Ask Dave: Do Bruckner's Symphonies Deserve Their Popularity?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 พ.ย. 2024
- Here's a question guaranteed to court a bit of controversy. What does it mean to be "popular" in the rarified world of classical music? What criteria make a work "deserving" of same? Let's explore this interesting issue as it applies to everyone's favorite cult composer.
Probably the greatest concert I ever attended was Karajan and Berlin in Berlin in 1981, performing the 5th. Fabulous live event, he and the orchestra were on fire. But, at the same time I was having a truly transcendental experience,the man next to me fell asleep…
I have played many Bruckner symphonies as a cellist. String players always whine about Bruckner because of the tremolos and endlessly repeated motives. I tend to think of it as a Zen experience, like fishing, so I usually enjoy it and am thankful that it distracts me from things I might be worrying about otherwise. It is almost like being in the audience except that you are actually playing the piece.
As a brass player after a performance of bruck i dont need to work out for the day
I took my son to a concert which included the 7th. He was just nine years old and I got lots of looks from the mostly ancient members of the audience. Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yakov Kreizberg. My son loved it. He hadn't learned that Bruckner isn't popular.
'Bruckner is not popular with listeners .. Bruckner doesn't sell .. ' 🤣
Why then are there so many DVDs on the market featuring this composer long before this, his bicentenary year? If these didn't 'sell' these simply wouldn't be there, yes it's that simple. Record companies and retail outlets exist to make money not to promote Bruckner or any other composer.
And yes of course Bruckner is not as universally 'popular' as, say, Mahler but he still often packs the concert halls that I have attended throughout the years.
Clearly things are maybe not the same in the US but even the US is not the whole world. As I type I am about to tune in to the Berlin Phil Digital Concert Hall for a repeat live concert of Bruckner 4 conducted by Harding, the first one being yesterday evening.
Sorry, Dave, but judging by the attendance at that first concert and the rapturous response at its conclusion Old Anton's music seemed pretty 'popular' with the punters to me! 😊
@@gezobel I think I bought most of them.... I take what Dave says about Mahler as generally true, but I still think Bruckner got to greater depths; maybe not to greater highs.
Just bought tickets to see Bruckner Nine and Te Deum in January in Atlanta. First time to hear his music live. Really looking forward to it.
In my experience of concert going Bruckner symphonies attract big audiences, which gives me great comfort to know that lots of people who are musically intelligent appreciate his music.
I started laughing when you talked about the violin motif on side 3 then turn to side 4 and they are still playing the same motif. I am still chuckling about it. 🤣😂
Popularity isn’t really something that’s deserved or undeserved. It happens, sometimes due to hype, but if it’s longterm then it’s because there is something inherently appealing about it. But asking questions about whether it’s “deserved” is to wonder about fairness, and there’s really nothing fair about taste. And at the end of the day, popularity simply means popular taste.
I remember when i lived in SF during the Blomstedt years, his Bruckner concerts were always sold out. I think the best one I attended was his Bruckner 5th that he took to the Salzburg Festival the following week (maybe in the late 80's). They did it to great acclaim -- but the European Press was dubious about the decision of an American Orchestra to play Bruckner in Austria.
Astonishing - I must be hard-core! Bruckner was my last conquest, when I ordered the Jochum box at your suggestion, Dave. They really are a law unto themselves, but, I gradually found it more pretentious to ignore them than to embrace the madness. Now, those fortissimi are all ear-worms I'm learning to identify with their numbers. No longer do I resent Bruckner's cold distancing or obvious structure - the music is such fun. All you have to do with Bruckner is sit down and strap yourself in for blast-off. When I was young I enjoyed the way Mahler hitches you up to a cart and then selects a hedge to drag you through backwards, but without the obsessive dwelling on motif. Once you realise Bruckner's symphonies are psychoactive homilies, it all becomes clear. Now, I love the way he restored a neo-Baroque clarity to what we are hearing. Prefiguring pop music, in a sense!
Wonderful comment. Couldn’t agree more.
@@alanmishael5013 thank you!
