The Bruckner symphonies have been a part of my life for over 25 years. I know them all pretty well. Over the years I have acquired multiple recordings of each of them. I've also seen several concert performances played by top tier orchestra's.and conductors. Bruckner's music is as deep as the oceans. All it requires is patience and a will to listen. Forget about time and immerse yourself in it. The music grows more rewarding for me over time, as it surely does for many people. It has a timelessness about it, combining power and spiritual depth of feeling. I enjoyed this presentation very much. Though it is more of a starter for those less familiar with Bruckner's symphonies, it reminded me of why I love the music so much. Thank you!
@@zogzog1063 For the 4th, if you want a slower, powerful version the Wand BPO on RCA is great. If you want it more relaxed and perfectly idiomatic, Bohm and the VPO. However, if you like a more urgent approach with the orchestra going for broke, Barenboim Chicago is the ultimate. It's fast, yes but unrelentingly engaging. If you want really slow, i mean slower than anyone, try Celibidache on EMI. You'll either lose it or hate it. I'll be back for my thoughts on the rest. I work an 80 hour week. Not enough time to spit.
That was a brave effort - to compile a program on such a massive amount of wonderful music. I bought my first Bruckner LP (#6) on a sale, and have been a lover of his music for about 65 years. Thank you!
Never had a problem with any Bruckner symphony, loved them all, with the one exception of the 9th which came as a huge initial shock ... I later came to regard it as arguably his greatest (some accolade given the mighty competition) even if unfinished. Cannot understand those who have 'difficulty' with this composer I've a lot more trouble appreciating, say, Brahms.
Agreed. Listening to a Bruckner symphony is almost a spiritual experience for me. I have never understood why some people find him difficuilt or 'unapproachable'. This is highly rewarding music to listen to.
@@packer812 Hi! Bruckner is BY FAR my favourite symphonic composer EVER. I listened a lot of symphonic music from 1800-1960, and I couldn’t find a composer so reliable in his symphonic output. Symphonies from 4th to 9th are all gigantic masterpieces, and I love’em all. They are amazingly melodic, polyphonic and incredibly well structurated. Bruckner changed forever my approach to classical music. Today, composers such as Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and many others, they all seem to me so simple and predictable, in one word, useless. BUT....some parts in Bruckner’s symphonies are REALLY difficult to understand, and require many listenings to become a spiritual journey like you said (and it’s the same for me!!!). And many people simply don’t have time or patience to give Bruckner a second chance, or a third, or a fourth. And so they prefer the easy composers, like Mozart or Brahms. Poor them :-)
I too find Brahms more difficult: I find the music less colourful (particularly the orchestration where the strings always seem to be playing and dominating the texture) and the tautness of the writing actually makes it hard for me to work out where we are in the individual movements: the episodic nature of Bruckner's formal elements helps me keep track of how much we have had and how much is left (important in managing expectations. Brahms' movements are shorter but they sound longer to me! I cannot say I have ever enjoyed a performance of his 3rd symphony: it's prbably more formally perfect than Bruckner's 3rd but it just seems dull in comparison. I prefer his concertos to his symphonies.
Symphony No.0 "Nullte" was actually composed in 1869 - between Symphonies 1 and 2. Bruckner called it "annulliert", meaning cancelled or revoked - that is why it is called "Nullte".
. . and not zero at all. it seems the German is mistranslated. i must check with a German friend of mine it struck me as odd that the maker of this vid thought that anyone would set out to compose a number zero
Thank you for this introduction! There is quite few videos on trying to explain Bruckner. I might have some critique though. Why really being hang up by the version question!? For someone new to Bruckner, that’s awful to hear and not even relevant. Why not concentrating on some other things - like his writing in blocks, and where his power comes from - for example his rhythms, him piling up layers of motives/ostinati and so on. His unique sonata forms. His way to orchestrate. That’s nice to know, before you would like to start Bruckner - and not, that there are Versions... Not interesting at the start at all. You want to help people to unlock things and tell them, what they can explore later listening. Comparing versions is something for some nerds... ;)
Right on. Probably first few minutes is just on version details which is for experts and not interesting anyway. Just mentioning that there are various versions of symphonies 1, 2,3, etc is sufficient.
