[1/20/2011] The Bi-weekly Listening and Appreciation Thread: Bruckner's 8th

[Henk]

Listening to it.

Though I recognize the beauty, it just isn't satisfactory to me. It's just not good music. The composer wants to make big music, but fails because this frustrates already his esthethics.

Nietzsche wrote that (late-)romantic music exposes or unnatural rest or unnatural unrest. I agree to this.

Henk

[Scarpia]

You know it was 

Sarge

Too bad there isn't a Maazel version we could argue about.   

[Henk]

All I can do when listening to this music is sighing and feeling somewhat obliged listening it to the end, wondering how people can listen to it completely satisfactory and trying also, but not able to.

[Sergeant Rock]

But the fourth movement keeps reminding me of Wagner's Rhine....

There's a lot of Wagner in the music: Siegfried in the beginning; Tristan in the Adagio; Rheingold in the fourth movement coda. Must be the reason I love this symphony so much 


Sarge

[Sergeant Rock]

All I can do when listening to this music is sighing and feeling somewhat obliged listening to the end.

You're under no obligation to listen. Just stop. Play something you want to hear. Bruckner does not need you 

Sarge

[Henk]

You're under no obligation to listen. Just stop. Play something you want to hear. Bruckner does not need you 

Sarge

I just keep trying, wondering why others can listen to it completely satisfactory, since I can't. So I keep falsifying my rejection of romantic music so now and then.

Henk

[Brahmsian]

I'm listening to Jochum's Dresden Eighth right now. Half way through the Scherzo and I realize once again why this is my least favorite of the 22 Eighths I own: horrible, horrible trumpets. Shocking how crude they sound. I prefer Jochum's Concertegebouw and SOBR Bruckner.

Well, I will agree that the brass in certain spots in the Jochum/SD sound crude (coda of the 5th).  At the same time, I really like the raw sound of the brass, and think it actually suits the music in certain areas (like the climax of the 1st movement).  I've heard Boulez/WP and Karajan/BP, and Tintner/RSNO in the 8th, and I much prefer the Jochum/SD.

Anyways, I don't want to debate or discuss anymore of the recordings of the 8th.  This is my favorite symphony of any composer, and it has one of the most amazing codas.  More than any other of Anton's symphonies, I find this symphony has the most cohesion and inter-connection thematic content of all four movements.

[Brahmsian]

I just keep trying, wondering why others can listen to it completely satisfactory, since I can't. So I keep falsifying my rejection of romantic music so now and then.

Henk

I commend you Henk for continuing to try and appreciate the music.  It's often helpful to give it a break, and revisit it at a later date.

[Brahmsian]

Does anyone know which version of the 8th is the Jochum/SD recording?  It doesn't indicate anything, while it indicates a version for all the 8 other symphonies.

[Sergeant Rock]

Does anyone know which version of the 8th is the Jochum/SD recording?  It doesn't indicate anything, while it indicates a version for all the 8 other symphonies.

Revised version 1890, Nowak

[Brahmsian]

Revised version 1890, Nowak

Thanks Sarge!

[Cato]

This is my favorite symphony of any composer, and it has one of the most amazing codas.  More than any other of Anton's symphonies, I find this symphony has the most cohesion and inter-connection thematic content of all four movements.

Quite true!
The last two pages have to be counted among the most amazing ever composed on the basis of the "cohesion" and the "interconnection of thematic material."

This is why I find the Hanslick criticism so odd, especially for someone who saw the score!  His aesthetic theory wanted music to be a (sort of ) Kantian Ding an sich where the music grows out of itself, where things blossom from previous things according to laws of development.  I do not hear "formlessness" in this work at all!

[Cato]

One thing which is perhaps not often discussed is the use of antiphonal "dialogues" in Bruckner's works, and the opening of the Eighth is a fine example of this technique, with the lower strings being answered rather strangely, even fearfully, by the woodwinds.

Antiphony is more noticed in e.g. Tchaikovsky's works, but I have always thought that Bruckner's use of it is overlooked by critics.

[Opus106]

One thing which is perhaps not often discussed is the use of antiphonal "dialogues" in Bruckner's works, and the opening of the Eighth is a fine example of this technique, with the lower strings being answered rather strangely, even fearfully, by the woodwinds.

