An approach to the music of Anton Bruckner.
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| A Viennese silhouette of Anton Bruckner at the organ. |
Among the major symphonic composers of the 19th century, Anton Bruckner is one of the most popular, the most misunderstood, and for the novice listener, the most forbidding. Bruckner's eleven symphonies (counting the "student" work numbered "00" and the rejected Symphony in D (commonly known as "Die Nulte" or "Number 0") chart a vast evolutionary sweep.
Bruckner is a composer who has been accused by music writers of repeating himself in his symphare many clichés about this composer: "sky-reaching cathedrals of sound," "Bruckner rhythms" and "Block chords played like organ stops" to name the three most popular among critics. (Don't laugh. I've used all three of these, and there are others.)
Bruckner is a composer who has been accused by music writers of repeating himself in his symphare many clichés about this composer: "sky-reaching cathedrals of sound," "Bruckner rhythms" and "Block chords played like organ stops" to name the three most popular among critics. (Don't laugh. I've used all three of these, and there are others.)
My first encounter with Bruckner was in Boston when I was an enthusiastic, if callow graduate student pursuing a degree in journalism. At a local record store, I found a used promotional copy of Daniel Barenboim's second recording of the Eighth. I listened, or tried to, and quickly became lost in the vast sonic spans of this penultimate symphony. I didn't understand it. Eventually, that disc, with its pretty cover (a photograph of Saturn, the Seventh (!) planet--apparently Teldec marketers thought Bruckner was actually Holst) went back to the shop.