I think the commentary gave the impression that the first version of the 8th was the one preferred overall by conductors and musicologists: nothing could be further from the truth - the later version is the one you will find in most concert programmes and recordings and, in my opinion, with full justification. The earlier version is clunky and the changes to its form and the rewritten transitions in the later version could only have been written by Bruckner. The modulations in the lead-ins to the cardinal points sound, surprisingly, given the chronology, much more natural in the later version - as though they had always been intended to sound that way (e.g. the recapitulation in the 1st movement). I would never dream of recommending the earlier version to anyone new to this work. I am happy with either the Haas or Nowak editions of that later version. Haas reinstated some deleted passages from the earlier version. The work sounds fine without them as in the Nowak edition but they are lovely, they add to the experience (there was no artistic reason to delete those particular passages, to my mind) and you get a few more extra minutes of delicious music. It's having one's cake and eating it.
I have met some people who prefer the first version: one included the widow of the composer Tintner but that is the version her late husband recorded so she may have been influenced by personal loyalty! I think they are wrong and that the revised version is far superior. The Haas version is my guilty pleasure as the earlier version did have some nice extra bars Bruckner cut out of the revision unnecessarily and which are nice to have back.
This video is amazing. My one complaint is that I feel like the Vienna philharmonic played the coda from the 8th like an amateur high school orchestra.
This video needs an addendum. The nullified Symphony in d-Minor is not the next symphony he wrote after his study symphony! It was written AFTER the 1st and before the 2nd Symphony. It's kind of an embarassement that people talking about Bruckner still make that mistake.
My understanding was that it was started before the 1st but completed after it. Do you know if that belief has now been conclusively debunked by more recent evidence?
The opening tempo is difficult to judge. Klemperer and Celibidache were among the slowest; Stein and Sawallisch were among the fastest. I prefer Haitink's moderate, steady approach, best heard in his live 2017 Bavarian RSO recording.
Based on these samples, I'm going to cherry pick the Horst Stein 2nd and 6th and the Bohm 3rd and 4th. There are plenty of good used Decca and London LP's on the used market. I have Abbado's more recent 1891 Vienna 1st and I'm among the minority who prefers that version.
Know that this talk focuses mostly on the various Bruckner editions. Newcomers or those seeking the heart of these towering works should look elsewhere. I think you should not worry, initially, about editions; just let the music work its magic.
Solti's version of the 8th... Where to start? I'll start with what I love about it: the tempo is great! It is really easy to go slowly in the end, but this Finale always seemed to want to move forward for me, instead of back... Alright, now with what I absolutely HATE about it: it is completely the wrong sound!!! This is Bruckner's 8th, not Wagner's RING!!! Then, what on earth was Solti doing in rehearsals?? It sounds completely disjointed between the brass and the strings!!! It really is a huge problem once you know the piece well and enjoy it, to hear it being murdered like that...
in my personal opinion that ending of the 8th is just rushed, there is no chance of discovering all the themes again and what i think is most unfitting to the scale, i always imagine the size of the room, in which the symphonies of Bruckner should be performed, as big churches and the fast tempo would completely kill it in rooms of that scale.
@@mediolanumhibernicus3353 No. As coined by John Berke, the "Bruckner moment" is that epiphany in our our teens or whenever when we first hear this music and experience something akin to a seizure. It is intensely subjective and spontaneous and couldn't have less to do with a temporal cultural whim.
