Bruckner in the UK

It's interesting to see how the music of certain composers can become very popular in some countries and not at all popular somewhere else! It is the case for the music of Bruckner, Sibelius, Elgar, even Mahler for a while, and many others.

You want to maximize your chances of a standing ovation in sold out concert halls? Don't schedule for example Sibelius in Austria, Elgar in Moscow or ... Bruckner in the UK! Strange! I was talking to Lucica about this and she said that she thought in the 12 years she spent working in Spain she probably played Bruckner's 5th Symphony maybe even 10 times! And only 1 Sibelius symphony in all 12 years! It's a pitty, of course, that the music of Sibelius isn't played more frequently in Spain - but going back to Bruckner, that's how much his music is played elsewhere in Europe! In some places maybe EVEN MORE than Mahler, or at least as much - which is quite something these days! And that's why many of us European foreigners, are so puzzled by the attitude to Bruckner here in the UK, when in many, many other countries his music fills concert halls and is absolutely standard repertoire!

Laurence suggested it might have something to do with the largely "godless" society in the UK that cannot cope with the scale and scope of Bruckner's music ... I don't know, I read somewhere an article claiming that to fully, fully embrace and appreciate Bruckner's music you must be religious - but I don't agree ... I am not religious and I love Bruckner but... who knows, maybe I don't "fully appreciate" it! I think you can understand the "sacred", you can understand devotion, the awe of Bruckner for example for the "greatness of God" - without being a believer. I don't know ...

As we played it recently, I'll refer to Bruckner's 5th Symphony frequently throughout this note. This symphony is I think the hardest to "like" if you don't particularly enjoy Bruckner, because is the most "clever" but the least "sentimental" the least seductive.

One of the things that people often complain about when listening or playing Bruckner's music is its length. But why? Why are his symphonies so long? I hear people say, couldn't he finished it 15 minutes earlier?

But the answer is, of course no he couldn't! Why? Ha! It was a different world living at a different pace! Blame Beethoven 9, Blame Wagner, blame God, blame romanticism, etc.

Because even before finishing writing the first subject, it is already fairly clear how long the piece is going to be and shortening it would cancel exactly what Bruckner is trying to achieve!

In the classical times, the first subject would be announced, a short transition used mainly to modulate would follow, sometimes not even that and that's it, you are already in the second subject. Same thing with the second subject. The development was almost by rule a third of the exposition. But with Beethoven especially in the later symphonies all this started to change. The thematic subjects were becoming more and more like micro-universes. The transition longer, the contrast between the 2 subjects greater, development was more like 2/3 of the exposition now, etc. Add to that the fact that for fun he would "falsely" sometimes in sonata forms or rondo-sonatas bring the recapitulation in the wrong key at the end of the development, and only afterwards would get back to the real key and recapitulate "properly"! All kind of "clever tricks"! :) And here we get to "the clever" thing. Writing "intellectual" music, "clever" music was almost like a challenge, even "obligation" for any "serious" Germanic composer throughout the ages, from before Bach and till the 2nd Viennese school and beyond! Music had to be not only expressive and beautiful but developed masterfully.

Beethoven 9 as everyone knows, cast an absolutely huge shadow on all symphonists afterwards. For some like Brahms it felt almost "traumatic". He didn't dare to write a symphony after Beethoven 9 even under "pressure" from friends and supporters for many years, and when he started it took him something like 15 years to complete it. (He finished it in fact pretty much at the same time as Bruckner was finishing his 5th!). But, generally it was hard for composers, especially those in the Austro-German school to write symphonies following Beethoven 9. Not only for Brahms. For most.

In time a few found their personal and original answer to the question: "how to follow Beethoven 9". For Bruckner that answer (no doubt also inspired by the new progressive music at the time, Wagner in particular) came with these "colossal" symphonies, the symphonies for God! He was of course a devout Catholic, very, very religious. And his faith was not at all "tormented"! It was almost child-like unshakable, unquestionable, absolute - no existential questions a la Mahler! (Mahler who deeply admired Bruckner called Bruckner "half simpleton, half God"!) I believe they represented not only Bruckner's "answer" to Beethoven 9, but were tributes to the glory and majesty of God - as Bruckner saw God. They are Bruckner at the organ in St. Florian, playing for God! Bruckner suffered throughout his life from a complex of inferiority - but never more so than in front of his God!

