Tackling a serious gap in my musical knowledge

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Excellent post, #90, Scotty

Can we move the discussion on to the other works - the ones that Roehre mentions on page 4, please? Favourite/recommended recordings of the Choral works (large and small) and the Stirng Quntet? (I only know the Jochum recordings of the choral works on DG, and don't have a recording of the Quintet! )

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

My next question is: do others have similar blind-spots? If so, what?

Returning to VodkaDilc's original post, surely the "intention" was to request blind-spots other than Bruckner? As I said, mine is definitely German Lieder (and I was pleased to make a start in tackling this on today's BaL).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My question is: where do I start? With the symphonies, I suppose, but in numerical order? - or is there a more obvious one to tackle first?
My next question is: do others have similar blind-spots? If so, what?

Not quite the (only) "intention", then, Alpie? Voddy was being a little greedy making two topics on one Thread (and, perhaps, the "Blind Spots" should be on a Thread of its own - then we can wait for the usual list of the B minor Mass, Mozart's K551, Choral Symphony, Schubert LiederVerdi operas etc that always feature on such lists! ).

Then we can keep this Thread for the far more interesting topic of being enthusiastic about Bruckner, his Symphonies, Choral works and the Chamber Music?

[scottycelt]

Returning to VodkaDilc's original post, surely the "intention" was to request blind-spots other than Bruckner? As I said, mine is definitely German Lieder (and I was pleased to make a start in tackling this on today's BaL).

Certainly, EA ... I prefer to call them 'deaf-spots' ... and I'm afraid that the Brahms Symphonies come well into that category, as far as I am concerned.

When discussing Bruckner (sorry!) on the radio this morning Erik Levi commented that 'one does not normally associate "intimacy" with Bruckner as one might with Brahms, for example ... '

My problem (and, no doubt, it is mine!) is that I tend to think exactly the opposite!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm afraid that the Brahms Symphonies come well into that category, as far as I am concerned.

SEE!!!

[Mahlerei]

My favourite recording of the Te deum is Haitink's with the VPO (Philips).Barenboim's Salzburg one (on a somewhat iffy DVD) is pretty good as well.

[scottycelt]

SEE!!!

[teamsaint]

Glad to see we are back on topic !!

some great advice on here...trouble is, reading it all I was baffled even BEFORE I listened to Bruckner 2 . So it Goes !!

[Roehre]

As far as non-symphonic works of Bruckner's are concerned, the most important vocal ones (the 3 numbered masses, Te Deum, Psalm 150, most important motets) are covered covered by Jochum on DGG.

The Requiem and two Psalms (112 & 114) are to be found on Hyperion.

His output for piano is concentrated on one CPO CD, while string quartet, string quintet and Intermezoo for string quintet are (were) to be found on Sony (l'Archibudelli)

[vinteuil]

Favourite/recommended recordings of the Choral works (large and small) and the Stirng Quntet? (I only know the Jochum recordings of the choral works on DG, and don't have a recording of the Quintet! )

I like the Quintet & Quartet with the Fine Arts qtt w Gil Sharon, on naxos; also the Quintet & Intermezzo with the Melos qtt w Enrique Santiago on harmonia mundi.
And the Motets with the Corydon Singers / Matthew Best on hyperion (same forces do the Te Deum and d-minor Mass also on hyperion); there is the famous DG twofer of the three Masses with Jochum, but I also like the e-minor Mass with Norrington on decca, or even better the same Mass plus seven Motets with Herreweghe on harmonia mundi...

[antongould]

I may be wrong but we have had a thread not unlike this about the great AB before and then,if memory serves, the 7th, which seems not to figure a great deal here, was seen as many contributors point of entry. I know it was mine and it still to me at least feels the most accessible of his symphonies. Maybe it was because, back in the day, as someone has said there were more recordings of the 7th than of others?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks, Roehre.

I find it curious that, whilst we have Bruckner Symphony cycles by Karajan, Tintner, Wand (twice), Jochum (twice), Barenboim (twice), Norrington, and Inbal; near-cycles by Rozhdestvensky, Furtwängler, Klemperer, and important individual symphonies by Bohm, Szell, Gulini, Horenstein etc etc, only Jochum has also recorded the main Choral works. (Barenboim also recorded some of these in the '70s & early '80s, and Norrington I think recorded the E minor Mass early in his caree*r.)

