Bruckner

[vinteuil]

Any views here on Eichhorn's Bruckner? /... / What am I letting myself in for?

... ah, mighty oaks from little eichhorns grow - something to squirrel away

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[LMcD]

... ah, mighty oaks from little eichhorns grow - something to squirrel away

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Somebody out there might be nuts about him.

[richardfinegold]

Bruckner was deeply concerned with and closely involved in (where external influences were operative) various symphonic revisions (and the complications, agonies and ecstasies, performance-practical and artistic, around them) all his life, but crucially bequeathed all the original version autographs of his symphonies to the Austrian National Library; a far-seeing artist ahead of his time, maybe he would not be all that surprised at their latter history.

He died in 1896. The increased interest in his music gained momentum during and after the first serious attempts to establish authenticity in the scores, by Haas in the 1930s. Following Haas' postwar discreditation, Leopold Nowak took the work on, and many conductors (Bohm, Furtwangler, Kna etc), already performing Bruckner devotedly pre-war, played them and recorded them increasingly often. So the wait was well under 50 years. No that long for Great Art, really...
(There is often a lull in interest after a great artist's death...Consider Tippett or Robert Simpson today...)

In fact, Mozart(**) had to wait rather longer - broadly till the 1930s - for a full appreciation of his genius, as although recognised as a master-composer at the time of his death, during the Romantic century his music was considered - yes, beautiful, but rather too delicate and gentle. Beethoven was of course the overwhelming cultural spiritus loci, even if the Late Quartets remained baffling to many, for decades afterward.

(**) Just begun Jan Swafford's magisterial (cliché, but there's no other word...) Mozart biography - very highly recommended!).

How is the Swafford? It’s been sitting on my shelves unread for some time

[LMcD]

Petroc has just played the rather jolly last movement of Bruckner's String Quintet. I was unaware of the existence of either this work or the String Quartet - I shall investigate further. The good news is that they both fit on a single CD!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Petroc has just played the rather jolly last movement of Bruckner's String Quintet. I was unaware of the existence of either this work or the String Quartet - I shall investigate further. The good news is that they both fit on a single CD!

There’s a new release by the Altomonte Enssmble on Qubuz which I was listening to only on Saturday.

[LMcD]

There’s a new release by the Altomonte Enssmble on Qubuz which I was listening to only on Saturday.

I think that's the recording that was featured on 'Breakfast' this morning.

[Flay]

Today's CoTW

I can't find Bruckner on the CoTW forum.

Today there was mention of his lack of romantic success; later we heard the scherzo from his 9th. I wonder if that heavy thumping is a representation of the Church and suppressing authorities, while the trio is his fantasy of a fulfilled love life, free from oppression? The trio suggests to me a playful couple chasing each other then stopping for a romantic embrace. Then authority interrupts their revelling once more.

The poor man must have had a miserable, lonely life,* and this perhaps was his chance to have a swipe at Catholicism and dem lieben Gott.

(But Gott, the Dvorak American being played just now is divine).

*Take note, Ms Coffey

[smittims]

A friend once said she thought the adagio of the Eighth was like a slow orgasm, the climax skilfully and repeatedly delayed. At the time I imagined a supposed 'programme' for the symphony as the passion: the first movment the agony in the garden, the second the trial, the adagio the three hours on the cross, and of coourse the finale as the resurrection.

It's like 'pictures in the fire' or 'D'you see that cloud that's in the shape of a camel? Methinks it is like a whale'.

[RichardB]

I don't think Bruckner was interested in having a swipe at Catholicism or der liebe Gott. Does the Scherzo of the 9th need to "represent" anything? While Mahler, some time later, was sometimes keen and sometimes ambivalent on the matter of what one movement or another is supposed to "mean", surely that kind of concept was alien to Bruckner. Anyway I've always thought of the Trio section as being quite nervous and agitated, rather than sounding anything like a fantasy of fulfilment in love. But no single way of interpreting it can be definitive.

[Flay]

surely that kind of concept was alien to Bruckner.

I very much doubt that. Do you have any evidence? Were his compositions simply "pure" music without meaning?

[RichardB]

I very much doubt that. Do you have any evidence? Were his compositions simply "pure" music without meaning?

I don't think there's any such thing as "pure music without meaning", but I do have evidence, yes. On an occasion when Joseph Schalk provided a programmatic guide to his 7th symphony for a performance in Vienna, Bruckner's angry response was "If he must write poetry, why should he pick on my symphony?" - which surely can be taken to indicate that he wasn't interested in verbal explanations of what happens in his music. Of course, I'm not saying that such interpretations should be forbidden or anything like that, just that Bruckner realised that any single explanation would tend to make the music seem a lot more simplistic in poetic terms than it actually is. In other words: it's not about nothing, it's about very many things simultaneously.

[RichardB]

Mind you, I used to wonder what might lie behind the Scherzo of no.9, but eventually my (obviously personal and provisional) answer was that it represents the end point of a gradual process of reduction of thematic material in the main section of the Scherzos, from no.7 whose theme is still melodic, through no.8 where it's reduced to a brief repeating motive, to no.9 where it's just a rhythm. At the same time the contrast between the main section and the trio is increasing. There's a precedent for this in Schubert, for example in the String Quintet or the D946 piano pieces, where it's almost as if the listener is challenged to find or imagine a connection between the disparate panels that constitute the movement. Something similar might be said about the distillation of material in the first movements of those symphonies.

[Petrushka]

A friend once said she thought the adagio of the Eighth was like a slow orgasm, the climax skilfully and repeatedly delayed. At the time I imagined a supposed 'programme' for the symphony as the passion: the first movment the agony in the garden, the second the trial, the adagio the three hours on the cross, and of coourse the finale as the resurrection.

It's like 'pictures in the fire' or 'D'you see that cloud that's in the shape of a camel? Methinks it is like a whale'.

Music, any music, including Bruckner, can mean whatever you want it to mean but it's a mistake to foist these ideas on to Bruckner himself. Lord knows, he's had enough nonsense to put up with over many decades! I would say: just let the music unfold and let it speak in whatever way it will.

[Flay]

In other words: it's not about nothing, it's about very many things simultaneously.

Thanks for your replies. I'm sure he had reasons for such a contrast between the main theme and the trio beside a summation and exploration of his previous works.

For me the 9th encompasses the whole world, and life from birth to death, and beyond. There are pastoral scenes, lovers, journeys, forests, graveyards, devils, a deathbed, and a hopeful vision of reaching heaven rather than hell.

Surely others feel something like this while listening? What else have I missed?

[smittims]

I think this discussion has shown that the listener may find, and dwell on, extra-musical ideas which the composer may not , or probably did not , intend. Certain passages in Shostakovitch' and Prokofiev's symphonies remind me of Stockport inthe 1970s; and the argument over 'meaning' in Vaughan Williams' symphonies has had a good run.

I think the contrasting character of certain passages in symphonies is drawn from the composer's subconscious, but is not inteded to be an overt depiction of the event which gave it origin.