge, for a couple of reasons, of which two are:
-IMO the work with the original finale is better balanced, but, IMO more importantly
-the new finale creates a style rupture, as IMO this finale plus op.135, plus what we know of the string quintet and the quintet for flute and strings and his own words and plans, Beethoven entered a new phase -if you like a fourth manner- in his composing (and -as a onsequence- this implies the late quartets consist of 3 "groups": I: op.127; II: the Galitzin quartets 132-130/133-131 and III: finale 130 - 135)

[Bryn]

I also prefer the Grosser Fuge preceded by the rest of Op. 130, rather than played as a 'bleeding chunk', albeit that it was later published with its own opus number.

[jayne lee wilson]

Of course, especially given recordings that offer you both... Modern Life Is(n't always) Rubbish. (see what I did there?)

OK. Bearing in mind the classical dance suite (Telemann, Bach etc.) as background to Op. 130, here's Hans Keller's thoughts on Op.130 (notes to Essays on Music, p.248):

"...one reason why I feel sure that Beethoven genuinely, musically, preferred the second Finale qua finale to the Fugue - in order to dance more consistently throughout the work, continually if not continuously, at least in the background. Another reason of which, in view of Beethoven's sharply defined creative character, I am equally convinced is what I suggest is his extreme need for contrast: the Fugue's integration with the opening thought of the work would not have been sub-thematic, but downright thematic, as we readily realize if we run the Fugue's basic thought, as an antecedent, into the consequent of the work's opening, harmony and all.

And once again, we have to remind ourselves that if Beethoven had wanted this degree of overt integration, he could easily have stuck to it when he came to compose the second Finale. Instead, he chose to create what was, perhaps, the greatest - and the final - contrast of his life, to wit, that between the Cavatina and the second finale."

Is it fair enough to answer: 'that depends on my mood'?

[Roehre]

And once again, we have to remind ourselves that if Beethoven had wanted this degree of overt integration, he could easily have stuck to it when he came to compose the second Finale. Instead, he chose to create what was, perhaps, the greatest - and the final - contrast of his life, to wit, that between the Cavatina and the second finale."

That's to rich an assumption of Keller's here: despite the correspondence in November 1826 (after the Ersatz-finale had been sent off to the publisher) the movements of 130 had all separately been prepared but not assembled and a separate publication then of the Grosse Fuge was an option under consideration to which Beethoven still had to give his definitive agreement - which was assumed, but not given in writing at the time of his death. Opus 130 and 133 were published as such in the first week of may 1827, some 6 weeks after Beethoven's death.

B's finances were (in his own perception, that is) in a quite dire situation, meaning the extra 15 ducats for the new finale were without doubt a very welcome extra income. Regarding his treatment of publishers: it wouldn't have been the first time that in his correspondence he wrote something else then his real intentions or the real situation. And that's an understatement. "I have got a whole new symphony in my drawers" e.g. stems from approximately the same time.....

Given these circumstances Keller should have worded his opinion here much more carefully.

[salymap]

It seems to be available as an mp3 download from a Somm disc:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...7362743&sr=8-1

I still have the Ripley/ Weldon/LSO LP of Elgar Sea Pictures and In the South. I have been dismayed at the quality of some of my old LPs recently. Hope this has lasted well. Regarding the songs, remember Elgar's wife wrote some or all of the words and the tempi didn't sound odd at the time they were written.