Bruckner

[Ein Heldenleben]

The band of the Happy Few are open to any new members: only qualification..... listening to Bruckner until....see my comments above. The love will follow the understanding, and it is always a lifelong ever-changing process, like any relationship with animals, humans or Works of Art....

As for Bruckner's tunes being predominantly "fragments or motifs"..... one can only gasp.
Have you never heard the endless melodies which open No.2, No.3 (original version please!) or No.7, (then the extension of those wonderful tunes into a whole family of developmental motifs)? Or the "gesangsperioden"? Those Brucknerian very relaxed 2nd subject groups often in the form of catchy Austrian songs or dances, some slow some fast, in just about every symphony? Go listen to the trios at the heart of each scherzo: motifs and fragments..?.. No, just more lovely songs and dances........

Hardly fragments or motifs, just beautifully extended melody. But the developmental motifs are all drawn from the first few ideas, and the whole symphony usually derives from those...

I think you need to read my post more carefully Jayne : I said “a lot of” not “predominantly” . Thing is I don’t find the second subject groups very easy to recall ( that’s what I mean by memorable ) either but that is not the same as good or bad. I’ve listened to 2 and 3 quite recently and can’t recall a note ! I can remember 7 principally because it’s essentially an E major arpeggio with a chromatic end tag ( I’ve heard also it quite a lot more ) and as you say the motif keeps cropping up . There’s a lovely C major melody in Bruckner 9 1st movt which I wish he’d made a bit more of to be honest...

[Richard Barrett]

Bruckner's harmonic progressions (more like conflict and juxtaposition) work on a much longer timescale

Yes indeed, although often they're working on several timescales simultaneously - on the level of bars, of extended phrases and/or sections, of entire movements, of entire symphonies.

[jayne lee wilson]

I think you need to read my post more carefully Jayne : I said “a lot of” not “predominantly” . Thing is I don’t find the second subject groups very easy to recall ( that’s what I mean by memorable ) either but that is not the same as good or bad. I’ve listened to 2 and 3 quite recently and can’t recall a note ! I can remember 7 principally because it’s essentially an E major arpeggio with a chromatic end tag ( I’ve heard also it quite a lot more ) and as you say the motif keeps cropping up . There’s a lovely C major melody in Bruckner 9 1st movt which I wish he’d made a bit more of to be honest...

I could ask which motif, out of so many, "keeps cropping up" in No.7(i).... or how a movement of nearly 30 minutes, 9(i), fails to make enough of..... which melody exactly? The lyrical 2nd group is a vastly extended series of them....nearly all of them play a part in the huge and wonderful coda, among the most awe-inspiring of all Bruckner's creations. But you have to follow them through to understand. To just.....get it.
What I'm on about, what Bruckner is about......

But mostly I think: what remarkably original structures these two movements are, confounding any neat models or conventional descriptions....
As Richard said: far more to this than melody, among the most beautiful in creation as they are........

[Richard Barrett]

'Proper tunes' cheer me up, which is surely a good thing.

Laughter is always preferable to tears, as a famous composer once said on a TV game show! By saying that, though, you show exactly what I mean by "Bruckner's music isn't there to confirm what you already think you know about music" because seemingly - perhaps I'm wrong - you have a clear and fixed idea in your mind about what a "proper tune" is. I say that because in your chosen example of Beethoven you seem to divide the music into proper tunes on the one hand, and waiting for the next one on the other hand. What you characterise as "waiting" is surely just as important as anything else, to what makes the music what it is, and gives it the impact that it has. Otherwise you could improve the music by editing out all the waiting and just keeping the tunes! - which I presume you wouldn't regard as preferable to hearing the work as conceived by Beethoven. What I'm saying is that you could spend a lot more time being cheered up by music if you expanded your conception of what a "proper tune" is...

[Serial_Apologist]

But this is not about mere preference, it is about misunderstanding.... you seem to have ignored my #251.....and your categorical statement that Bruckner has a "relative lack of memorable tunes" is in fact mere vague subjectivity, and very inaccurate. I have carried Bruckner's melodies around with me for several decades, as many others have (Karajan, Wand, Andreae, Venzago, Deryck Cooke, Robert Simpson...and Petrushka on this forum...), and all (!) it takes to remember them is to listen to them more often - without prejudice, a very difficult thing for a musiclover to do if her first encounter with Bruckner is belated in life.....

Yes: I've been reading the comments of those who have expressed their love of Bruckner's music, and they often seem to be listeners who had the advantage of becoming acquainted with it early on in their listening experience. This may well be the defining factor in my problem with Bruckner.

[gurnemanz]

Hardly fragments or motifs, just beautifully extended melody. But the developmental motifs are all drawn from the first few ideas, and the whole symphony usually derives from those...

That rang true for me. I have listened to Bruckner quite a lot over the decades and have never had the feeling that I was not hearing melodies. His melodies may not be quite like those of other composers, which probably adds to his special appeal and maybe detracts from his mass popularity and conventional singabilty.

Having never really considered this matter before, I searched around a bit out of curiosity for Bruckner and melody (also in German sources) and came across a relevant quote from Herbert Blomstedt:

"Bei Blomstedt wird Bruckner nie als Mystiker zelebriert […], alles ist große Melodie, fließend, Konzentration, bis sich alle Themen türmen: bei Herbert Blomstedt kein Rausch à la Wagner, sondern liedhafte Struktur."

