Baffled by Bruckner

A couple of years ago, I made a vow to listen to at least one new piece of classical music every day. The days that followed marked a blossoming of my musical understanding- and thus my inner spirit. I became thoroughly acquainted with the musical language of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Mendelssohn… even Chopin! Eventually, I’d heard every single work of the mainstream classical canon, so I began to creep into some undiscovered corners. I came across a strange composer by the name of Anton Bruckner. Looking at his picture, he didn’t seem to possess the same strong disposition - whether fiery like Beethoven or Wagner; quietly industrious like Bach or Schubert; or gaunt and melancholy like Chopin or Tchaikovsky - as nearly every great composer I’d come across. He looked more like my grandpa than anything else! I scrolled through a list of his compositions: nine extremely long symphonies (a victim of Beethoven’s curse I see), and some religious work. Symphonies over an hour long written by your neighborhood senior citizen? I didn’t have high hopes, but I was committed to honoring my vow to listen to new music - even if I was 500% sure I’d hate it.

Never had I been more wrong. Bruckner’s music immediately drew me into another universe. Only… everything in that universe was completely intangible to my relatively untrained ears. And so I walked straight out of it, never to even think of entering again. 

I mean, how many times do you sit down and say, “Hm, I think I’ll get away for an hour or two and listen to a Bruckner Symphony?”

Not very often. 

Bruckner doesn’t just differ from the other greats in his appearance. For one thing, Bruckner was the epitome of a late bloomer. He was a very devoted and fairly talented organ student, but barely regarded as a prodigy. Most importantly, he did not find his life’s calling until the age of 37 when he was introduced to Wagner’s music by his teacher Otto Kitzler. Bruckner also poses a huge challenge for musicologists in that his work shows no reflection of his life - or vice versa. With Beethoven (or anyone else), musicologists can revel in how inseparable the man is from his work. But Bruckner was a simple countryman with an even simpler life. In fact, his vanilla personality made him the victim of criticism and pranks. He was not respected by Vienese society because he was an unsophisticated country mouse who revered an even less sophisticated Richard Wagner. When Bruckner taught at the Vienna Conservatory, a young pupil by the name of Fritz Kriesler played an ingenious prank on him. (https://www.classicfm.com/composers/bruckner/guides/mops-dog-was-hungry-anton-bruckner/). Lastly, most composers were at least partially aware of their greatness. Beethoven and Wagner likely thought they were God’s gift to the world; even Schubert, with his notoriously low self-esteem, realized by the end of his life that he was indeed a worthy successor to Beethoven. Bruckner carried an inferiority complex for his entire life. At 17, he accepted a teaching position - that had nothing to do with music, mind you - where he was terribly mistreated. Bruckner didn’t do anything about it because he genuinely thought he didn’t deserve better. Man, even Schubert had the will to get out of his teaching position! Even though his examiners acknowledged that Bruckner’s ability far surpassed their own, he was constantly trying to validate himself by passing the latest exam or diploma. Most significantly, this inferiority complex lent itself to constant revisions of his symphonies. Bruckner couldn’t even put his foot down on what the right version of his own symphonies were! Here is a humorous story that perfectly illustrates Bruckner’s disposition:

“[Hans Richter] was playing a passage and became worried about a note that did not seem to fit the general harmonic pattern. He turned to Bruckner and pointed it out. ‘What note is this?’ he asked. The awed and flustered Bruckner answered ‘Any note you choose. Quite as you like.’ At the end of the rehearsal Bruckner approached Richter, ‘radiant with enthusiasm and happiness.’ He pressed something into the conductor's hand. ‘Take it and drink a mug of beer to my health.’ The flabbergasted Richter looked down at his palm and saw that Bruckner had tipped him a ‘taler’ (three marks, about sixty cents). Richter says that he broke down and wept. He kept the coin as a memento, of course, piercing it and attaching it to his watch chain.”

What humility in Bruckner! Beethoven would have gasped had he been alive to see that scene. **damn it Ignaz Schuppanzigh, that’s not how you play it!!! I’m deaf and I still know better than you! I don’t care about your wretched fiddle when the music speaks to me** And even if they weren’t blatantly disrespectful to their interpreters, every other composer at least held some authority over what the actual NOTES were in their works. 

Bruckner was also very much a musical chameleon, so it is difficult to determine his place within the course of musical history. On one hand, Bruckner’s fluid harmonic landscape resembles the revolutionary Richard Wagner, whom Bruckner admired greatly. On the other hand, Bruckner also admired Beethoven and had no problem working within the old-style four movement symphony. In fact, Wagner famously thought that the symphony had ended after Beethoven 9, and that absolute music had no future. Bruckner never took programmatic music seriously (as we will see in a bit), and proved that the symphonic ideal indeed had a future. He conceived of a completely new landscape where musical ideas could reach their truest potential. I can’t explain it myself, but I have a quote: “Bruckner has such a great lung capacity he makes other composers feel asthmatic.” He had a profound influence on Gustav Mahler, who was likely his biggest fan! Besides symphonies, Bruckner almost exclusively composed religious works. I was listening to the Kyrie from his Mass in E Minor, and it truly felt like a renaissance chorale work with signature Brucknerian dissonances. With all these contradictory influences, it’s hard to put pinpoint exactly what Bruckner stood for.

