Havergal Brian.

[kishnevi]

As Johan knows only too well, Delius and I are not on terms

Very early Delius I can just about handle-I quite like the Florida Suite, Paris, Appalachia and Brigg Fair- but once he got stuck in his b***** summer garden or drifting down some endless river somewhere, snoozing in the summer sunshine I get bored to tears.

Sorry...but that's just the way it is I can't stand Rachmaninov after he left Russia and I happen to think that, with the exceptions of his First, Second and Eight Symphonies, Mahler is grossly over-rated......but DON'T TELL ANYBODY ELSE THIS

Excuse me while I dig out my Mahler hammer.  After all, it should be perfectly obvious that Mahler is grossly under-rated

Seriously--Mahler is possibly my favorite composer--he connects with me much better than any other composer.  Shostakovich too, but not quite so forcefully as Mahler.

Of course, Mahler's rival for favorite composer is Bach, so there's more to it than just emotional connection.

(And--apologies to Johan et al--I have to admit I find Delius to be mostly a b*** bore, whether he's in a summer, autumn, winter or spring garden.  )

But my first impression of Brian, after listening to those three CDs is that he belongs in the Mahler school of symphonists--Mahler updated to mid twentieth century, cured of his neuroses, and loaded up with a dose of Englishness.  Which at least bodes well for my future opinion of Brian. 

[Brian]

I think the choice of favourite composers says a lot about a person. Haydn, Schumann, Schubert to me signal 'joyful intellect' (Haydn), 'intensity' (Schumann) and 'melancholy and movement' (Schubert)...


Re Magnard -  I can't be exoteric all the time. 

Well, go on, analyse the combo Dvorak, Janacek, and Beethoven then 

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

@Jeffrey You're forgiven for dismissing Delius in whatever season he chooses to mourn or exult because of your gratifying characterisation of Brian.... Other CDs I recommend you really should investigate now are 1) Symphony 10 + English Suite No. 3 + Concerto for Orchestra + Symphony 30 (Brabbins/Dutton) and 2) Symphonies 6 + 16 (Fredman/Lyrita).

@Brian What connects all three, Dvorak, Janacek and Beethoven, are 'sanity, earthiness and drive'...

[Hattoff]

Johan, you have invented a new method of divination. May I suggest you name it compomancy? I see great things ahead.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Johan the Compomancer... I like it, Steve!

[Sergeant Rock]

Magnard doesn't even have a trendy cult following - a truly esoteric pick

I beg to differ. Johann and I make quite a trendy little cult. Quite exclusive too 

Sarge

[Sergeant Rock]

I think the choice of favourite composers says a lot about a person. Haydn, Schumann, Schubert to me signal 'joyful intellect' (Haydn), 'intensity' (Schumann) and 'melancholy and movement' (Schubert)...

Suicidal (Pettersson)...

Sarge

[Sergeant Rock]

But my first impression of Brian, after listening to those three CDs is that he belongs in the Mahler school of symphonists--

I've never had the courage to say that but I've thought it for years. It seems to me perfectly logical to love both composers for similiar reasons...I mean even beyond the surface similiarities (the brassy marches, the sudden change of moods, etc).

Sarge

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I beg to differ. Johann and I make quite a trendy little cult. Quite exclusive too 

We're the AA - Albéric Anonymous.

Suicidal (Pettersson)...

Which makes a 'flourishing Pettersson Society' a contradiction.

I've never had the courage to say that but I've thought it for years. It seems to me perfectly logical to love both composers for similiar reasons...I mean even beyond the surface similiarities (the brassy marches, the sudden change of moods, etc).

Same here.

[Lethevich]

So now I know why I find this composer so difficult...

[hbswebmaster]

Hm, I understand a Mahler/Brian connection, although stylistically I think that Brian and Bruckner have more in common; block composition, sudden silences...

Also, I'm not necessarily comfortable with the association between Brian and Mahler. Maybe part of the reason for this is that I've had trouble accepting Mahler's originality (maybe up to and including the seventh symphony) since hearing Hans Rott's symphony in E, that was composed some 7 years before Mahler's first. Rott's music, studied by Mahler following Rott's death in 1884 contains material (melodies, harmonies and rhythms) that are unnervingly close to what appears in several Mahler symphonies; 1-3, 5, 7. Since I first heard Rott's symphony some 20 years ago - hearing the scherzo for the first time made my jaw drop with how close to Mahler it is - I've never really been sure whether Mahler's references to the Rott symphony were intended as homage to his erstwhile friend, or perhaps something a little less altruistic. Beyond occasional allusions to a Mahlerian sound-world in parts of the Gothic and symphonies such as the 11th, (and Wagner in the 2nd) Brian is pretty much his own man.

