Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!decvax!bellcore!ulysses!burl!clyde!cbosgd!gatech!gitpyr!cmpbsdb
From: cmpbsdb@gitpyr.UUCP (Don Barry)
Newsgroups: net.music.classical
Subject: Re: Any Brucknerians out there?
Message-ID: <1361@gitpyr.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 9-Feb-86 03:10:27 EST
Article-I.D.: gitpyr.1361
Posted: Sun Feb  9 03:10:27 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Feb-86 01:44:26 EST
References: <562@yale.ARPA>
Distribution: na
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 30

In reference to a mention that Bruckner's finales are anticlimactic,
I can only wonder whether you are turning off the final few minutes of
every symphony past the third, or else placing too much emphasis on 
the typically abrupt final cadence.  I find the final 5 minutes of 
each of the Bruckner symphonies 4-8 to be the most sublime of all, as
this is the point at which Bruckner ties the threads together, and achieves
unity out of diversification, which is the key to his symphonic style.  
What some may perceive as "padding" is actually part of this process of 
creation of new elements that are a source of conflict to be resolved.  
In the codas of the symphonies, a final crystallization takes place which 
affirms the triumph, wonderment, and uberraum of the work.  Bruckner 
symphonies end in light, and though the simple and sometimes forceful 
knife-edge ending may startle some, it only affronts those that remember
the last phrase, and not those that consider the totality of a structure.

One of my favorite of all critical commentaries is "The Essence of Bruckner",
by Robert Simpson.  Find it at a local library.  Simpson not only divines
the inherent correctness of the Haas editions of Bruckner's
symphonies (as opposed to the all-too-often performed Nowak editions espoused
by the Bruckner society) but finds some interesting parallels between the
symphonies and some lost references within some of the symphonies that I
had never noticed.  If you worship Bruckner, you will find new joys to
celebrate.  If you merely enjoy him, you will learn to worship.

-- 

Don Barry (Chemistry Dept)          CSnet: cmpbsdb%gitpyr.GTNET@gatech.CSNET
Georgia Institute of Technology    BITNET: CMPBSDB @ GITVM1
Atlanta, GA 30332      ARPA: cmpbsdb%gitpyr.GTNET%gatech.CSNET@csnet-relay.ARPA 
UUCP: ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!cmpbsdb