Would you care to tell us some examples of passages you consider to be dross? I'm not challenging your opinion: I just wanted to appreciate where you are coming from. Were any of those passages featured in this video? Only one example springs to mind for me: it's in the middle of the imcomplete finale of the 9th when, after the big fugue, a build-up over a pedal point featured simple and bland harmony leading to a new, undistinguished, halting and repetitive theme introduced during the development and finishing with a pause bar after what sound like wrong notes! I cannot help feeling he would have revised this out of existence had he lived.
Bruckner’s symphonies will quench the dryness of the soul
The Bruckner symphonies have been a part of my life for over 25 years. I know them all pretty well. Over the years I have acquired multiple recordings of each of them. I've also seen several concert performances played by top tier orchestra's.and conductors. Bruckner's music is as deep as the oceans. All it requires is patience and a will to listen. Forget about time and immerse yourself in it. The music grows more rewarding for me over time, as it surely does for many people. It has a timelessness about it, combining power and spiritual depth of feeling.
I enjoyed this presentation very much. Though it is more of a starter for those less familiar with Bruckner's symphonies, it reminded me of why I love the music so much. Thank you!
I could not formulate my experience with Bruckner better than you did!
Do you have recommendations for the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 9th? TIA
@@zogzog1063 For the 4th, if you want a slower, powerful version the Wand BPO on RCA is great. If you want it more relaxed and perfectly idiomatic, Bohm and the VPO.
However, if you like a more urgent approach with the orchestra going for broke, Barenboim Chicago is the ultimate. It's fast, yes but unrelentingly engaging. If you want really slow, i mean slower than anyone, try Celibidache on EMI.
You'll either lose it or hate it.
I'll be back for my thoughts on the rest. I work an 80 hour week. Not enough time to spit.
So, so true!
I feel exactly the same!
@@zogzog1063Sir George Solti’s version of the 3rd symphony is the best one. As for the 6th, 7th and 9th, I couldn’t say.
What an underrated series you're putting on here. Thank you so much Mr. Abbott.
'Once immersed in the sound world of a Bruckner symphony' - there is no escape!
My favorite composer.
That was a brave effort - to compile a program on such a massive amount of wonderful music. I bought my first Bruckner LP (#6) on a sale, and have been a lover of his music for about 65 years. Thank you!
Never had a problem with any Bruckner symphony, loved them all, with the one exception of the 9th which came as a huge initial shock ... I later came to regard it as arguably his greatest (some accolade given the mighty competition) even if unfinished. Cannot understand those who have 'difficulty' with this composer I've a lot more trouble appreciating, say, Brahms.
Agreed. Listening to a Bruckner symphony is almost a spiritual experience for me. I have never understood why some people find him difficuilt or 'unapproachable'. This is highly rewarding music to listen to.
i love the 7th, 6th, 8th, and 5th in that order.
@@packer812 Hi! Bruckner is BY FAR my favourite symphonic composer EVER. I listened a lot of symphonic music from 1800-1960, and I couldn’t find a composer so reliable in his symphonic output. Symphonies from 4th to 9th are all gigantic masterpieces, and I love’em all. They are amazingly melodic, polyphonic and incredibly well structurated. Bruckner changed forever my approach to classical music. Today, composers such as Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and many others, they all seem to me so simple and predictable, in one word, useless. BUT....some parts in Bruckner’s symphonies are REALLY difficult to understand, and require many listenings to become a spiritual journey like you said (and it’s the same for me!!!). And many people simply don’t have time or patience to give Bruckner a second chance, or a third, or a fourth. And so they prefer the easy composers, like Mozart or Brahms. Poor them :-)
@@packer812 Short attention spans, I suppose
I too find Brahms more difficult: I find the music less colourful (particularly the orchestration where the strings always seem to be playing and dominating the texture) and the tautness of the writing actually makes it hard for me to work out where we are in the individual movements: the episodic nature of Bruckner's formal elements helps me keep track of how much we have had and how much is left (important in managing expectations. Brahms' movements are shorter but they sound longer to me! I cannot say I have ever enjoyed a performance of his 3rd symphony: it's prbably more formally perfect than Bruckner's 3rd but it just seems dull in comparison. I prefer his concertos to his symphonies.
