How does one begin to appreciate Bruckner??? Help needed!

[Florestan]

If that doesn't stir something in you, then perhaps Bruckner just isn't for you. There's no harm or shame in that. Rossini bores the pants off me and I'd rather eat my own earwax than listen to Haydn. You don't have to like every composer, even if you know that other people revere them.

Hey, that's quite a relief, since I'd rather have Haydn daily and Rossini each week-end than Bruckner every now and then. 





(Just kidding, I do like Bruckner's 1st, 4th and 6th --- yet as a whole his symphonic work eludes me)

[Sergeant Rock]

....do you think it's possible that there be a total incompatibility between his music and certain people?

Oh, yes. I think it is possible. I've been trying to convert a close friend--actually, I've been trying for 40 years! and she's Austrian!--but so far nothing has worked. Bruckner may be one of the toughest pre-20th century composers to crack. He demands great patience; he demands acceptance of his OCD that manifests itself in his music. Some people, maybe most people will not, or cannot make the effort.

Sarge

[Florestan]

he demands acceptance of his OCD that manifests itself in his music.

Forgive my ignorance, but what's OCD anyway?  0:)

[George]

Forgive my ignorance, but what's OCD anyway?  0:)

I'll tell you just as soon as I finish turning my lightswitches on and off 167 times each. Damn, now you made me lose count...

[Sergeant Rock]

I'll tell you just as soon as I finish turning my lightswitches on and off 167 times each. Damn, now you made me lose count...

Forgive my ignorance, but what's OCD anyway?  0:)

Obsessive compulsive disorder. In Bruckner's music it can be heard in the, some would say, obsessive repetitions.

Sarge

[Florestan]

Obsessive compulsive disorder.

I somehow felt Bruckner was for psychos... now I have the confirmation from the most authorized source. 

[greg]

It might help to play his music while "driving" around in Google Street View. Goes very well together.

[George]

I somehow felt Bruckner was for psychos... now I have the confirmation from the most authorized source. 

[drogulus]

Still I have a question fo Bruckner fans: do you think it's possible that there be a total incompatibility between his music and certain people? IOW, are you sure that, given time and proper listening technique, everyone who so desires will finally enjoy Bruckner?

     No, I don't think anyone can want to enjoy Bruckner, and in any case "sure" and "total" have no place. Most people probably don't think wanting has that much to do with it, though it's hard to tell what people really think. Usually music is just supposed to be good or bad and everyone who disagrees is wrong, a wacky view IMO considering the variety of taste among expert listeners.

     So I'd ask: How committed are you to liking music that departs from your taste? Most of the time I'm not very, so it takes a long time to develop the tools to like a new composer.

[Florestan]

          So I'd ask: How committed are you to liking music that departs from your taste?

For me taste is an evolving concept. A few years ago I wouldn't have listened to anything by Schoenberg or Webern for more than a minute, as they were galaxies apart from my taste. Now I am able to enjoy some of their music for as long as it takes to be performed. 

In the case of Bruckner, I do like his melodic moments, of which there are plenty in the tradition of Schubert, a composer which I adore. I just don't make much of it as a whole. Now I hear some wonderful, heart-wrenching melody that lift my soul, the next minute I hear the noise of the engine of a three-ton truck leading me nowhere... 

I say it agan: I do like Bruckner's 1st, 4th and 6th symphonies from beginning to end, so perhaps there is hope for me...  0:)

[DavidRoss]

Some composers are "love at first sight (listen)" (e.g. Mahler, Beethoven, etc.). But for the longest time I've been trying to like Bruckner!
I know sometimes it might be the lack of quality of the recording, but hardly think that's case for me because the set I own is Jochum's Dresden cycle, one of the most acclaimed by general consensus. It's just sad that this set has been sitting on my shelf for months. Granted, I have not listened to every symphony, but even the most popular 4th didn't whet my appetite.
I really believe that, in time, I'll start to like him. I just wanna get there faster!! Any clues from you guys? Like, which symph should I start, or, what should I listen to when I listen?