Fantastique insight about Mahler. Also right about Bruckner, which is why the great recordings (e.g., Jochum) go down so well with psychedelic drugs.
About ten years ago, after over thirty years of never listening to much Bruckner - and not being at all keen on what I had heard - someone (a Brucknerite, no doubt of the crazies school if not the cult) took me to task for my dismissiveness and beseeched me to try one more time. I dutifully spent a weekend with earphones on listening my way through symphonies 1-9, steeling myself for what I remembered as a barrage of disconnected loud sound blocks. Unexpectedly I became gripped and listened to more and more. I don't feel a need to listen to multiple versions and editions (though the difference in versions is sometimes marked and interesting and DH is both funny and illuminating on this topic) or to collect many new recordings. I took a few years to track down and listen to various historical and recent recordings and find I still listen to the ones I chose more often than I do to recordings of other composers. Presto streaming and DH’s recommendations have led me to keep discovering occasional new recordings I like (and steered me away from the odd horse-worthy ones). Bruckner live can be hit and miss and that can put people off. I’ve sat through a number of disheartening performances, particularly of the 7th. Hearing Skrowaczewski conduct the 8th at St Florian in ?2015 and then the 5th in London, however, was wonderful.
The shapes of the music can feel as though they somehow echo shapes within and, in some way, patterns fundamental to life and to being itself. Perhaps that is what makes some listeners who experience that - whether musicians or not - want to hear them again and again. I am not a very knowledgeable classical music lister or a musician or someone who writes about music and no doubt this way of describing things is rather clumsy and an invitation to debunking comments. But some of the music that Bruckner created, with its strange, at times halting and fractured, quality yet its almost addictive rhythms and patterns and its ability to take one on an extraordinary, unexpected journey perhaps renders the popularity question irrelevant to those who experience it that way.
Wonderful description!
Dave, you remain a national treasure. Within the world of classical music I feel like you are a friend. It's so rare that I get to have conversations about the music I love that outside of KUSC in southern California I can't have with anyone.... So thanks again - and I keep listening to YOU....
Thank you for an illuminating reply to a rather silly question.
In the 70’s I spent time as a student in Hamburg and Stuttgart, which both had substantial clans of Bruckner worshippers. I found the Bruckner hysteria wearing. But like many other students I went to the morning rehearsals on days when the big concert halls were featuring a Bruckner symphony. Attendance was free, but the audience was never more than a few dozen people, and they were mostly students of music rather than members of the Bruckner cult. Those rehearsals were usually straight run-throughs and what I experienced was a group of capable musicians going about their work like dedicated professionals. I learnt to appreciate Bruckner from those rehearsals. Attending the public concert, by contrast, was more like sitting through a church service because you were persuaded it would be good for your soul.
I love Bruckner's music and I found this to be a balanced perceptive analysis of this issue. Thanks David.
I love Bruckner, he is my favourite composer (and not just Austrian(!) composer either). So I suppose that makes me a sad, Bruckner crazy. I can live with that.
For me, its a tie between Bruckner and Sibelius. But if I had to take one symphonic work to a desert island, it would be Bruckner 9th. My psychologist assures me I am not crazy btw.
@@eddihaskell That's a great pairing, I love them both! Recently I came across program notes the composer Ingram Marshall wrote for John Adams' Naive and Sentimental Music, in which he relates that he and Adams 'had always admired -- somewhat secretly -- the epic scores of Bruckner, and those of Sibelius as well, not only for their deep brooding qualities, but also for their paradigms of Nature and amazingly resourceful use of the orchestra.'
Dave didn't say that loving Bruckner made you a cultist, though. I don't do cults or cult-think, but Bruckner is my favourite composer too; it doesn't have to exclude anyone else, after all; and I'm sure it doesn't for you any more than it does for me. Leavened with a bit of Chopin, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Brahms....
Bruckner is the composer that you want to go to the symphony concert to hear, but not the composer you want to take a date with to the symphony.
Rachmaninov for a date.
