Bruckner's Abbey

[PerfectWagnerite]

He studied (in a loose sense; i.e. looking at the score at least once a week) the Missa Solemnis for 35 years (!) before he performed it, because he hadn't truly 'understood' it, previously.

Who did he studied with? Gilb Kaplan?
35 yrs you would think he can write the score out from memory forwards and backwards.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Who did he studied with? Gilb Kaplan?
35 yrs you would think he can write the score out from memory forwards and backwards.

He studied under Carl Feilitzsch (composition) and with Dorati and Paumgartner (conducting).

Backward and forwards is one thing. But to penetrate a work spiritually is yet another matter. He could have conducted it, of course... but whatever he did, he needed to really FEEL it. And with him, that wasn't just some phrase. Everything he conducted became an essential message of his own. He re-lived, more than he re-produced.

On the topic of Bruckner:

Many a fantastic Bruckner performance has taken place here. This year it'll be Luisi.

[Cato]

Courtesy of a Bruckner fan: Ave Maria (WAB 7)

https://www.youtube.com/v/BQcdT_xeVX0

[Cato]

Courtesy of a Bruckner fan: Ave Maria (WAB 7)

https://www.youtube.com/v/BQcdT_xeVX0

Concerning Bruckner's sacred music, I have always used the Te Deum and the Mass #3 for my Latin classes, and the reaction from my (7th and 8th Grade) students has always been positive.

Many decades ago, I learned of the Te Deum when I was first discovering the Ninth Symphony, and the liner notes of course mentioned that Bruckner had suggested using the Te Deum as a final movement, in case he did not finish the finale.  The energy, the mystery, the energy, the sudden contrasts, and yes, the energy of the Te Deum made it one of my favorite works!

And for my students I play the one which first hooked me: Eugen  0:)  Jochum conducting the Berlin Philharmonic on DGG.

https://www.youtube.com/v/UgDBhcF8mus

[relm1]

I saw the Te Deum in concert.  It packs quite a punch.  It was SFO/Herbert Blomstedt and I'll never forget that thundering organ and brass.  Unfortunately I was with someone who hated Bruckner (prefers more mellow music like Mozart, Vivaldi, etc.) so he was immediately annoyed by the aggressive onslaught. 

[Daverz]

Brucknerthon 2018 announcement:

Join us on Saturday, September 1, 2018 for the 20th annual San Diego County Bruckner Marathon.

This year we'll play Bruckner's Symphonies 0-9 as well as a brand new recording, conducted by Gerd Schaller, of the Overture in G minor and the Quintet in F major, the latter in a new arrangement for orchestra by Gerd Schaller.  As always, the setting will be informal, with plenty of food and drinks to keep us going.  We'll also have our usual CD exchange; those unwanted CDs of yours could be someone else's treasure.

As in previous years, we offer a combination of live and studio recordings.  Our line-up includes classic performances conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, Herbert Kegel, and Lovro von Matačić.  We also celebrate the lives of Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Jesús López Cobos in performances of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies.

Here are the selected recordings in the order in which they'll be played:

- Overture: Schaller/Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra (Profil CD, 2018)

- Symphony No. 0: Asahina/Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra (Tower Records SACD, 1978)

- Symphony No. 1: Bolton/Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra (Oehms CD, 2013)

- Symphony No. 2: Tintner/National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (Naxos CD, 1996)

- Symphony No. 3: Wildner/Westphalia Philharmonic Orchestra (1877 version, SonArte CD, 2001/2002)

- Symphony No. 4: Honeck/Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (Reference Recordings SACD, 2013)

- Symphony No. 5: Rozhdestvensky/USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra (Russian Revelation CD, 1984)

- Quintet: Schaller/Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra (Profil CD, 2018)

- Symphony No. 6: López Cobos/Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (Telarc CD, 1991)

- Symphony No. 7: Furtwängler/Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (Grand Slam CD, 1949)

- Symphony No. 8: Kegel/Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra (Pilz CD, 1975)

- Symphony No. 9: Matačić/Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (Denon CD, 1980)

When: Saturday, September 1, 2018, beginning at 9:00 AM

Where: 9863 Fox Valley Way, San Diego, CA 92127

Please feel free to bring your favorite food and drinks (especially Bruckner's favorite beverage) to share.  Contributions will be taken towards lunch and/or dinner.  For more information, contact Ramón Khalona at rkhalona@hotmail.com or Dave Griegel at dkgriegel@cox.net.  Please forward this invitation to others who may be interested.  RSVPs are appreciated!

Brand new this year, David Fox will be live-streaming the Brucknerthon, so those who can't make it to San Diego can enjoy the music as well.  Links will appear on The Brucknerthon YouTube channel on the day of the event.  Simply go to YouTube.com and search for "The Brucknerthon".  Subscribe to the channel and visit the page on September 1, after 9:00 Pacific Time, to listen.

