Bruckner's 6th Symphony - Blind Comparison

Started by TheGSMoeller, May 02, 2014, 05:05:52 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Cato

Quote from: Moonfish on May 23, 2018, 12:35:52 PM
:D

Hail Saint Eugen Jochum!




That's a BIG AMEN, good buddy !!!  0:)

Quote from: Moonfish on May 23, 2018, 12:26:10 PM
Quote
Just listening to a Bruckner 6 (Wand/Kölner Rundfunk [Wand's 1st cycle]) and it is a mesmerizing symphony....    0:)


It is interesting that, as I have aged, the work has evolved into something very special, and I used it in one of my (still unpublished) novels.

The set-up is that the organist - an 8th Grader and fan of Bruckner - has been tapped to play a funeral for a child struck and killed in a car accident.  (The regular organist is out-of-town.)

Quote...And finally a melody from Tom's musical memory began playing, as he read the obituary, which mentioned Augie's pride in being an altar boy at St. Mary's and his joy in playing baseball.  The melody was a somber funeral march, complete with muffled drumbeats.  The important thing, however, was that the second part of the march rose somewhat, and seemed to aspire toward hope, or at least to counterbalance the tragedy of the opening notes.  It was from the Sixth Symphony of Anton Bruckner, from the Adagio, the second movement.  But Tom also remembered that Bruckner brings this theme back toward the end of the movement, in a shortened form, and the little tragic funeral march becomes involved in a short brass chorale that softens the lament, which then leads to a dialogue in the strings, an up-and-down debate, with the upwardness of the music winning gently at the end, the two flutes and a single clarinet slowly, benignly, smilingly voicing their opinion that all is well, that the turmoil and sadness heard earlier have been dissolved into nothingness.... © 2018 L. Schulte

"Tom" decides to adapt the march for the organ in time for the funeral. And then, after Holy Communion..

Quote...So then Tom began to play the Bruckner excerpt.  The first two bars seemed more tragic than in practice, and he had to ignore an impulse to cut the repetition of the opening four-bar theme which he had interpolated into the piece.  The next two bars rose and evoked more of a cry of anguish than any hope!  What was happening?  Those two bars were supposed to argue with the first ones, not commiserate!  When the repetition came, Tom quickly changed the stops and made the music softer.  That was better.  Now a short dialogue in the upper register ensued, followed by a chorale that gave a distant angelicity to the opening.  Then an upward struggle with sixteenth notes, ending in a huge, slow, climactic descent in eighth notes.  But this was no descent into hopelessness, rather it was an affirmation of a foundation and of a connection between heaven and earth, a Jacob's Ladder being extended downward to all those who had the faith to take the first step.  And then the farewell most serene, the flute-and-clarinet melody slowly hovering on high, waving good-bye, as it faded away into the blissful otherworld....  © 2018 L. Schulte
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)