The 4th is date music. Maybe the 7th too. Other than that, you're spot on.
Funny you should say that. Once I took a date to hear Symphony No. 4 (Blomstedt conducting), and got a letter from her that she thoroughly enjoyed it 😁.
@@auffieopc4711 even if the 7th starts off slow, the finale is sufficiently peppy to get her spirits up.
After all that, the 5th is my fave.
A few years ago I organized a trip to Berlin for my wife's aunt and a few of her friends, who like music, mainly the popular stuff. When we looked at the Berlin Philharmonic program she said she'd like to go if there was something light, and lo and behold it was the Bruckner 7th (with Haitink in one of his last concerts). I said that there are lots of things that can be said about Bruckner, but "light" really isn't one of them. They went to the concert anyway, and absolutely loved it, mainly because of the amazing orchestral sound that Bruckner produces.
Yeah, having played rather a lot in orchestras when I was younger (as double bassist and as 'cellist), I can say that composers who really excelled at orchestration are so, so much more fun (for everyone in the orchestra) to play. Beethoven's orchestral music as total effect is great and interesting, but Cherubini's orchestral music (symphoniy, the wonderful overtures, instrumental presence in operas, etc.) is much more sheer FUN as well as nearly as emotional and monumentally grand as Beethoven, but orchestrally much more skillfully composed) is so rewarding to play is due to Cherubini's wonderful part-writing. Everyone has something musically nourishing and expressive, instrumentally authentic to the technic of each instrument, and rewarding to play. The overall effect is grand or amusing or strange or whatever the composer at particular moments strives for, but every instrumental part is beautifully crafited and layered so much more skillfully than what one gets in Beethoven. Cherubini is like playing Beethoven but with part-writing as superb as it is in Mozart's or Haydn's music.
This is such an interesting comment. I’ve never played in a classical ensemble, so what you say offers a fascinating peek behind the curtain. Out of curiosity, does the transport of the total effect never compensate for the lack of part-writing you find more fun to play? Or does playing the repertoire just drain that out of players? I mean, I love Cherubini. But when a Beethoven piece is played really well, the effect on me as a listener is overwhelming. Are orchestral musicians genuinely suffering for listeners’ pleasure? (Not that I think listeners will stop demanding Beethoven, of course. That would be an infamia.)
@@michaelmasiello6752 As a symphony violinist, may I offer the following: the Sibelius 5th contains a passage, miasmic in its effect, that is notorious among violinists for its rhythmic difficulty. I have played that that work several times over the course of a couple of decades, and in the most recent I still did not feel secure in that passage. Yet the 5th remains as one of my favorite symphonies, and overall I find it a joy to play.
My wife shared this podcast with me. I have been an avid fan of Bruckner ever since I heard his 4th and 8th symphonies on the radio almost 50 years ago. I played the trumpet in high school, so I am biased toward brass instruments. Bruckner is an acquired taste, but a nice change from the same old, same old. One problem is that Bruckner was a shy country boy, and most of his symphonies have a slow paced pastoral quality to them, which is challenging for today's fast paced listeners. I don't pay much attention to popularity. Vivaldi was forgotten for 200 years until the invention of the radio, and Korngold's gorgeous Die Tote Stadt, which we saw recently in Denver, may be the most beautiful opera that I have ever heard.
Bruckner's symphonies are poweful but unpretentious, deeply spiritual but naive. Their greatness lies in his perfect melding of these elements. Then, too, his music is just great to listen to!
I've been a Bruckner fanatic for a decade now. No other composer (apart from Bach) has held my complete confidence for such a long time. It has also tempted me to learn more late-romantic music, so it really opened up Elgar, Brahms and Mahler to me. But it's the quirkiness of Bruckner's personality that really makes me trust (or forgive) his every note. The only issue with him is how wildly live perfomances of his works can vary. An inspired conductor can make the ceiling melt, but others can really make you fall asleep. Oh well, I've slept in worse places.
for me too. I just listened to Bach ( almost everything he wrote is sublime) and Beethoven (some symphonies and concertos only) for years, and found Bruckner recently , He is the one that I missed for years
Bach is God , Bruckner and Beethoven are the two prophets. others are genuises and great figures in art history.