19'56" the end of the 5th symphony - beyond awesome ... there are no words
Thank you - very interesting and unpretentious coverage. Rare (unfortunately) on classical videos!
Symphony No.0 "Nullte" was actually composed in 1869 - between Symphonies 1 and 2. Bruckner called it "annulliert", meaning cancelled or revoked - that is why it is called "Nullte".
. . and not zero at all. it seems the German is mistranslated. i must check with a German friend of mine
it struck me as odd that the maker of this vid thought that anyone would set out to compose a number zero
Wonderful job. Thank you very much!
Our pleasure!
The 7th was first produced in Leipzig by Arthur Nikisch, not Herman Levi.
Fantastic, really well produced, hope to see more stuff like this
Superb introduction....and presentation...much appreciated from Niagara Canada
Great video!
In the name of the Bach, the Bruckner, and the Glorious Wagner.
Amen.
Very helpful.
Thank you!
Bruckner said 'The Sixth is the cheekiest'.
Thank you for this introduction! There is quite few videos on trying to explain Bruckner.
I might have some critique though. Why really being hang up by the version question!? For someone new to Bruckner, that’s awful to hear and not even relevant. Why not concentrating on some other things - like his writing in blocks, and where his power comes from - for example his rhythms, him piling up layers of motives/ostinati and so on. His unique sonata forms. His way to orchestrate. That’s nice to know, before you would like to start Bruckner - and not, that there are Versions... Not interesting at the start at all.
You want to help people to unlock things and tell them, what they can explore later listening. Comparing versions is something for some nerds... ;)
Right on. Probably first few minutes is just on version details which is for experts and not interesting anyway. Just mentioning that there are various versions of symphonies 1, 2,3, etc is sufficient.
What no mention of the “Bruckner Rhythm “ ?
Thats what I thought too. The author forgot to mention (more than) one thing, where that energy in Bruckners music comes from...
Bam bam yhump yhump yhump
I think the commentary gave the impression that the first version of the 8th was the one preferred overall by conductors and musicologists: nothing could be further from the truth - the later version is the one you will find in most concert programmes and recordings and, in my opinion, with full justification. The earlier version is clunky and the changes to its form and the rewritten transitions in the later version could only have been written by Bruckner. The modulations in the lead-ins to the cardinal points sound, surprisingly, given the chronology, much more natural in the later version - as though they had always been intended to sound that way (e.g. the recapitulation in the 1st movement). I would never dream of recommending the earlier version to anyone new to this work.
I am happy with either the Haas or Nowak editions of that later version. Haas reinstated some deleted passages from the earlier version. The work sounds fine without them as in the Nowak edition but they are lovely, they add to the experience (there was no artistic reason to delete those particular passages, to my mind) and you get a few more extra minutes of delicious music. It's having one's cake and eating it.
For the record the revised version of the 8th is definitely more popular than the original and I’ve never met anyone who prefers the original
I have met some people who prefer the first version: one included the widow of the composer Tintner but that is the version her late husband recorded so she may have been influenced by personal loyalty!
I think they are wrong and that the revised version is far superior. The Haas version is my guilty pleasure as the earlier version did have some nice extra bars Bruckner cut out of the revision unnecessarily and which are nice to have back.
@@MrBulky992 Yes! Guilty pleasure is a perfect way to describe the Haas version, I completely agree with you. I love that version.
This video is amazing. My one complaint is that I feel like the Vienna philharmonic played the coda from the 8th like an amateur high school orchestra.
Poor Anton Bruckner, thinking he was somehow less of a composer than Richard Wagner.
This video needs an addendum. The nullified Symphony in d-Minor is not the next symphony he wrote after his study symphony! It was written AFTER the 1st and before the 2nd Symphony.
