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

[The new erato]

Norrington's Fourth is really good too but it's the first version,

As expected when you're HIP. Older = better.

[DavidRoss]

As expected when you're HIP. Older = better.

Of course it's not uncommon when we're older to need a HIP replacement....

[Opus106]

Of course it's not uncommon when we're older to need a HIP replacement....

[starrynight]

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?

Listen to the music. 

I don't think there are short cuts to liking music.  Listen to different performances and put in the time and effort.  If you don't want to do that you probably aren't interested enough in his music right now so just wait some months/years until you are.

[ajlee]

Thanks, again, for everyone's contribution!

I listened to the Scherzo of No.7 last night, and it actually sounded interesting! The Adagio wasn't bad either, although I did fall asleep towards the end... =P

And I found out one reason that Bruckner wasn't so attractive to me at first. I've always been a "1st-mvt"-type of person, and some of my fav pieces of music include 1st mvts of Beethoven's 3rd & 9th, Mahler's 2nd, 5th & 9th, Schubert's 9th, Brahms's 4th, just to name a few. Upon first listen, Bruckner's 1st mvts sounded too "slow" and ponderous for me. I couldn't quite understand where he is trying to get at, which is the exact opposite of how Beethoven makes me feel.

Therefore, I think it's ingenious that some ppl suggested listening to other mvts first. I think that just might be the ticket!

[jochanaan]

...I've always been a "1st-mvt"-type of person, and some of my fav pieces of music include 1st mvts of Beethoven's 3rd & 9th, Mahler's 2nd, 5th & 9th, Schubert's 9th, Brahms's 4th, just to name a few...

Ah, that says a lot.  In classical-period symphonies, the first movement is almost invariably the weightiest musically.  It was Beethoven who began the shift in emphasis from first movement to last, in the Fifth with its integrated musico-dramatic progression.  Bruckner, following Beethoven, often brought back musical material from previous movements in his finales, notably in the Eighth's ending in which the themes from ALL the other movements are played together.

[starrynight]

Thanks, again, for everyone's contribution!

I listened to the Scherzo of No.7 last night, and it actually sounded interesting! The Adagio wasn't bad either, although I did fall asleep towards the end... =P

And I found out one reason that Bruckner wasn't so attractive to me at first. I've always been a "1st-mvt"-type of person, and some of my fav pieces of music include 1st mvts of Beethoven's 3rd & 9th, Mahler's 2nd, 5th & 9th, Schubert's 9th, Brahms's 4th, just to name a few. Upon first listen, Bruckner's 1st mvts sounded too "slow" and ponderous for me. I couldn't quite understand where he is trying to get at, which is the exact opposite of how Beethoven makes me feel.

Therefore, I think it's ingenious that some ppl suggested listening to other mvts first. I think that just might be the ticket!

The emphasis on the first movement is in general more a trait of the Classical style than the Romantic.  The first movement of Bruckner's 7th has great ideas in it though as well as being quite tautly structured in my opinion.

[Brian]

Very possibly the most immediately engaging first movement is the Sixth. The Seventh opens beautifully, and ends with a spectacular coda, but the second subject always makes me wonder "why bother?" and it IS pretty long. The Sixth's has the advantage of an unmistakeable opening theme that's as exciting as Bruckner ever gets, and most of the movement goes by very quickly. But after that, you have clearance to turn it off if you go to sleep as the adagio is spookily ethereal... no shame in a movement at a time!

[Brian]

although I did fall asleep towards the end... =P

Okay, DON'T listen to anything that says "Celibidache" on it! 

[MishaK]

ajlee,

A couple of things.

1. You say you're a first movement kind of guy. How do you like the 1st movement of Beethoven's 9th? That's basically the blueprint for a lot of things Bruckner is trying to do. If you want to understand Bruckner, take your favorite recording of LvB 9 and listen to the first movement carefully. That opening with fragments of the main theme coming in from the distance through a fog of string tremolo and sustained woodwind notes and gradually building into a coherent statement, is essentially how Bruckner in one fashion or another starts every one of his symphonies. In the 3rd he even uses the same exact pitches as Beethoven's theme, and in the 8th he uses the same rhythm. Bruckner's music is to a great extent not a fixed musical statement, but the coming into being of a musical idea. That's why you hear what seems like repetition, but is in fact more like gradually getting ever closer to a musical goal. There is always only one real climax in a Bruckner movement. A good interpretation builds gradually but inexorably towards that goal. The other three movements of LvB 9 are also crucial for understanding the structure of Bruckner. All of Bruckner's weirdness exists in embryonic form in LvB 9. Another of Bruckner's favorite tics is to quote material from the preceding movements in the finale, just like Beethoven does in the 9th. This is especially apparent in the finale Bruckner's 5th, where the clarinet constantly interrupts quotations from the preceding movements only to launch the orchestra into a mega-fugue, built on the clarinet's fragmentary interjections.

2. Listen to his choral music! The masses, especially the E minor mass, I think will open your ears to his world a lot more quickly than the symphonies. Bruckner comes from a long church music tradition and his orchestral writing to a great deal mimics choral writing. If you listen to the masses and then think of the brass and winds as choirs, the symphonies will make a lot more sense, I think. You just have to abandon a few symphonic preconceptions you may have and think of it more as instrumental choral music for orchestra pressed into an oversized symphonic form.

