I just can't get into Bruckner

Dear Jane, you still miss the point, or let's say my point.

I don't try to "justify" my own personal taste with reference to objective aspects of the work. I just try to explain why some people (including me) might find his greatness less attractive, interesting etc. This might also explain why some also complex and of similar features composers (Wagner, Mahler, Brahms, R. Strauss or even Tchaikovsky) managed to get more popularity and the love of the general public than Bruckner's music did.

It's not a matter of deficiency but rather of identity. By the way, as one old wise professor used to say, the melody is the social face of the music. That's why composers who struggle with (beautiful or brilliant) melodies worked hard to create works of memorable form and structure (Beethoven, Haydn, Wagner, Mendelssohn, although there are quite a few superb melodies in their gigantic works). So, it is not what I "absolutely require", but it is simply what is happening, which, of course, does not have anything to do directly with the greatness of the composer's opus on its own merits. However, audiences, the general public and even individuals do not and have not always to judge works only "on their own terms".

As for Bruckner's "lovely, memorable melodies", by all means one can notice some, but how many and how meaningful can they be? Most of even the most loyal fans of the composer refer to the magnificent structure and the details of this construction but almost never to the contents of these monumental musical Cathedrals.

Parla

P.S.: For God's sake, Haydn was such a gifted melodist. He could turn even the craziest Presto (and he wrote plenty) in a melodically inventive fiesta of, at the same time, highest form and structure...and all these within few minutes!

DarkSkyMan

Interesting to hear you say you came from "the Mahler direction". That is another aspect of the problem we have in getting to like this or that composer: you often have to like another one first. They are like stepping stones.

As with you, I came from Mahler (especially the lovely adagios, which have their Brucknerian aspects), but before that I first had to like Wagner........and so on. 

Sebastian

I think I am the only one to say this, but I am in a similar position to you re: Anton B - or at least I was a few months ago. His works are so long and (unlike Mahler, for instance) lacking in humour, that I struggled for ages in getting a grip on his music. I felt I just didn't have the time, let alone the patience!

I had the Karajan recording of the 4th which didn't help. But then I got the Gunter Wand recording of the same, and it was a revelation - an amazing (live) performance excellently recorded. So perhaps you might try the same route yourself? 

And Jane - I'd give up trying to engage with Parla in any rational sense. He has no interest in sensible discussion (even if he had the intelligence to do so - which he clearly doesn't). Who knows - if everyone ignored him, he might go away and be a nuisance to other people? Either that or crawl away into the pit of ignorance which so dearly deserves him.

How "apt" is the relationship of Bruckner to Schubert and Mahler, eyeresist? Schubert is the culmination of Classical Symphony writing. Apart from the variety of mood and the wealth of melodic invention, the form and structure are so Classical and the use of the Orchestra so wise and, at times, even lean. The whole structural form is singable and tuneful and the construction well crafted to be followed and remembered. Even in his "Great", there is nothing so complicated to follow or to sing.

Mahler is quite the opposite to Bruckner. A huge variety of inventive writing, loose and innovative form, unusual structure, revolutionary keys chosen, used and modulated. As for the orchestration, they could not be more different.

Finally, both wrote for the humans and not (obssesively) for...God. Schubert and Mahler's Music adress our earthly life, in all its possible aspects, while Bruckner...

Anyway, Bruckner is one of a kind. He did not take that much from any one before him, except for his other obsession named Wagner, and he did not influence (substantively) anyone after.

Parla

@Parla

1. Yes, Schubert is the acme of the Classical symphony. Bruckner is the Classical symphony on growth hormones! Despite the scale differences, I think the way they relate parts to the whole of the structure is similar, a sort of building-blocks approach. I also find the way they relate melodies to instrumental voices similar, especially the woodwinds.  I find all of Bruckner very singable.

2. Obviously Mahler has differences to Bruckner, but this doesn't mean there are not also similarities. I think they are both concerned with "volk-ishness" and the middle European landscape in a way few others are. In their most grandiose moments they have many stylistic similarities. Bruckner was Mahler's closest model for dealing with the large scale, though of course this was dramatically modified with the addition of operatic and programmatic elements.

3. It's a false dichotomy to say that Schubert and Mahler were earthy while Bruckner was religious. Schubert wrote religious works; Mahler was very much concerned with spiritual transcendence. Bruckner, for all his religious concerns, was a man and could only write as a man (one of his symphonies was nicknamed "The saucy maid"!).

4. Robert Simpson for one cited Bruckner as a great influence. Rautavaara 3rd is an "atonal Bruckner". Schnittke too acknowledges the master in his 3rd symphony (and also Nielsen - is this a hidden connection with Simpson?).

Parla,

I don't think anyone would claim that there weren't substantial differences between Bruckner and Mahler - differences in spirit, formal techniques, orchestration. But the similarities are there - and the obvious impact of Bruckner on Mahler. Mahler, remember, prepared a piano reduction of Bruckner 3 as a student and attended Bruckner concerts as a disciple. The Mahler symphony, especially the huge adagios, is just unthinkable without Bruckner and many commentators (Harnoncourt, for instance) believe that Bruckner's harmonic language was even more adventurous than Mahler's.

As for your teachers - "I grew up listening to my teachers and musicians claiming the huge differences of two composers and they fought either in favour of one or the other but never for both." Well, I suspect that is a somewhat out-of-date view. Appreciation of Bruckner and Mahler has move on a lot in the last thirty years and there are countless admirers of both - including many great conductors. In any case, what your beloved teachers believed is clearly irrelevant. 

Finally, it seems fairly obvious to me that Schubert's 9th is more or a less a Romantic symphony, despite the classical underpinnings: in scale, in its harmonic adventurousness, in spirit and feel as much as anything. Put it side by side with a typical Haydn symphony and you realise that you are now in a very different world. (It was written in 1828!) When Mendelssohn tried to put it on for the first time, there was practically a riot among the players because it was thought to be incomprehensible. 

I forgot to reply to this absurdity earlier:

Mendelssohn??!! Struggle with melody????!!!!

If there is one thing he did have a genius for it was melody - a gift as fine and unforced as Mozart's. Have you even listened to his work? Are there any finer melodies in the history of music than those in the violin concerto? One after the other, after the other, after the other - a continuous stream of wonderful, memorable melodies. Or what about Songs without Words - 48 miniatures, each with a terrific, knockout tune. Or the piano trios........

Parla, you have said some daft things over the months, but this really takes the biscuit.