Those who make it to San Diego should be sure to brush up on their Bruckner trivia before the event, as the winner of the annual Bruckner quiz will walk away with a special prize.

We look forward to seeing you.

Ramón Khalona and Dave Griegel

https://www.abruckner.com/editorsnote/news/the-2018-west-coast-br/

[Cato]

Brucknerthon 2018 announcement:

Join us on Saturday, September 1, 2018 for the 20th annual San Diego County Bruckner Marathon.

Ramón Khalona and Dave Griegel

https://www.abruckner.com/editorsnote/news/the-2018-west-coast-br/

Your announcement reminds me of a man who went around my neighborhood in Dayton with a hammer, nails, and homemade posters to announce his BACH FESTIVAL!

He had a large stereo system and a very looooong extension cord which he ran into the middle of a park, where he had set up folding chairs for those interested in J.S. Bach.  People did attend!

So you must give us details of the actual result!

[Daverz]

Your announcement reminds me of a man who went around my neighborhood in Dayton with a hammer, nails, and homemade posters to announce his BACH FESTIVAL!

He had a large stereo system and a very looooong extension cord which he ran into the middle of a park, where he had set up folding chairs for those interested in J.S. Bach.  People did attend!

So you must give us details of the actual result!

Apparently they are going to live stream it on Youtube this year.  Don't know if this is just the music or will include shots of all us Bruckner nerds.

Here is a report on a previous year:

https://www.abruckner.com/editorsnote/features/the2012brucknerathon/schorereview/

[Cato]

I came across this by chance:

             

,,Bruckner ist wieder in"

,,Bruckner war sehr heimatbezogen. Wir wollen ihn auch als Person beleuchten. Bruckner ist bei der Jugend wieder in, weil er etwas Monumentales hat. Das soll auch einfließen. Wir wollen ihn modern und zeitgemäß präsentieren, direkt in die Herzen der Oberösterreicherinnen und Oberösterreicher", sagt die Linzer Kultur- und Tourismusstadträtin Doris Lang-Mayerhofer, die stolz ist, dass sich dafür 13 Partner an einem Tisch versammelt haben und betont: ,,Bruckner soll für Oberösterreich das sein, was Mozart für Salzburg oder Wagner für Bayreuth ist".       

My translation:

"Bruckner is 'In" Again"

"Bruckner was very rooted in his homeland.  We also want to illuminate Bruckner as a person.  Bruckner is again 'in' among younng people, because he has something monumental.  That should also be incorporated.  We want to present him as modern and timely, directly into the hearts of Upper Austrians," says Doris Lang-Mayerhofer, City-Councilor for Culture and Tourism in Linz., who is very proud that 13 partners were gathered at her table, and emphasizes: "Bruckner should as important for Upper Austria as Mozart is for Salzburg, and Wagner for Bayreuth."

See:

https://volksblatt.at/anton-bruckner-neu-denken/

[Cato]

So I was thinking, if Linz wants to use Bruckner as a "brand name" for marketing, maybe they should consider something like this:



Questions: how BIG would a Brucknerkugel have to be, and what would be the ingredients? 

[Karl Henning]

Hah!

[André]

So I was thinking, if Linz wants to use Bruckner as a "brand name" for marketing, maybe they should consider something like this:



Questions: 1) how BIG would a Brucknerkugel have to be, and 2) what would be the ingredients? 

1) One liter size
2) Hops

[Cato]

1) One liter size
2) Hops

There is undoubtedly an under-served market for chewy beer! 

[André]

Mix & match is the big thing. Molson Coors Brewery intends to market cannabis flavoured beer. Soon on your supermarket shelves...

[SurprisedByBeauty]

There is a Bach-Cube, sold by the same people who make the ORIGINAL Mozart Kugels. (You are showing the "ECHTE" Mozart Kugel type... which is different.

The Bach Cube is delicious!

This popular treat was created in 1985 in honour of Johann Sebastian Bach's 300th birthday. Made of layers of coffee truffle, nut truffle and marzipan, this bonbon is then coated in a thin layer of dark chocolate.

http://www.original-mozartkugel.com/en/produkte/hausspezialitaeten.php

[calyptorhynchus]

There is a Bach-Cube, sold by the same people who make the ORIGINAL Mozart Kugels. (You are showing the "ECHTE" Mozart Kugel type... which is different.

This reminds me of the original Bakewell Tart. This dessert won't be familiar to anyone who wasn't born in the UK, but it's a baked tart with jam, coconut and egg. The supermarket version is pretty unappealing but if you go to the town of Bakewell in Derbyshire (in May or June when the trout are jumping in the River Wye), there are two shops who each claim to sell the original Bakewell Tart, and yet the two offerings are quite different.