Bruckner was the last of the popular symphonists for me to come to terms with.  For years I was overwhelmed by the tedium of everything I tried (note that my own aesthetic was shaped by modernist conciseness).  However, I wanted to learn to appreciate and enjoy whatever virtues caused many other people to admire and even love his music, so I kept my mind open and kept trying.  Suggestions of others here, most notably our resident Bruckner-philes, may have helped to pry the door open a bit, but he still didn't catch fire until one evening when I heard Karajan's EMI recording of the 7th with the BP.  I was caught up in the current and swept out to sea.

Since then I've come to enjoy most of his symphonies, especially 4,5,6,7,& 9, and though I doubt I'll ever love him the way I love Beethoven or Mahler or Sibelius, I still listen to his symphonies as often as anyone's other than those three.  And Karajan--whom I don't much care for in most purely orchestral repertoire--is still among my faves for Bruckner. 

[Opus106]

I just don't make much of it as a whole. Now I hear some wonderful, heart-wrenching melody that lift my soul, the next minute I hear the noise of the engine of a three-ton truck leading me nowhere... 

I won't put it that way; i.e. I don't find anything quite as jarring as a noisy engine of a truck. I've always felt that Bruckner was bored, so to speak, and he kept on shifting what he composed. The symphonies have interesting sections (within each, and I most familiar with the last 2.75), but I don't see a continuum forming, instead I see blocks [oh, and I'm not going to use that clichéd cathedral analogy here], placed discretely next to each other. (That I find a detriment, BTW.)

[MDL]

Hey, that's quite a relief, since I'd rather have Haydn daily and Rossini each week-end than Bruckner every now and then. 





(Just kidding, I do like Bruckner's 1st, 4th and 6th --- yet as a whole his symphonic work eludes me)

The problem is my lack of taste and nothing to do with Haydn or Rossini. I know that Haydn is one of the greats, and I wish I understood and appreciated his music, not least because you can hear three Haydn symphonies in the time it takes you to hear one Mahler or Bruckner symphony!

And of course I like Rossini's overtures; I'm just not too keen on the operas.

[drogulus]

For me taste is an evolving concept. A few years ago I wouldn't have listened to anything by Schoenberg or Webern for more than a minute, as they were galaxies apart from my taste. Now I am able to enjoy some of their music for as long as it takes to be performed. 

In the case of Bruckner, I do like his melodic moments, of which there are plenty in the tradition of Schubert, a composer which I adore. I just don't make much of it as a whole. Now I hear some wonderful, heart-wrenching melody that lift my soul, the next minute I hear the noise of the engine of a three-ton truck leading me nowhere... 

I say it agan: I do like Bruckner's 1st, 4th and 6th symphonies from beginning to end, so perhaps there is hope for me...  0:)

     It sounds like you're over the hard part, where Bruckner sounds like a musical crank. He is a musical crank, of course, because they all are, it's just that Bruckner is one of the very few composers that touches on greatness and incompetence simultaneously. I don't know why this strange effect doesn't happen more often. Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Mahler and most of the rest of the Greats tuck the awkward joins under like proper seamstresses.* They know that it's part of the job to make everything sound flawless, if not effortless. Bruckner sounds flawed, and effortless is not a word that comes to mind in connection with his music. Yes, there are a few works that have the self-assurance that is supposed to be a sign of greatness (oh, like the 6th and 7th symphonies, the Quintet and perhaps foremost the Te Deum).

     Bruckner is in my view the baddest of the Greats, in the original sense. If you don't have a problem with that. and maybe you don't, then you may end up with several of his works on you personal top 10 (my TT prominently features the 8th Symphony).

     _{* A partial exception is Mahler, who exposes and exploits awkward and stressful transitions as elements in his design in a manner almost guranteed to piss off the sober-minded. What a trashy composer!?! That's a very different phenomenon.}

[Brahmsian]

I think Bruckner would likely win the award for turning nay sayers into believers and devotees of his music.  A lot of people can't stomach or 'get' Bruckner's music, but eventually do and REALLY enjoy it.   