This Thread has been dominated by the Symphonies, too, and Simpson's The Essence of Bruckner (sounds like a perfume!) devotes just six of its 200 pages to the entire set of choral works. (He spends as much time on the "Nullte" Symphony.)

Are they not (as) "essential" Bruckner? What do people think?

EDIT: * = Sorry, vinty, post overlap!

[jayne lee wilson]

I'm sceptical about all this start at the beginning and work your way through shtick. Would you advise someone embarking on a reading of Shakespeare to start with 1 Henry VI (or 2 or 3 for that matter ) and work through to The Tempest? Chances are they'd give up before getting beyond the history plays. Or, closer to home, start with Beethoven 1 and 2? To tackle Bruckner in strictly (or rather nebulous) chronological order implies that all the symphonies are at the same level, which clearly they aren't. Start with 4 and then listen to the next five in whatever order you please. I think starting at 1 (or Die Nullte) and then going through the list would have any potential neophyte soon uttering the immortal remark of Peter Stadlen; "Surely we have a right to be bored by Bruckner"!

Peter Stadlen should have said, "surely I have a right to be bored by Bruckner"; which, within the bounds of his own stupidity, he did; he had no right to offer it as a law to the lazy or incurious.

It's an odd argument that you should base your approach to a large symphonic canon according to received ideas of relative quality - rather ask, why shouldn't one start at No.1? Especially given, in Bruckner's case (and Beethoven's, and Mahler's) a self-evident or self-proclaimed status as a first characteristic statement. If you start with Bruckner 4 and go on as you suggest, PJ, then if you get bored when trying earlier symphonies you've fallen into the old trap that tradition (what Mahler called "Schlamperei"!) has set: lazy listening following the usual habits of record companies and programmers. Scotty and Anton make the point well - 4 & 7 were recorded far more frequently early on and were handed down as familiar landmarks. They are unavoidably the most frequently encountered in the concert hall. But why travel through a landscape by the same route every time?

It's true of LvB as well - if you start with 1&2 you'll have a far greater understanding of the later works, and one would hope a richer response, than if you pass them by on the high road to the "accepted" (and overplayed) peaks of the cycle. We also recall a time when Dvorak was held only to have written 5 symphonies - starting at... No.5 as we now know it.

Shakespeare chronologically? Come to think of it, Mum is still looking for her next project after finishing A La Recherche...

[Roehre]

Are they not (as) "essential" Bruckner? What do people think?

FHG, IMO essential person Bruckner is the vocal Bruckner, the devout Catholic , not the symphonist.
His output began (up to 1856 nothing but organ works and choral works for church services + two little piano pieces for use elsewhere, the first real piano work as well as the first orchestral work dating from 1862) and ended with lauding his Creator (the 9th dedicated to Dear God -Dem lieben Gott gewidmet)

The essental musician Bruckner however is the symphonic composer (as well as the improvising organist-but we haven't got anything left of this musicianship unfortunately, apart from testimonies about his playing, and his treatment of the orchestra) - that is how he wanted to be seen in Vienna.

It is not by chance that the great masses are all symphonic, with themes and quotes from the masses ending up in the symphonies and vice versa: Catholic Bruckner meets Symphonic Bruckner.

[scottycelt]

Thanks, Roehre.

I find it curious that, whilst we have Bruckner Symphony cycles by Karajan, Tintner, Wand (twice), Jochum (twice), Barenboim (twice), Norrington, and Inbal; near-cycles by Rozhdestvensky, Furtwängler, Klemperer, and important individual symphonies by Bohm, Szell, Gulini, Horenstein etc etc, only Jochum has also recorded the main Choral works. (Barenboim also recorded some of these in the '70s & early '80s, and Norrington I think recorded the E minor Mass early in his caree*r.)

This Thread has been dominated by the Symphonies, too, and Simpson's The Essence of Bruckner (sounds like a perfume!) devotes just six of its 200 pages to the entire set of choral works. (He spends as much time on the "Nullte" Symphony.)

Are they not (as) "essential" Bruckner? What do people think?

Now that you've posed the question, ferney ...

I must confess that I don't find any of the Masses particularly remarkable ... the Te Deum I find horrendously noisy and even bombastic-sounding ... in fact, the one choral work of Bruckner's that I dearly love is the thoroughly secular Helgoland ... oh, my, what a truly magnificent piece!

I believe Simpson may have got it just about right ... but, in time, even he (and I) may well be proved to have been downright ignorant ..