What does the team think?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Rott's symphony and the Mahler First are indeed extremely close. I think the young Mahler was in awe of Rott and when he died 'assimilated' him in a sense. After the First, though, I think Mahler's whole development as a symphonist follows its own, very original logic.


Bruckner and Brian certainly have things in common - the silences, as you say, the block composition, the monumentality, and both of them being organists, which influences their writing for the orchestra... But I think those similarities are outward. Brian is more Mahlerian in the fragmentation, the polyphony, the bizarrerie, the changing tack. Though he isn't as neurotic and heart-on-sleeve as Mahler. That's what English about him, I guess.


What do the others think?

[Sergeant Rock]

I've had trouble accepting Mahler's originality (maybe up to and including the seventh symphony) since hearing Hans Rott's symphony in E...

Obviously Mahler borrowed a few themes from Rott. What he did with those themes, though, is strikingly different. When I listen to the Rott Symphony, I don't hear Mahler so much as I hear Brahms, Bruckner, Smetana, Wagner and, interestingly, a pre-echo of Franz Schmidt. Mahler borrowed liberally from other composers, too, and from popular music, but in the end it always sounds like Mahler: quite original. That originality is one reason the public and critics had a hard time accepting his music during his lifetime.


Sarge

[John Whitmore]

Rott's symphony and the Mahler First are indeed extremely close. I think the young Mahler was in awe of Rott and when he died 'assimilated' him in a sense. After the First, though, I think Mahler's whole development as a symphonist follows its own, very original logic.


Bruckner and Brian certainly have things in common - the silences, as you say, the block composition, the monumentality, and both of them being organists, which influences their writing for the orchestra... But I think those similarities are outward. Brian is more Mahlerian in the fragmentation, the polyphony, the bizarrerie, the changing tack. Though he isn't as neurotic and heart-on-sleeve as Mahler. That's what English about him, I guess.


What do the others think?

I might have to leave this forum. Brucker. Here is my beautifully crafted critical review of his work: ****** Bruckner. Vertical blocks. No horizontal development. Stops and starts. Thick horrid fat church organ sound. Orchestration even worse than Franck (was he an organist too?). His music sounds like an obese Sumo wrestler walking through treacle. Predictable (tremolando strings to start and then a few fanfares - there's a surprise). Symphonic "Paint by Numbers". Long. Boring. Annoying. His music all sounds much the same. Horrible to play. Embarrassing to listen to. So many editions you never seem to hear the stuff played the same twice. All that pompous twaddle about the cymbal clash in the 7th. It's a cymbal clash - get over it. I can't think of any musicians that I know that have a good word to say about this composer. I've tried, I really have. I've got 4 Bruckner cycles on the shelf. There are 2 minute patches when I think "I like this" but these patches are set in the context of a 60 minute horror show. He's the only composer that makes Wagner (Mr. Brevity) and his Ring sound concise. Other than that he's not so bad. Give me HB and his inconsistency any day. I guess that I have now destroyed any lingering hope of being welcomed into the Bruckner Society. I'm devastated.

[Lethevich]

I haven't spent as long a time listening to both composers as many, but...

Mahler perfectly balances everything, the density of ideas, the structure of his movements, it is an intellectual kind of composing, and the emotion is enhanced by the way he works the surface material into shape. An overall sense of nervousness might be buried deep in his compositional style, but in a work like the 6th, it is more overtly gut-wrenching because of the surface details. I don't see anything fundimentally different from the 6th, to the quixotic 7th or the mecurial 5th. Brian's music can sometimes be imbalanced, and where it is impulsive it seems to stem more from his gut feeling on how the work was to be written, rather than the final embelishment. Emotion in Brian often stems from the structure or velocity of the work rather than what is written on top.

Where Mahler makes questionable decisions compared to his more standard contemporaries, he can be proven again and again to have made a "correct" choice in each of his methods. In a sense, Brian's entire symphonic style is an "incorrect choice", not only mechanically, but also conceptually. Mahler wrote nine long-pondered symphonies which can be related to each other in a Beethovenian sense, Brian wrote a huge burst of small symphonies whose only relation to each other can be seen in a couple of "groupings". It is almost a Stravinskian art for the sake of art type of method being followed.