My translation: "Blomstedt never celebrates Bruckner as a mystic. All is grand melody, flowing, concentration ... not intoxication à la Wagner but songlike structure."

Source: https://www.tageszeitung.it/2015/08/...und-melodiker/

[Ein Heldenleben]

I could ask which motif, out of so many, "keeps cropping up" in No.7(i).... or how a movement of nearly 30 minutes, 9(i), fails to make enough of..... which melody exactly? The lyrical 2nd group is a vastly extended series of them....nearly all of them play a part in the huge and wonderful coda, among the most awe-inspiring of all Bruckner's creations. But you have to follow them through to understand. To just.....get it.
What I'm on about, what Bruckner is about......

But mostly I think: what remarkably original structures these two movements are, confounding any neat models or conventional descriptions....
As Richard said: far more to this than melody, among the most beautiful in creation as they are........

I don’t disagree with much of what you say but I don’t think you need to follow them through to “get it” . You can just listen in your own way .
I mean the opening emaj motif in 7 movt one and as I far as I can tell there’s only one C maj theme in 9 movt 1

[Richard Barrett]

I read that one of the most erudite, accomplished, knowledgeable contributors with an enviable command of the English language, while another, who just happens to be a professional composer, have either of them not had serious music training? And one didn’t start till he’s 58, and another has not had a single lesson?

I think a lot of it depends on the extent to which one feels compelled to devote one's life to music! I was making the point, as Heldenleben also has, that there are ways of learning about music and music-making other than undergoing a formal education. I was referring somewhat facetiously to the PhD in music I was awarded in 2018, which was actually the first formal qualification in music I've obtained, but obviously I had many years of experience before embarking on it otherwise no university would have accepted me!

[Pulcinella]

Wow!
Are the Happy Few likely to let on any time soon?

Don't worry, rathamfarnhamgirl.
I know that I went down in the estimation of the other rfg, in Chicago, when I said that Bruckner did nothing for me, but I stand by that statement: I don't feel that my life would be diminished in any way if I never heard another note of Bruckner.
Those repeats: YES, I got the message first time, thank you.

Cue opprobrium.

[Richard Barrett]

Cue opprobrium.

I don't see any opprobrium, only efforts to share an enthusiasm!

In the end either you get it or you don't, and if you aren't going to, no amount of enthusiasm is going to change that. On the other hand, some of the reasons given for objecting to Bruckner - no melodies, too much repetition etc. - seem not to get to the heart of the issue.

[Leinster Lass]

Don't worry, rathamfarnhamgirl.
I know that I went down in the estimation of the other rfg, in Chicago, when I said that Bruckner did nothing for me, but I stand by that statement: I don't feel that my life would be diminished in any way if I never heard another note of Bruckner.
Those repeats: YES, I got the message first time, thank you.

Cue opprobrium.

Say again!
I hope nobody's going to get the wrong impression about Bruckner when they read about a series of climaxes...
I guess even his shorter movements are too long to get an airing on 'Breakfast' - not that it's for me to say whether or not that's a good thing.
I'm going to spend the next 60+ minutes trying my darndest to finally get to grips with the one symphony out of nine
by one of my favourite composers that I haven't yet cracked...
'Behold, the sea itself,'
I shall then probably treat myself to an hour or so of Billy Joel.

[Serial_Apologist]

I don't see any opprobrium, only efforts to share an enthusiasm!

In the end either you get it or you don't, and if you aren't going to, no amount of enthusiasm is going to change that. On the other hand, some of the reasons given for objecting to Bruckner - no melodies, too much repetition etc. - seem not to get to the heart of the issue.

Oh don't know about that! There was a time when I couldn't stand most Victorian architecture and design; I'm a bit more nuanced about it now!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Don't worry, rathamfarnhamgirl.
I know that I went down in the estimation of the other rfg, in Chicago, when I said that Bruckner did nothing for me, but I stand by that statement: I don't feel that my life would be diminished in any way if I never heard another note of Bruckner.
Those repeats: YES, I got the message first time, thank you.

Cue opprobrium.

Thing is your opinion is no more or no less valid than anyone else’s on the forum (providing you’ve in fact listened to the works).
ps thanks also for endorsing my repetition point I’ve heard that from so many Brucknerphobes - though I don’t necessarily agree.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I don't see any opprobrium, only efforts to share an enthusiasm!

In the end either you get it or you don't, and if you aren't going to, no amount of enthusiasm is going to change that. On the other hand, some of the reasons given for objecting to Bruckner - no melodies, too much repetition etc. - seem not to get to the heart of the issue.

Someone once said to me after a performance that they didn’t think Die Meistersinger had any tunes in it .I then sang about half a dozen to them .their witty response -“yes that’s what I mean “
(I’m not that bad a singer honest );

[Richard Barrett]

Someone once said to me after a performance that they didn’t think Die Meistersinger had any tunes in it .I then sang about half a dozen to them .their witty response -“yes that’s what I mean“

Superb. Puts me in mind of Dr Johnson, who 'was observed by a musical friend of his to be extremely inattentive at a concert, whilst a celebrated solo player was running up the divisions and subdivisions of notes upon his violin. His friend, to induce him to take greater notice of what was going on, told him how extremely difficult it was. "Difficult do you call it, Sir?" replied the Doctor; "I wish it were impossible." '