3. Forget Jochum for the time being. He's an acquired taste. You may be better served with more 'middle-of-the-road' Brucknerians like Wand, Karajan, Barenboim, Böhm, Skrowaczewski, Maazel or Haitink. After you have acquired a better idea where Bruckner is going you can always explore (or re-explore) the extreme ends of the interpretive spectrum (Celibidache on one end, Jochum on the other).

[ajlee]

Mensch,

Wow, that's a lot of good insights! Much appreciated.

Yes! Like I mentioned above, LvB's mvt1 of Sym9 is one of my favorite pieces of music, ever. I guess building my Bruckner appreciation from there won't be too hard! Interestingly, I read somewhere that essentially every one of Bruckner's works is trying to become Beethoven's 9th. That's, of course, exaggeration, but I guess there IS some truth in that. =)

Incidentally, I'm glad to hear that mvt1 of Bruckner's 6th is one of his most exciting, because I have a supposedly classic recording of the 6th---ol' Klemp's on EMI---that's been gathering dust on my shelf (yes, I can be quite impulsive sometimes...).

Thanks again for all the contribution!

[starrynight]

The performance of the first movement of the 7th that convinced me back in the early 90s was one with Karajan conducting.  He laid out the structure of it quite well.  I remember playing it on my walkman a bit while at university at the time. 

[Mirror Image]

If you are patient and have an open-mind then Bruckner's sound-world will reward you for the rest of your life, that is, if you're familiar with his harmonic and melodic language and understand his background. In many ways, Bruckner is a minimalistic composer and by this I mean that his music uses a small amount of ideas and the means in which he uses to express these ideas are stretched out and developed until that musical idea has been exhausted, which is why his music is in long movements. But it is within this sparse musical framework that Bruckner is able to transcend banality and create hypnotic soundscapes. One of the things I admire about his music besides the minimal usage of ideas is the way he's able to constantly push his ideas forward into unique, truly spiritual directions. It's this ideal of "reaching for the cosmos" that I find appealing.

If you don't understand his music after giving it some listening, then go listen to another composer, then come back. If you're still not hearing anything, then take a couple of months off. This proved to be one of the best things I did for myself. Sometimes some time away can give you a fresher outlook.

Good luck.

[Daverz]

What prompted you to reply to a post from last January?  The original poster seems to be long gone.

And what a lot of nonsense posted in this thread. 

Bruckner incompetent?  I think rather the commenter is incompetent. 

Rather than being an "acquired taste", Jochum is disliked by some Brucknerians with already developed tastes.  His Bruckner is immediately exciting to anyone else.  Especially that Dresden set with brass that will blow you out of your seat.

[eyeresist]

I have "developed tastes"

[DavidW]

Rather than being an "acquired taste", Jochum is disliked by some Brucknerians with already developed tastes.  His Bruckner is immediately exciting to anyone else.  Especially that Dresden set with brass that will blow you out of your seat.

Heck yeah!

[drogulus]

And what a lot of nonsense posted in this thread. 

Bruckner incompetent?  I think rather the commenter is incompetent. 

     No, I said what I meant, which is success. But perhaps you disagree with my point about Bruckner, which is that his music strikes listeners as not merely uninteresting but flawed. It sounds like he is trying to do something which is beyond his resources. I imagine that as not entirely a bad thing. You might also think there is a fact of the matter than contradicts what I said, something like "anyone who thinks the Great Bruckner is flawed is incompetent." I don't think that is a fact, and I don't think that my impressions are an attempt to establish facts beyond the way a composers strikes me, and many others, too, as Bruckner's notoriety attests. After all, the realization that there is a "Bruckner Problem" is kind of intrinsic to the thread, don't you think? Oh, you probably don't. You think it comes down to "nonsense posted in this thread", which you will no doubt identify as opinions contrary to your own.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

It's funny, but Bruckner has never been any problem for me. As a young teenager I started with Beethoven and Wagner, then got to know Mahler, and went on to Bruckner. His sense of musical space and time is very individual, but it 'clicks' with me. I love all of his symphonies. The first two are perhaps the most spontaneous and could be excellent entry-points. With the Third Bruckner finally finds his inimitable form. I don't hear any "incompetence" in Bruckner, only a different way of creating musical wholes. I never had any trouble adjusting. Question of temperament, perhaps.

[Lethevich]

It's funny, but Bruckner has never been any problem for me. As a young teenager I started with Beethoven and Wagner, then got to know Mahler, and went on to Bruckner.

Same (excluding Mahler)! The opening of the 8th sold me immediately when I advanced from Beethoven's 9th and Wagner's overtures and was looking for similarly 'big' symphonies. An existing familiarity with pop, film and especially videogame music meant that I didn't even notice the repetitions as being out of the usual.

One of the more interesting things about the composer is how his invention doesn't rest on the form he choses, but in his craft within his chosen template of expression. Any ass (to paraphrase Brahms) can see that he wrote his symphonies with a similarity of layout unique to the great composers, but it's seeing what he is doing beyond this that makes listening so rewarding.

[Brahmsian]

I find Bruckner's symphonies (although there are obvious repetitions) builds and builds on the use of the materials and themes.  Like a great baklava, they are built and built slowly, layer upon layer.

The entire 8th symphony is a perfect example, and then the final climax at the end of the 8th, which is the equivalent of an = sign.

The Adagio of the 7th is another great example of Bruckner's layering technique.

He was, in a sense, a genius of building upon the same theme and adding more and more complex layers to the theme.