Dear Dave!
Thank you very much for answering my question. Your talk on the best Bruckner Symphony cycles is now placed at no 5 in order of popularity, so at least we who follow your channel seems to like to listen to his symphonies.
Best wishes Fred from Kristianstad
1:20 Yes Bruckner is promoted heavily in Japan to the point that his symphonies are sometimes broadcast on the Sunday evening classical music concert program on the educational channel of the state broadcaster (which people DO watch - it’s on basically channel 2). Mahler, Wagner, and Brahms are also heavily promoted. There is a sense that one “ought” to listen these Austro-German composers, and the Japanese culture is such that people do really care about what they “ought” to care about. And of course Furtwangler has a privileged spot in the Shibuya Tower Records. Yes, those still exist.
Dave’s Ya-da-da-da-da’s are hilarious.
that Tower Records in Shibuya/ Tokyo was quite an eye opener for me!
I was hinking that Bruckner is for the next generations coming in 200years. Japan is aheadof time and that's why Bruckner is there more . I just found him last month and could not not to think of his music, tht experience I had 20 years ago with Beethoven 9th and 3th
I have only heard Bruckner live a handful of times. He falls into a strange category that I actually prefer listening to him at home rather than in a concert hall. Giulini's recording of the eighth seems to get a lot of play in my neck of the woods.
I do love Bruckner but actually I only really know a few of his symphonies well (4-7-9) and the others less well. It's true his range is fairly narrow compared to other composers. His symphonies are very architectural - like cathedrals. And listening to them does require a high level of concentration. But his symphonies are amongst the very greatest - the power and emotion in them is extraordinary.
I got to know the 5th first, thanks to a young conductor who was batshit crazy about it. Maybe you'll want to try it next.
@commontater8630 I like this - hearing how people were first exposed to favorite pieces, how they reacted at first, did their feelings develop or change, etc.
I like the third. I have a Szell / Cleveland recording. Make sure to give it a listen, it is sweet and tuneful.
I have heard the other symphonies - just don't know them so well. But thanks for the recommendations.
I'm one of the rare "Bruckner motets" people, but that's because I have such a deep connection to them based on exposure. My choir used to do a lot of Bruckner because my old choir teacher was a fan (which is pretty common in Austria - he was Austrian, btw, not German). I think the motets are sublime but I've never been into his symphonies. Now, after watching this video, I think I'll try and give them another go.
Such an interesting video. I could listen to you talking forever, sir. So much interesting information and sensive considerations about music. Thank you very much!
Yes, Dave's videos here are amazing --- and relaxing. I follow his recommendations in building up my CD collection (I gave up on vinyl), and Dave is almost always right.
You're very welcome! Thank you for watching.
As a devout Brucknerian I appreciated hearing your refreshing and engagingly delivered frank assessment. Subscribed.
Thanks and welcome
Great and fun analysis, Dave! I really enjoy a bit of Bruckner from time to time (Wand, Jochum, etc.) but you're right - he's never going to draw the crowds like Mahler.
"Maybe some spot in Japan." LOL!
As a low brass musician in community type symphony orchestras for over 50 years, I'm a big Bruckner fan. But, for the reasons you've given, I've NEVER played a single Bruckner symphony. "Too hard," "Too boring," etc. I guess I have to live with that. But I guess I'm not a Bruckner cultist, because I can listen to and enjoy other composer's music. Even things that don't have low brass parts! I appreciate your insights!
Great reply. A lot of us feel the same way. Also - to your credit, you became familiar with Bruckner from listening! - not from playing it.
@@adrianleverkuehn9832 Listening and score study when I was in grad school.
Speaking about popularity I think that it could be interesting to make a video on Gregorian Chant, just a suggestion. Thank you David for all your dedication to this channel!!
Just discovered this channel and quite enjoying it. Primary feed stock for me is Beethoven, Mahler, Stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofiev.