Antiphony is more noticed in e.g. Tchaikovsky's works, but I have always thought that Bruckner's use of it is overlooked by critics.

I never remember anything apart from the strings and brass after listening to a Bruckner symphony. I'm surprised every time I come across a woodwind -- it's almost like I suffer from selective amnesia!

[Cato]

I never remember anything apart from the strings and brass after listening to a Bruckner symphony. I'm surprised every time I come across a woodwind -- it's almost like I suffer selective amnesia!

Agreed!  But that is precisely why I find those woodwind sections rather important.  Other examples off the top of my head right now (my scores are packed away because we are moving to a new house): the slow movement of the Sixth Symphony has a section near the end, where the little funeral march theme is played by the violas and violins in low register, which is then answered by oboes and clarinets, and then further answered by the brass choir.  After a string climax descends from the heavens, another marvelous little dialogue takes place between the strings and clarinets.

Not antiphonal, but the ending of the movement has a choir of flutes and clarinets singing one of the main themes whose notes are now much longer.  Heavenly indeed!   0:)

[Opus106]

Agreed!  But that is precisely why I find those woodwind sections rather important.  Other examples off the top of my head right now (my scores are packed away because we are moving to a new house): the slow movement of the Sixth Symphony has a section near the end, where the little funeral march theme is played by the violas and violins in low register, which is then answered by oboes and clarinets, and then further answered by the brass choir.  After a string climax descends from the heavens, another marvelous little dialogue takes place between the strings and clarinets.

Not antiphonal, but the ending of the movement has a choir of flutes and clarinets singing one of the main themes whose notes are now much longer.  Heavenly indeed!   0:)

I will listen more carefully to the first movement of the Eighth, and the Sixth (a work I have not yet heard, if I remember correctly). Thanks.

Oh, and hope the house-shifting goes on without a hitch.

[DavidRoss]

I was listening to this and was getting into it throughout. The Adagio was of course gorgeous. But it is the tuttis and the bombastic highs that really make this a thrilling experience for me.

I love this!  You're thrilled by what I like least.  That doesn't make you smart and me dumb, or me an urbane sophisticate and you a drooling rube--it just means we like different things.  Sarge dislikes the raucous brass in Jochum's SKD recording, but Ray and I think it's characterful.  The world and GMG are richer for such diversity of opinion.  And it's so nice to be able to share our interests, discuss what appeals to us and what doesn't, maybe get turned on to something new or a new way of hearing or thinking about things without being abused for our differences.

Next time I listen to Tony's 8th, I'll probably hear it a bit differently, thank you.  Perhaps even later today.   

[mahler10th]

CATO: One thing which is perhaps not often discussed is the use of antiphonal "dialogues" in Bruckner's works, and the opening of the Eighth is a fine example of this technique, with the lower strings being answered rather strangely, even fearfully, by the woodwinds.

Yes indeed.  The opening sequence of the Symphony is truly like a dialogue, a very tentative, toe tipping, see if the water is warm enough type reflection.  Bigger and bigger the fear becomes, but it dies away, merging into a much happier, optimistic theme.  Sometimes it is played with emphasis on the strings, others let the brass do the work.  The best exponent of illuminating dialogue through music is Inbal, and I'm sure I've got his Bruckner 8 somewhere...

*****************Excitedly goes away to check his Bruckner works*************************

[Sergeant Rock]

I never remember anything apart from the strings and brass after listening to a Bruckner symphony. I'm surprised every time I come across a woodwind

One place in a Bruckner symphony where the woodwinds stick in the memory is the beginning of the Fifth's Finale: the clarinet's "cuckoo" followed by a comic motif also played by the clarinet. Then a few bars later a lyrical oboe solo.

Sarge

[Brahmsian]

I love this!  You're thrilled by what I like least.  That doesn't make you smart and me dumb, or me an urbane sophisticate and you a drooling rube--it just means we like different things.  Sarge dislikes the raucous brass in Jochum's SKD recording, but Ray and I think it's characterful.  The world and GMG are richer for such diversity of opinion.  And it's so nice to be able to share our interests, discuss what appeals to us and what doesn't, maybe get turned on to something new or a new way of hearing or thinking about things without being abused for our differences.

Well said, David!