It's kind of an embarassement that people talking about Bruckner still make that mistake.
My understanding was that it was started before the 1st but completed after it. Do you know if that belief has now been conclusively debunked by more recent evidence?
That’s a very fast tempo from Horst Stein for the opening of the 6th. Seems to lose some majesty. Perhaps I’m wrong. Never thought of it that way.
The opening tempo is difficult to judge. Klemperer and Celibidache were among the slowest; Stein and Sawallisch were among the fastest. I prefer Haitink's moderate, steady approach, best heard in his live 2017 Bavarian RSO recording.
Based on these samples, I'm going to cherry pick the Horst Stein 2nd and 6th and the Bohm 3rd and 4th. There are plenty of good used Decca and London LP's on the used market. I have Abbado's more recent 1891 Vienna 1st and I'm among the minority who prefers that version.
I love the 5th*s slow movement, but I keep having problems with the rest of the 5th (in particular the “cuckoo” ostinato)
Very tricky composer to bring across. I can see why he is deemed risky.
Know that this talk focuses mostly on the various Bruckner editions. Newcomers or those seeking the heart of these towering works should look elsewhere. I think you should not worry, initially, about editions; just let the music work its magic.
Solti's version of the 8th... Where to start? I'll start with what I love about it: the tempo is great! It is really easy to go slowly in the end, but this Finale always seemed to want to move forward for me, instead of back... Alright, now with what I absolutely HATE about it: it is completely the wrong sound!!! This is Bruckner's 8th, not Wagner's RING!!! Then, what on earth was Solti doing in rehearsals?? It sounds completely disjointed between the brass and the strings!!! It really is a huge problem once you know the piece well and enjoy it, to hear it being murdered like that...
in my personal opinion that ending of the 8th is just rushed, there is no chance of discovering all the themes again and what i think is most unfitting to the scale, i always imagine the size of the room, in which the symphonies of Bruckner should be performed, as big churches and the fast tempo would completely kill it in rooms of that scale.
This series is a promising idea, however on TH-cam you need more video. Sounds like a podcast. There's nothing to see!
A very good summary of a very challenging composer, my least favourite along with Wagner.
With all due respect, you completely overlook the so called "Bruckner moment".
You mean the Bruckner Apotheosis?
@@mediolanumhibernicus3353 No. As coined by John Berke, the "Bruckner moment" is that epiphany in our our teens or whenever when we first hear this music and experience something akin to a seizure. It is intensely subjective and spontaneous and couldn't have less to do with a temporal cultural whim.
Who said it had anything to do with a temporary cultural whim?
And please, what is a 'temporary cultural whim?'
@@mediolanumhibernicus3353 I thought I said temporal?
Bruckner's symphonies can be summed up as follows. Flashes of supreme brilliance, interspersed with long periods of absolute dross.
Was?! Mann, sind deine Ohren tot.
Could only be said by someone who dines regularly at McDonalds. Bon appetit!
@mediolanumhibernicus3353 McDonalds do an excellent milkshake, and their in-house music is preferable to Mr B's!
@@Rog5446 Precisely dear. It's much more your thing. Enjoy!
Would you care to tell us some examples of passages you consider to be dross? I'm not challenging your opinion: I just wanted to appreciate where you are coming from. Were any of those passages featured in this video?
Only one example springs to mind for me: it's in the middle of the imcomplete finale of the 9th when, after the big fugue, a build-up over a pedal point featured simple and bland harmony leading to a new, undistinguished, halting and repetitive theme introduced during the development and finishing with a pause bar after what sound like wrong notes! I cannot help feeling he would have revised this out of existence had he lived.
You could of done a better job, for the info I may be better off reading a book on music appreciation, a very poorly develop needs work.
Essentially, it’s a podcast .The content is pretty good as an entry- point into Bruckner .
Naah! You cant read about music. Its like reading about wine.