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

[Mirror Image]

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

The poster may be gone, but this doesn't mean that he/she doesn't visit this forum to read it from time to time or even everyday. Just because somebody doesn't post anymore doesn't mean that they're no longer with us.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

The poster may be gone, but this doesn't mean that he/she doesn't visit this forum to read it from time to time or even everyday. Just because somebody doesn't post anymore doesn't mean that they're no longer with us.

AND - it opened up another round of an interesting debate...

[Mirror Image]

AND - it opened up another round of an interesting debate...

Well I'm not here to debate people per se, I was really just trying to help the OP. But in all honesty, Bruckner's merits and whether he's incompetent or not aren't really up for debate. His music, while not as popular as say Beethoven, Mahler, or Schubert, is still being performed and recorded to this day and it also lives in the concert hall. People can disagree with me all they want to but the truth is in the pudding.

[Opus106]

A debate isn't necessarily a bad thing, you know.

[Mirror Image]

A debate isn't necessarily a bad thing, you know.

Well no, of course not, but I don't see any point in debating about composers with an already established position in the history of classical music. Like, for example, I don't like Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart, but you don't see me debating as whether they were competent or incompetent. They knew what they were doing or they wouldn't have succeeded. History recognized this. To say that Bruckner was incompetent or that he was working with ideas that were beyond his ability is an uneducated criticism I think. Was Bruckner a humble person? Absolutely, but he was also incredibly self-critical, but this didn't hamper the fact that the music still came out of him in an honest, genuine way. The man was also an incredible musician. I read somewhere that he played an improvisation on the organ and it completed floored Saint-Saens. Bruckner was a real and honest composer. His ideas, no matter how unorthodox they may have seemed during their time, were laying the foundation for the future of music.

[Cato]

Well I'm not here to debate people per se, I was really just trying to help the OP. But in all honesty, Bruckner's merits and whether he's incompetent or not aren't really up for debate. His music, while not as popular as say Beethoven, Mahler, or Schubert, is still being performed and recorded to this day and it also lives in the concert hall. People can disagree with me all they want to but the truth is in the pudding.

"The truth is the truth.  You can't really have an opinion about it." - Peter Schickele

[Mirror Image]

"The truth is the truth.  You can't really have an opinion about it." - Peter Schickele

[eyeresist]

but the truth is in the pudding.

The PROOF is in the pudding.

[Daverz]

     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.

I think you're taking my comments too seriously, but at the same time, I'm not sure what you are trying to say.  That some people don't like Bruckner says nothing about his competence, and you seem to be admitting that.

Also the "Bruckner Problem" usually alludes to a problem with editions, not to the fact that some people have a problem appreciating Bruckner.

[Mirror Image]

The PROOF is in the pudding.

That's the phrase I was looking for.

[eyeresist]

Google results:

+"the proof is in the pudding" - 2,250,000

+"the proof of the pudding is in the eating" - 1,010,000


(The + sign means it only pulls exact matches.)

[The new erato]

The eating of the pudding is the proof. No eating means there may be no pudding.

And the continued listening to Bruckners music is the proof that it works. Whether the composer incompetently stumbled into a formula that works, or was a farsighted and revolutionary genius, none of us will know, and I seriously doubt it matters. Come to think of it, even Anton himself may have been unsure.

[eyeresist]

No eating means there may be no pudding.

[mc ukrneal]

And it has to be chocolate pudding. A waste of good pudding otherwise! And that's the truth! 

[eyeresist]

Bruckner and chocolate pudding - the perfect combination?