I really enjoyed that, very interesting points, which I think are applicable to many composers actually really made me think and you have a great sense of humour keep these coming. Thank you
Thank you! What is also interesting is the lack of discernible shape or form that I believe irked, among others, Brahms who called the symphonies "symphonic giant snakes". I am not aware of similarly shapeless movements until the 20th century
His music is not shapeless at all. It has a very special but logical sense of form.
"Symphonische Riesenschlangen" was coined by Eduard Hanslick, the renowned (and equally feared, especially by Bruckner) Vienna music critic. Brahms was not really known for disrespecting other composers publicly in such a way (unlike, say, Hugo Wolf). If he disagreed with them, he expressed it more subtly.
An interesting question, and one that I don't mean to answer with a sarcastic tone. But it doesn't matter if they deserve their popularity. My local library got the Karajan versions on Deutsche Grammophon, and out of curiosity I began to listen to these - at first seduced by the wonderful sound - especially of the Fifth. This encouraged repeated listening and I found that these works were becoming familiar. As with most other composers, liking one work likely meant that one would like the others, and I found that I developed an appreciation for all of them. Of course Karajan didn't do them all, so I began to listen to other conductors also. Do these works need to be recorded so much? Why not? It's great music and if people want it, let them have it.
This was great, Dave. I’m in the minority-I love Bruckner-but I am emphatically not in the cult. We are definitely at the point when I roll my eyes when there’s some scarf-worthy new ur-ur-urtext recording by, oh, I don’t know, Simon Rattle. We have fabulous versions of everything he wrote worth hearing. Every once in a while, we get something like the Poschner 8th, and I add it to the pile, but the glut of new recordings strikes me as generally horseworthy. But I cherish my recordings of his symphonies and his sacred music. And I wish more great chamber ensembles would record the string quintet.
I saw a superb Bruckner 2 at the Chicago Symphony with Muti last year. I chose it specifically for the piece (I do believe it was an exchange for a covid cancelation). But I am most definitely ensconsed within the insular bubble.
You mentioned Mahler in your talk and it made me think. Each Mahler symphony is unique. Each one says something different. But, for me (and I do like Bruckner) much of Bruckner has a sameness about it.
I like your comment. Some listeners experience it differently. Yes, probably all of us hear the traits common to Bruckner's symphonies. But my own personal, emotional reaction to each symphony is very distinct. Some listeners I've spoken to feel the same way. I admit that this isn't "musicological" fact.
Listeners who feel this difference between the symphonies are usually the ones who have spent a lot of time listening to each symphony - and that IS a lot of time.
Other people prefer to spend their time with other music. May we all live long and prosper.
I agree that the differences between the individual Mahler symphonies are much bigger in comparison, but I would suggest - entirely subjectively, of course - that Bruckner's symphonies offer more consistent quality.
For me personally, Bruckner's symphonies offer alternative perspectives on something highly spiritual. To me, they are like looking at a magnificent monument in a different light and from various angles.
I head to San Francisco in June to hear the S.F. Orchestra do Bruckner's 4th!
This is an astute observation about writing concert works that solo performers will play regularly. Even Mahler will not attain the popularity I (strongly) feel he deserves, because he never wrote something as simultaneously transcendent but accessible as a Bach prelude. There is a reason non classical listeners all know the first cello suite prelude. Is it his greatest piece? No. But it is divine, and easily experienced. Loved the video, thank you.
Dave, perfect timing for this video. Yesterday afternoon I saw a performance of Bruckner's 6th in a barely three quarters full Verizon Hall in Philadelphia. I am a longtime subscriber but would have bought an extra ticket just to hear the symphony. May I respectively refer you to my related comment about this performance under your Bruckner 6th Video? i think you would enjoy reading. it. Thanks, Glenn.
Thank you. I saw your comment.
As Dave notes, Bruckner isn't particularly popular. He is getting a little more play these days, but remains more of a niche composer. I think it's fair to say that Bruckner is an acquired taste. Personally, I enjoy most of his music, but I can understand why others might not.
