Slow but Steady: Appreciating Bruckner in the Sound-Bite Era

We are growing quite fond of Bruckner here in Indianapolis. Our Music Director, Mario Venzago, has generally programmed one of his symphonies each year over the past several seasons. He has said many times that one of his proudest accomplishments has been creating with the ISO the warm sound that is unique to Bruckner, instead of having the orchestra just approach the music as if it were a derivative of Mahler.

If I can be allowed a shameless plug, you can hear the ISO's most recent Bruckner performance (the 8th) at www.InstantEncore.com/IndianapolisSymphony.

The audience responded enthusiastically to that performance - with five curtain calls. Indianapolis is quickly becoming a Bruckner city! Next season, we perform Bruckner 1 (the 1891 revision).

I have loved Bruckner since I was a teenager. When I listen to his music, I feel as though I am no longer on
earth.
However, his music is not always "slow".
The scherzos are highly propulsive and earthy, and the finales often highly urgent.
Some, but by no means all performances
are simply too slow. Just listen to
Furtwangler's recordings, which are often
filled with nervous energy.

More than 30 years ago during a visit to that FM Station in Syracuse, Mr. Fogel played one of his "hard to get" Bruckner imports--a splendid 6th Symphony with Keilberth leading the BPO. It may have been my introduction to the work. Twenty years or so earlier, I recall our "music-ap" class being pinned to the pews in the college chapel as two huge Klipschorn speakers poured forth the DECCA ffrr recording of the 7th Symphony (van Beinum-CGO). And it was the 7th which was my own introduction to Bruckner, even earlier, in my high school days when I had to carry a weighty 78rpm album home on the school bus (praying I would not break one or more discs) to hear a live Minneapolis performance RCA had recorded in the mid 1930s--Eugene Ormandy, conducting.

A wonderful dicription of Bruckner's music; might help music lovers (not only there in Viena)to enter into that special world of great, long and wide sounds. Indeed a real necessity for our present times.

I agree with your assessment, and come from a similar background, having done classical radio full time for more than 30 years (in San Diego, Los Angeles and Monterey.) For the most recent 30+ years I've been writing classical music journalism and criticism and teaching classical music history and "appreciation" to "older" adults in this community. My class in Carmel this coming Saturday is "Mystique of Bruckner," for which I'm still trying to decide which works to play. (I know I'll be using Jochum's 6th, first movement, and probably something conducted by Celibadache.) But, to get to the point, Bruckner retains for me a mystique that I've never fully cracked. A friend of mine, a hornist named John Orzel, said he once asked Lou Harrison who he thought was the greatest composer. Lou, who was a good friend of mine for at least 35 years, said Bruckner, and proceeded to show John the how and why of it.

Of course the problem with a single class to convey the essence of Bruckner is the music's length. I'd suggest playing the Adagio of the Eighth Symphony, but that would take half the class! I have found, however, that the opening of the Seventh is an effective introduction to Bruckner's music.
-Henry

Henry Fogel´s comments apply certainly for the apreciation of classical music in Europe. But as the "friend' says: In Vienna they like music.
We here in Brazil, appreciate classical music besides the rich local interpretations of SAMBAS BATUQUES etc, evidently by the strong influence of african rhytm. But local Sinfony Orchestras composed by young musicians, are extremely able to interpret classical works. And so are our maestros with a high degree of understanding and interpretation.

That's an interesting observation. My favorite observation of Bruckner's music came from a 9 year. Upon hearing Bruckner's Ninth Symphony, he commented that it was God's. He had heard the music as a soundtrack to a cartoon.