In this conceptual sense I view them as opposites, and while Brian's music could be seen as a microcosm of Mahler's at times, I feel that this is just one of his many influences rather than an overriding one. Mahler's "difficulties" in his mood swings over long movements are almost aloof, Brian's are somewhat more feral and can arrive in bursts of energy which can feel as though they are propelling the work forward, in a motoric, vehicular sense. Mahler's expansive tapestries are more like the surface of an ocean. I think that those seperate styles of composing appear comparable almost by coincidence. Even in the first four symphonies, it is remarkable how the influence of Mahler doesn't necessarily produce works that sound all that much like his music in style or temperament. The first part of the Gothic sounds remarkably close to parts of his 6th, which is quite a mature work, the second part doesn't seem to match up with anything Mahler wrote. I suppose at a stretch the 3rd might have mild "Wunderhorn" qualities, but these are so scant as to perhaps be my imagination.

Have you ever felt that the less you know about a subject, the more words you require to grasp towards understanding?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Nice demolition job, John. Perhaps Bruckner is more fun for a listener than for a player. I love his symphonies.

[John Whitmore]

Nice demolition job, John. Perhaps Bruckner is more fun for a listener than for a player. I love his symphonies.

Johan, I used to admire you
Brian is mercurial. Bruckner is a sloth. Brian uses silences that make you think "blimey, what next?". Bruckner uses silences because that's his predictable formula - he does it all the time so there's no surprise element. Had Bruckner been born outside of Germany/Austria I honestly think that he would have been derided and ignored. I joke not. It's fat and charmless. A bit like me this morning. Bruckner, the thinking man's James Last.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I haven't spent as long a time listening to both composers as many, but...

Mahler perfectly balances everything, the density of ideas, the structure of his movements, it is an intellectual kind of composing, and the emotion is enhanced by the way he works the surface material into shape. An overall sense of nervousness might be buried deep in his compositional style, but in a work like the 6th, it is more overtly gut-wrenching because of the surface details. I don't see anything fundimentally different from the 6th, to the quixotic 7th or the mecurial 5th. Brian's music can sometimes be imbalanced, and where it is impulsive it seems to stem more from his gut feeling on how the work was to be written, rather than the final embelishment. Emotion in Brian often stems from the structure or velocity of the work rather than what is written on top.

Where Mahler makes questionable decisions compared to his more standard contemporaries, he can be proven again and again to have made a "correct" choice in each of his methods. In a sense, Brian's entire symphonic style is an "incorrect choice", not only mechanically, but also conceptually. Mahler wrote nine long-pondered symphonies which can be related to each other in a Beethovenian sense, Brian wrote a huge burst of small symphonies whose only relation to each other can be seen in a couple of "groupings". It is almost a Stravinskian art for the sake of art type of method being followed.

In this conceptual sense I view them as opposites, and while Brian's music could be seen as a microcosm of Mahler's at times, I feel that this is just one of his many influences rather than an overriding one. Mahler's "difficulties" in his mood swings over long movements are almost aloof, Brian's are somewhat more feral and can arrive in bursts of energy which can feel as though they are propelling the work forward, in a motoric, vehicular sense. Mahler's expansive tapestries are more like the surface of an ocean. I think that those seperate styles of composing appear comparable almost by coincidence. Even in the first four symphonies, it is remarkable how the influence of Mahler doesn't necessarily produce works that sound all that much like his music in style or temperament. The first part of the Gothic sounds remarkably close to parts of his 6th, which is quite a mature work, the second part doesn't seem to match up with anything Mahler wrote. I suppose at a stretch the 3rd might have mild "Wunderhorn" qualities, but these are so scant as to perhaps be my imagination.

Very perspicacious, Sara! I have never said it here, but I think Brian was a journalist in more ways than is commonly thought of. His later symphonies are his journal, or his mental diary. His composing style has an improvisatory quality. He wrote quickly, obeying the spur of the moment. The logic underlying the symphonies is emotional. Brian builds by using sharp contrasts, they create and structure musical time. Mahler is more nineteenth-century in the way sonata form is still there, but its time-scale has become gigantic, in the wake of Wagner and Bruckner. Adorno compared Mahler's symphonies to novels. And yes, Mahler was a great lover of Dostoevsky, with whom he shares the intensity and the darkness. Brian is more of a modernist. I have always seen similarities between the ellipsis in Brian's symphonies and the ellipsis-by-punning in Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Bruckner, the thinking man's James Last.

Put-down of the Day. 

[Sergeant Rock]

Put-down of the Day. 

Well, at least he admits we Bruckner lovers are "thinking" men. 

Sarge