Bruckner is the only composer whose music I thoroughly disliked the first time I heard it (7th Symphony). I was 16 or 17 at the time and I had hardly scraped the surface of the repertoire as a new listener. I hated the thought that I had wasted my precious few dollars on an album that I disliked, so I kept on listening time and time again until I just gave up on it. My encounters with Bruckner in the 40+ years since haven't changed my mind. There is something about the music that just grates on me. The love some people have for Bruckner baffles me because there is nothing about the music that I find the slightest bit appealing. But their love is genuine, and if Bruckner's music brings them joy, who am I to question it?
I agree. I want to like it, and I go back from time to time hoping it will click. But it never does. To my ears, Bruckner is extremely tedious and not well composed.
Here’s an ASK DAVE suggestion: I was recently scrolling through some of the great living composers and realized, sadly, that many of them are really getting on in years. Other favorites, like Kapustin and Penderecki, are gone now. As a critic with vast knowledge of classics today, whom do you see as representing the future of this designation, “classical”? Do you have a sort of “Top 10 under 50”?
I really don't. We can't judge--we just observe and keep on listening.
When I was a callow youth, I hated Bruckner.....but as I got older I found that a lived life changes one's perspective. Is Bruckner for old people? Let me listen to the ancient Gunter Wand conduct the eighth and ninth symphonies while I ponder that question.
Another very interesting and funny video thanks! To dig up a previous discussion from a while ago, Bruckner isn't usually 'entertaining' but Pachabell definitely is. I mean I broadly agree that talking about 'deserving' popularity is not really a helpful way to talk about the issue, yet at the same time there must be some reason Doritos are better (or worse) than other snacks. They didn't just become popular 'by mistake' right. For me the 8th/9th are just astounding pieces of music, sublime as you say. I once took a girl on a date to a Bruckner symphony...big mistake, it didn't work out, although she was into post-rock for which I think there's some similarity with Bruckner.
Mahler said that Bruckner was half genius and half stupid and he was generous with the “half genius “ part. Bruckner can be called the father of the minimalistic music because he repeats soooo much 😂.
I do like his String Quintet. Unlike his symphonies it holds my attention throughout.
Brilliant answer.
I remember Bruckner back to the 1960s - not popular then but great. I remember a Sunday afternoon AM radio broadcast in the 1950s - I'll never forget that Adagio - like a mirror of my mind. His greatness has nothing to do with his popularity.
I am just a listener. Not even a musician. I have only just in the past few days started listening to him (Jochum performances), and I must say I hated what I heard, with a passion. But then I got curious and looked up online the reasons people like Bruckner and found an amazing post that first lists all of the things I hate and how the author hates them too and then all the things that make his music amazing. I am not sure I agree with any of his sentiments in the 2nd half of his posts, but I decided to persevere more as a result. Yesterday I listened to the 8th. Didn't think much of the first movement. The 2nd started to see like maybe he had something to him. But it was the 3rd and 4th movements that won me over. While I like the symphony, I'd rate 5 or so Mahler symphonies above it, but am so happy I did find a symphony I enjoy from Bruckner and hope I can open my mind to the others. I don't go to classical concerts, but even if I absolutely loved Bruckner, I would not go to a performance of this. Even listening to him at home I prefer small bite sized portions.
I'm one of the Brucker cultists, and, boy, are you right about us! Most of us belong in a mental asylum.
I believe there's something about Bruckner's music that appeals to people on the autistic spectrum. Before someone accuses me of disability shaming, I have asperger's myself, and I'm convinced that Bruckner had it, too.
Your explanation of why Bruckner is being recorded so much now makes total sense. So which composer do you think will be next in the "hurry up and record this" parade?
I really don't know. Bruckner may be the last of his type.
I for one wish Buckner were included in my orchestra’s season more regularly. I would clamor to go! People just don’t know.
I must be weird because I'm in no way a classical music scholar (more folk and rock) but I love Bruckner, all the symphonies (maybe #1 not so much) and have more than 1 version of most of them.