But how were his symphonies "colossal"? Well, one could argue that all he does is continuing what Beethoven had already started. The first subject often preceded by an introduction, sometimes quite ample, bringing "previews", motives from the main themes to come. Each subject would become a world in itself. It would be developed even before the development (look at the first subject of the last movement of Bruckner 5 for example, it's a 4 part fugue). Often the first subject and the second would be much greater in contrast than in the past (think of the high contrast between the 2 subjects in the first movement of the 5th symphony), sometimes even in a completely different tempo much slower or faster, in remote keys, etc. hence an elaborate transition would sometimes be needed to prepare for it. And from here on everything follows similarly - everything is more substantial, more elaborated than "in the classical past". Obviously to keep a good structure, a convincing musical form, the development now would also be of course bigger and more "clever" since each subject that is meant to develop is larger and there is more contrast between subjects - more material to work with (in the case of the last movement of the 5th for example, the development starts with a brass chorale which turns then into the theme for the second fugue, and as the recapitulation "approaches" it continues as a big 4 part fugue on top of another big 4 part fugue - a double fugue, in which Bruckner "proves" his mastery of counterpoint, maybe even more impressive being in such a tonally sophisticated language (if you think about it none of the 2 fugal subjects stays in the same key for their short duration, they both "wander" around). "Clever". In the good spirit of Germanic music!

You could think of this symphony as Bruckner's homage to the great tradition of Germanic polyphonic music, to Bach even maybe - Bruckner was, like Bach, one of the best organists in Austria/Germany for many, many years, after all! Like a fusion of Bach, Beethoven & Wagner turned into "Bruckner"!

Why in the great tradition of the Austro-German music, composers when writing music they intend somehow "sacred", write often the most rational, "clever" polyphony? Because complex polyphonic music that fits perfectly, "harmoniously" it's almost like an artistic mirror of "God's perfection and complexity beyond us" and ... awesome and frightening almost! And also because traditionally the music for God, in church was not infused with “cheap sentiment”! And by their nature, thematic subjects in complex polyphonic music are short, motivic almost, and not prone to over-sentimentality.

What about the orchestration? For example, think about the high clarinet (which seems to make some in this country think of "carry on" movies - not by any fault of Bruckner's!) - Isn't that very much like "proto-Mahler"?! Especially as it is then doubled, just before the fugue starts! How often Mahler uses that raw sounding almost burlesque high clarinet colour! What about the violin yodeling in the scherzo? Almost like taking Mahler by the hand and pointing him in the direction of his landlers to come! But is no wonder, Mahler knew Bruckner's symphonies well and he attended Bruckner's classes at the Vienna Conservatory - and is not for nothing that he called him "my fore-runner"! What about the organ-like apocalyptic unisons over the whole big orchestra - typical Bruckner sound, crawling from key to key in the transitions passages in the last movement. (They are in fact, inverted versions of the second subject motive - contrapunctal "development", again)

I'll stop here as this is already too long - but combine all of the above with the fascination romantic composers had for the delights (and almost unaware of the dangers) of Ambiguity, as Bernstein said, creating more and more ambiguities in terms of tonality and rhythm (see 2nd movement, for example, with its "ambiguous" time signature; are we in 4? are we in 6?!), add to that the thematic unity "needed" - for example using theme elements form the 2nd movement in the scherzo (a bit like a reverse of what Elgar does in his first Symphony) , bringing the main theme of the first movement over the coda of the last movement and so on, etc. etc; and you get to what Bruckner's 5th symphony is: more cerebral, more "clever", with more masterful counterpoint and as a result also yes, less sentimental and seductive, with less easily detectable "tunes", as some complain (not that they are not there!), than any other of his symphonies: "Bruckner filling his Cathedral with a sound offering for his God ..."!