Finally, to Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony. When I heard it for the first time in years, my initial reaction was that it felt like a medieval epic. Well, I’d like to think that I have a great instinct - for Bruckner himself interpreted it the exact same way. Bruckner gave the title “Romantic” not to  indicate a genuine love story, but the poetic nature found in Medieval epics (like those found in Wagner’s Operas). He did say a few things about a vague program to the symphony…

“A medieval city - Sunrise... ­Reveille is sounded from the towers - The gates open… The knights sally forth into the countryside on their spirited horses, surrounded by the magic of nature… Forest murmurs - Bird songs - And so the romantic picture develops further." 

...but he later had a slightly different approach, describing the first movement as “a scene out of the days of chivalry, the second as a rustic love scene, the third as a hunt interrupted by a festival dance, and the fourth - 'I’m sorry, but I have forgotten just what it was about.’

Bruckner didn’t actually write the fourth symphony with a serious program in mind; one can only speculate why he tried to make one after the fact. However, his writing clearly invokes a generally medieval aura. One can even say that the “Romantic” symphony holds the same place in Bruckner’s output as the “Pastoral” does in Beethoven’s. 

Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that Bruckner’s life didn’t at all influence his music. Although one would absolutely never guess that such a simple man could produce such complex symphonies, he had to take inspiration from somewhere. One such inspiration is his surroundings. Bruckner lived in upper Austria, surrounded by medieval churches, libraries, and even walls built during the wars of those Dark Ages. He likely grew up hearing the folk tunes and dances of peasants. Furthermore, Bruckner was about as Roman Catholic as they came, so his life revolved around the very ideals that also shaped medieval society. And so the Fourth Symphony can be seen as a depiction of Bruckner’s heritage. He meant that famous horn call that opens the symphony to invoke the church bells of a medieval town; and it’s also been argued that the principle rhythmic figure of the second movement is similar to a bird call Bruckner may have heard. The Scherzo is literally designated as a “Hunting Scherzo” with its triumphant horn calls. On a broader level, E-flat major is generally a very rustic and heroic key, which adds to the work’s overall character.

Although the lively hunting scherzo is the symphony’s crown jewel, I myself am most fascinated with the first two movements. The very Brucknerian opening, a lone horn calling over an entire army of tremolo strings, has to be one of my favorite passages in symphonic literature. It not only captures the grand landscape on which Bruckner conceived his musical ideas, but his innovative treatment of harmony. I haven’t studied chromatic harmony, so I don’t know what chords they are, but Bruckner strays far away from the tonic within the first few bars. Like Wagner, his modulations are a bit unpredictable, but ever so sublime! This opening alone lasts for almost 2 minutes before the main theme is even INTRODUCED. In order to truly appreciate Bruckner, one must know that he takes his time for a reason. The buildup is truly otherworldly. Eventually the horn is joined by the woodwinds, expanding upon the simple perfect fifth horn call. Once the strings join, there is this big crescendo that leads straight into the main theme. It’s impossible to explain in words, but Bruckner is the master of glorious resolutions/climaxes. This is perhaps even better exemplified by the second movement. Whether or not it’s actually a medieval love story, it is one of Bruckner’s most gorgeous slow movements. Well… for the first 10 minutes or so… many listeners would disagree. It is a simple funeral march, where a cantabile melody from the lower voices (especially violas) is accompanied by incessant, clockwork pizzicati from the upper voices. The orchestration is so sparse, the music is so lacking in forward motion, that it feels as if we are going nowhere. Interspersed within the first ten minutes are these interesting little wind instrument chorales, which always pose a question: are we going anywhere? On a tangent, these chorales contain the same perfect fifth calls that open the first movement. Sometimes they introduce a change in directions, sometimes they simply lead back to where we were. It isn’t until the very end of the movement when things truly start to pick up. Eventually, there is this absolutely MASSIVE Wagnerian climax, where a blaring brass section manages to cover up an entire fortissimo string section in its glory. It hits differently than any other climax in symphonic literature because of how long-awaited it was. It’s so amazing that the entire second movement is literally just a buildup. Only Bruckner is capable of a feat like that. This isn’t a valid analysis by any means, but this second movement is analogous to Bruckner’s life. Nothing of note really happened until he was a middle aged man… and in just a few short years, he became a master of the Symphony. 

After exploring Bruckner through this post, I am only a bit less confused about his music than I was a few years ago. As I attempt to define Bruckner’s life, his place in musical history, and his works, I am thrust back to my initial reaction. Bruckner is an entirely new universe, completely separate from any other musical idiom. All things set aside, listening to the “Romantic” symphony and some of Bruckner’s other works was the most novel experience I’ve had listening to classical music in a long time. I always speak of how there’s always something new to pick up in works you’ve heard a million times, but it’s nice how even the most seasoned listener can still experience the childlike excitement that comes with discovering something for the first time.