Same here. I'm not the world's biggest classical fan, but I absolutely love Bruckner.
Just listened to Jarvi conducting the 1st and realise I have no idea what I'm talking about. I love all NINE Bruckners!!
@@chantlerbc As you should! The 1st is awesome.
“Maybe some spot in Japan” seems to be the motto of every record executive…
and I love Bruckner
Horowitz's response when asked about Bruckner was, " It's sooo long !"
I'm not a Bruckner cultist - honest. But of all the composers I know, he has probably aroused deeper emotions in me than any other; the same was never true of my late landlady, who tended to bury her head in a cushion when she heard me playing him; I made some progress with her when she heard his string quartets, but it didn't last. Or I probably mean just quartet.
But! Here's the thing - I just love classical music: all the ones you mention and more. The very last thing I should want is to be subjected to round the clock Bruckner (or Mahler, or Beethoven): and the idea of studying him academically, ploughing through what was Bruckner, what was Novack/Nowack (whatever) is such as to leave me contemplating a long walk along a very short pier. On which point though - I think Bruckner's judgement was a hell of a lot better - eventually - than that of those who tried to publicize his music, however genuine their intentions. Bruckner remains, if I have a favourite, my favourite composer - whatever that really means; but a solid diet of Brucknerian grandeur is too much. My landlady, by the way, was anything but an ignoramus on the musical front (or any other); she said, I paraphrase - he leads you right up the path to just before the top of the mountain, then - leaves you there! He kills his climaxes! - and I did see her point.
Every artist who is popular deserves to be popular (of course many times in their own niche and not universal). Popularity just means many people enjoy their art and doesn't have anything to do with its inherent qualities (which is again totally subjective). You can absolutely have your own opinion on any artistic work or its impact, but you should never get all worked up when other people do not agree with that opinion.
Given your conclusion that "popularity" is effectively meaningless, what are your thoughts on the notion of "accessibility" -- a word that didn't come up in this video but might inspire a video of its own. What makes music accessible?
Thanks you for your insightful comments. Do yourself a favour and listen to “Locus Iste” performed by the Universitätschor München here on TH-cam. Excellent music for a Sunday evening. I
I'm often frustrated by my local symphony at how difficult it is to figure out what the famous soloist will play at their concert. The marketing really is just "come see the famous soloist play . . . something!"
I love Bruckner, but his symphonies do not seem popular with orchestras. So far I've only had a chance to hear the 9th live.
I suspect that Bruckner is more respected than loved. The opposite may be said of Mahler. Why the two Austrian composers are lumped together is a mystery. Did they ever meet in Vienna?
My theory is that it's because they're both Austrian composers of roughly the same period who wrote massive, effusive late romantic symphonies. Other than that, I don't see that they have much in common.
Yes ! Bruckner and Mahler met many times. Mahler knew Bruckner's music very well. He conducted the first performance of Bruckner's 6th symphony (whith cuts).
Mahler revered Bruckner and built upon his work, along with that of other predecessors. But more to your question Bruckner is probably the one composer whose symphonies link Mahler with earlier Austro-German tradition. It doesn’t mean his music is “good” (that’s just subjective taste) but it can help you understand where Mahler was coming from.
They both deal with the question of God, and that deserves popularity imo because that is a totally broad concept.
The two maintained a cordial relationship long after their first meeting at the Vienna Conservatory in the late 1870's when Mahler was a student there. They held each other in high regard and Mahler made it a point to visit him and pay his respects whenever in Vienna until Bruckner died in 1896.
Trivia: what famous playwright has a line in one of his works about how middle aged men like to listen to Bruckner together?
Interesting comment. As teenagers and young adults, my circle of friends listened together to recordings of Bruckner, Mahler and other long pieces. Then we got full-time jobs and had KIDS. So group listening to long recordings was a spontaneous YOUTH activity, not something that busy "middle-aged men" could possibly find time for! Though we all miss it.