[Cato]

For those who have no interest in Wilhelm Furtwaengler as a composer or in his Brahms recordings, you might not have seen this quote from him concerning Bruckner, which was included in an article I mentioned here on GMG under those two topics:

...Furtwängler writes: "Bruckner is one of the few geniuses . . . whose appointed task was to express the transcendental in human terms, to weave the power of God into the fabric of human life. Be it in struggles against demonic forces, or in music of blissful transfiguration, his whole mind and spirit were infused with thoughts of the divine." ...

See:

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,17845.40.html

[Cato]

Courtesy of a FaceBook Bruckner page: an article from c. 20 years ago about Celibidache and his approach to Bruckner:

[1] This month sees the release by EMI of the Bruckner symphonies of German-based maestro Sergiu Celibidache. Even before his death in 1996, the Rumanian was often considered by many to be the last surviving great genius of conducting. The release of this collection is all the more special because Celibidache throughout his lifetime opposed recordings of his work. Throughout the world, it will be the first chance for many to discover why music critics wrote that Celibidache was capable of presenting an entirely new and extremely moving Bruckner.

[2] There has always been a special relationship between Celibidache and Bruckner, the former being said to have understood the latter like nobody else.

[3] "To him, time is different than it is to other composers. To a normal man, time is what comes after the beginning. To Bruckner, time is what comes after the end. All his apotheotical finals, the hope for another world, the hope of being saved, of being again baptised in light, it exists nowhere else in the same manner"—these were Celibidache's own words when asked about Bruckner. But what precisely did it mean for an orchestra? They had to play Bruckner with Celi's understanding of tempi, which made each symphony sound as if it were heard for the very first time, and much longer than ever before.

[4] "It meant very hard work," recalls Joerg Eggebrecht, who plays first Cello at the Munich Philharmonic orchestra, where Celibidache conducted from the early eighties until his death. "His way of rehearing put enormous pressure on us. If I study the score as closely as Celibidache, if I make it my life's work to play Bruckner as Bruckner meant us to play him—with great calm and quiet—then this means a great effort especially for the wind instruments. Some of my colleagues had actually taken up yoga in order to fulfil Celi's breathing technique requirements. The release of the CDs will show that our brass players play completely different than anything we have previously heard of Bruckner."

[5] Eggebrecht recalls that the wind instruments were required to precisely dosage of their breath. "To keep up this enormous peace and quiet all through the symphony was a great strain" he explains, adding: "but it means that our Bruckner performances were completely lacking in violence. Every note could be born at its own pace, all sound had its own space. Nothing was swallowed up. It was possible to hear every minute aspect of the music and comprehend what Bruckner had meant to bring across. It was like a moment of truth, and the musical space expanded beyond the orchestra, into the audience."

[6] Eggebrecht feels that Celibidache's Bruckner could have become a household name. "But he did not want to make recordings," the Cellist explains. "He said that our job as an orchestra is to perform the music as it was written down, to bring to life again the original emotion which had been felt at the time of writing. The composer had a certain experience, he used a kind of shorthand to write it down, and we must decipher it to bring the experience back to life. This had to be done anew each time the music was played. Hence, a CD could not fulfil the same purpose." The only reason why the concert recordings are now going to be released is due to Celibidache's son Serge, a film maker who lives in Paris and who believes that the arguably most fascinating Bruckner experience there ever was should not die together with his father.

[7] Peter Jonas, a graduate of the RCM who has formerly worked together with Solti in England is now the Intendant of the Bayerischer Staatsoper in Munich—the first English speaking Indendant ever in Germany. "I remember his Bruckner performances very well," Jonas reminiscences. "People have cried openly, without shame. It was so moving, it was more than mere music."

[8] It has been said that Celibidache's Bruckner was never an effort to listen to, that it sounded more like running water and clothed the soul of the listener. Music critics have called it natural, flowing, connecting with the very essence of sound. "That is easily explained," says Eggebrecht. "We found in his music elements which said that we are mortal, that we have an uncontrollable fate, that we go through periods of loneliness, of being god-removed. For all this there are symbols in his music. When a sound becomes reality, it is born. But at the same moment it already dies. The sound C or F comes out of the cosmic force. It is already there, all I have to do is to bring it forth on my instrument: the tuba, the cello. The very moment it is born, it dies already. Just take the wonderful start of the horn in the 4th symphony: bee bam da dee. A very simple structure, where the birth and demise of a sound is the symbol for life: how it arises and fades away."