[Octo_Russ]

My entry point into Bruckner was with his 7th by Bohm, i was quietly impressed, but nothing earth shattering, this was his only Symphony i owned for about a year, so i was able to concentrate on this one work, i played it roughly once a month.

Then i bought the 4th by Chailly, straight away i could see that they were very similar, and here's one of the downfalls of Bruckner, it's like he composed the same Symphony nine times, it took me ages to see the uniquenesses in these two Symphonies, there's so much repetition from Symphony to Symphony.

Another year went by and i bought two more Symphonies in quick succession, the 9th by Dohnanyi, and the 6th by Sawallisch, and here's where things went wrong!, in my mind neither of these are his best, and i ended up with Bruckner overload, i couldn't honestly tell you what movement went to which Symphony if you put them all on random play, i just couldn't pick out anything unique, they all sounded the same!.

I got rid of the 6th and 9th, and for many years was happy listening to just the 4th and 7th, and then a few years ago i took the plunge and bought the 8th by Wand, straight away it was a revelation!, where had Bruckner been all my life?, his 8th sounded so different, it's long at roughly 90 minutes, the Adagio is transcendent.

This brought a rush of Bruckner recordings, the 5th by Solti [another revelation], and i started buying different versions of Symphonies i already owned, now i see the uniqueness much clearer, i still don't find the 6th and the 9th his very best.

My advice is to take Bruckner slow, don't force yourself to like him, like me it might take many years to fall in love with his music, don't listen to too many of his Symphonies all at once, if you start off with one movement of one Symphony, then i would really recommend the Adagio of the 8th, it's about 30 minutes long, listen to it regular for about a year, then branch out as your love grows, hope this helps.

[jochanaan]

Still I have a question fo Bruckner fans: do you think it's possible that there be a total incompatibility between his music and certain people? IOW, are you sure that, given time and proper listening technique, everyone who so desires will finally enjoy Bruckner?

Oh, it's very possible that Bruckner's music just won't connect with many folks--not because of some "lack" in the person but simply because it's a bad fit to their personality.

As for me, I enjoyed Bruckner's music almost at once, but it took me a little while to love it, and longer still to feel I understand what he was doing.  Now I feel that Bruckner was an "accidental modernist," one who, while using traditional structures, sparked a quiet revolution in harmony and style.  (Sometimes not so quiet, as in the every-note-in-the-scale chord that closes the final climax in the Ninth Symphony's Adagio!)  And like Brahms, he looked forward by looking back; his knowledge of Medieval/Renaissance music must have been phenomenal, to judge from his choral music.  The E minor Mass, for example, is utterly timeless; it might as easily have been written in the 14th or 21st centuries as in the 19th.

I'm not sure that taking Bruckner in bits and pieces is the best way; you might miss some interconnections, for example, the way that the opening themes almost always return in triumph at the very end.  His music works very poorly as sonic wallpaper but eminently well as an aid to meditation. (That approach also works well for certain other composers such as Morton Feldman.)

[jochanaan]

...I know that Haydn is one of the greats, and I wish I understood and appreciated his music...

Haydn just wanted to have fun. That's what I love about his music; it's as pure a musical evocation of joy and fun as there is.

And of course I like Rossini's overtures; I'm just not too keen on the operas.

Well, you're not alone.

[The new erato]

Obsessive compulsive disorder. In Bruckner's music it can be heard in the, some would say, obsessive repetitions.

Sarge

I think that's probably true. However, my loss of interest in Bruckenr since my early obsession in the 1970ies probably has as much to do with the fact that my interest turned to song and smaller formats (ie little "grand" opera and romantic symphonies, I play some Brahms and Mahler but late romanic orchestral repertoire and romantic opera is largely lost on me).

[laredo]

Try to listen to Celibidache and Munchner Phil. plays Symphony n. 4.