None of my friends listen to Bruckner with me and I probably have left middle age already since I am a boomer. But since I am a virtual reality freak and gamer (seriously), my friends say things like "you seem older than everyone here. Are you like 28 or something?".
Anton Bruckner is Classical Music for people who listen to Classical Music. He is an acquired taste and not particularly accessible to the average listener. Part of the problem lies with the music itself - it is incredibly one-dimensional in scope, variety, and form (Bruckner would likely be the first to agree). By comparison, we might say a composer like Gustav Mahler is easily six or seven dimensions removed. The scope, variety, form, and musical language of Mahler's music is comparatively much greater, more eclectic, and imbued with deep philosophical underpinnings.
But does that mean that Bruckner's Symphonies do not deserve their popularity? On the contrary, many of my greatest experiences have been with the music of Anton Bruckner. And the older I get, the more I realize his climaxes and finales are even more satisfying than..... composers who write multi-dimensionally! You can even argue the fact that it is a testament to his genius that Bruckner wrote with such a narrow scope. His music is refined, vibrant, and deeply satisfying.
Perhaps the very fact that Bruckner isn't as multi-dimensional as some of the other composers uniquely qualifies his place in the repertoire and concert hall today.
I love Bruckner's inner movements but half the time I don't get what he's driving at in the outer ones. But the big climaxes with the brass are mightily impressive. I don't think any symphony of Bruckner comes into the unkillable category. Koussevitzky once did the 8th in Boston and cut it down to something just over 50 minutes. The only untouched mvt was the scherzo. A terrible thing to mutilate it that way, you say, but oddly it still made structural sense! Which might tell us something about Bruckner. I can't imagine cutting a Mahler symphony that way.
At the risk of being a terrible snob...I can tell who is going to like Bruckner and who isn't. There are some people who don't have a childlike sense of wonder and a certain unworldliness. They just don't take to Bruckner. I call them small-souled people. Often status conscious folks.
You didn't risk it, you fell over the edge. That was pretty obnoxious.
@@DavesClassicalGuide I frequently feel the same about your commentary. However, I still appreciate it!
I think this was pretty well put, actually. Some people might read your comment as (obnoxiously) implying that everyone who dislikes Bruckner is 'small-souled'. But of course that's not what you said.
I'd like to ask if a recording company releases symphonies one by one until the entire collection is complete and then re-releases them again as a box set, should you anticipate this and, if you expect this to happen, would it be better not to buy them separately and wait for the box set instead?
It is not important the popularity of a composer. If you like and really enjoy their music then continue to do so. Fortunately, here were I live, there is always Bruckner symphonies annually played. So it is good. Brahms is extremely popular and rightfully so, but I cannot get his music. I get bored, but it is a simple personal taste matter. It is the same with every artistic endeavor.
I'm acquainted with a cellist and violist with the Detroit Symphony who would certainly agree with your comments regarding string parts in Bruckner's symphonies... boring!
I think #4 carries a certain mood of medieval chilvalry which reaches into the collective subconscious and hence it's deserved popularity.
'medieval chilvalry'? I'd call that a bit of an oxymoron!
Then, you're mistaken. Its a pleonasm, not an oxymoron.@@commontater8630
I've never thought of Bruckner as popular. The symphonies are long and, as you point out, not as much fun and less various than Mahler within a score. You have to buckle in with Bruckner.
Personally, I currently prefer the cantata Helgoland and the String Quintet to most of the symphonies, but that may just be due to my need of a break from the symphonies. To me, they fall into the same category as Wagner's Ring. They're a bit of a chore, and I like them too much to listen to them out of duty.
I do really think that they deserve their popularity because, for instance, one of them, the seventh, was used by Italian film director Luchino Visconti as a soundtrack for his masterpiece movie Senso!
Strange logic.
@@commontater8630 It’s a sensitive, grounded and aware logic
It is all summed up in the first minute. Bruckner is not popular. It is popular among Bruckner listeners.
the reason why Bruckner is not popular with "listeners" is because most have bad taste in music.
My view of Bruckner is that he didn't have very much to say but he said it very loud and at very great length.