[9] In rehearsals, Celibidache's reputation as a slave-driver and dictator was legendary. "Rightly so," recalls Joerg's brother Harald, a music critic for one of Germany's most respected newspapers. "I remember the first time I was sent to write about a rehearsal. I went there to write about a monster, whose reputation had preceded him. And it was exactly as I had been forewarned: there was great drama, he walked out, he sent a musician outside, he screamed, he abused the first violins. And yet, it wasn't like I had expected at all. Whatever he did, he was justified. I realised after a few minutes that his screaming was not for the sake of it: he had an immensely deep understanding of what music should be. He would not stand for anything less than perfection, and he got angry of he felt anyone in his orchestra was not taking the music as seriously as he did. I became one of his greatest defenders, and one of his best friends. Outside of the music, he was the nicest person."

[10] Indeed, Celibidache must have been a very kind man: all his rehearsals were open to the public "to give everyone access to music." He rescued stray dogs from the pound. He always had an open door and heart for his musicians when rehearsals were over, and he maintained very close personal relations with his students and many members of his orchestra.

[11] One of Celibidache's best friends became Helmut Nicolai, first viola and today also the head of the Rosamunde quartet, which is rapidly shooting to fame and will be in the limelight again this month with the world premiere of Bruckner's favorite student Hans Rott's string quartet at the Berlin Festival.

[12] "I do recall my first rehearsal with him," says Nicolai. "I had come from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Karajan, wanting to work with Celibidache, but I had no idea what it meant. It meant four or five days' rehearsal, and each time we performed a symphony again we had to rehearse it as if it were the first time. He wanted a new experience to come out of the music with every performance. What I liked about him was that he always called us by our first names, not by our instrument. It made us feel human, but he wanted something in return. We were not just to play our own notes but to listen where our instrument stands in relation to the entire orchestra. He wanted us to think for ourselves, rather than just being the executive branch. We had to consider the music in its entirety, like the conductor, and he got mad when he found we were just playing our notes. Once or twice I had to tell him not to scream at the first violins so much, because the poor guys got so upset that I was afraid they would eventually become too scared to ever play freely again. What he did not understand is that you have to balance compliments and punishment when you rehearse."

[13] Joerg was there for the first rehearsal ever with Celibidache. "It started with him saying: what is wrong with your breathing technique? to one of the winds. The poor guy replies: I breathe like all the others. And Celi goes: is that so? You want to be like everyone else, do you? But not here, not with me."

[14] "And we had to start all over again, as if we had to go back to school to grade one. You have to imagine that: we were a well-known, well-respected European orchestra. So a bass player gets up and he says: but Maestro, we aren't a student orchestra. And Celi says: but you look like you are. What's your name? Come on, sit down and play for me."

[15] "And then we really started work. Ten days. It was as if he had locked the doors to prevent is from leaving, it was really serious. And he said to us: you think I am joking, don't think that, gentlemen."

[16] Joerg recalls his first Bruckner rehearsal just as vividly. "The first tremolo came up, and he says: what are you doing? Chicki, chicki, chicki. Wrong, wrong. The tremolo has to sound like hot air. What can we do? Let's all play at different frequencies, come on, try it out."

[17] Celibidache saw his work on Bruckner's symphonies as being defined by the syllable sym = unity. Each member of the orchestra had to be part of the whole. "When we went on tour to the United States," recalls Eggebrecht, "although Bruckner is not as widely known there as he is here, everyone was spellbound by our performance. I recall an American colleague saying at the start: look they do different bow speeds, but it sounds nice."

[18] Nicolai once observed a deeply moved Celibidache at the grave of Bruckner in St. Florian. "There is no question that he felt very connected to Bruckner as a person. This may explain the spectacular sound experiences that he could turn a Bruckner symphony into. Celibidache had survived the second World War. As a young man he had been in Berlin when the city was bombed. He fled from the horror of his memories into the world of music. With the help of Bruckner, he drowned out the screams of children he had seen die. Music was more than music to him, it was his reason for staying alive."

See:

http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.98.4.5/mto.98.4.5.james.html

[Karl Henning]

Very nice, thanks.

[Cato]

I came across this via an Austrian website: the article implied that this was a video recording of Leonard Bernstein's last conducting performance before his death.  The program included Bruckner's Ninth Symphony.

,,So hat man Bruckners kompositorisches* Meisterwerk noch nie gehört", titelten die Zeitungen damals. Eine Aufführung, die mit stehenden Ovationen gefeiert wurde.

(Bruckner's masterpiece has never been heard like this, said newspaper headlines at the time.  A performance, which was celebrated with standing ovations.)

*("compositionally" seems to be some sort of academic preciosity, although I could be wrong.  Perhaps a German member here can comment.   I suppose one could translate it as "masterpiece of his composing career," or a "masterpiece of composition," which still seems unnecessary.)

Anyway...

See:  https://ooe.orf.at/news/stories/2931670/


https://www.youtube.com/v/Tw2LNhwnquk&feature=youtu.be