The Essence of Bruckner: An essay towards the understanding of his music

207 Pages·1967·5.12 MB·English

by  Robert Simpson

THE ESSENCE OF BRUCKNER

Austrian Na.tional Library
Anton Bruckner in 1896
THE ESSENCE OF BRUCKNER
An essay towards the understanding of
his music
by
ROBERT SIMPSON
LONDON
VICTOR GOLLANCZ LTD
1967
© Robert Simpson 1967
Printed in Great Britain by
The Camelot Press Lui., London and Southampton
To
JASCHA HORENSTEIN
who interprets Bruckner with love and authority

CONTENTS
Preface 9
I Emergence II
II Symphony No. 1, in C minor 29
III Symphony No. 2, in C minor 45
IV Symphony No. 3, in D minor 64
v Symphony No. 4, in E flat major (Romantic) 81
VI Symphony No. 5, in B flat major 102
VII Symphony No. 6, in A major 123
VIII Symphony No. 7, in E major 142
IX Symphony No. 8, in C minor 159
x Symphony No. 9, in D minor (un.finishetf) 179
XI Reflections 195
Index 203

PREFACE
THIS BOOK ATTEMPTS to consider Bruckner through the ears of
a composer; I am no musicologist, nor biographer, nor (in the com­
mon meaning of the term) critic. It is my belief that the inner processes
of music reveal themselves most readily to another sympathetic
composer, and since Bruckner's music has moved and fascinated me
for some twenty-five years, I feel at last able to try to describe some
of the things I have found in it. It has been a great pleasure to see the
progress that Bruckner has made in the English-speaking countries
since the war, for I have only too vivid memories of the bad old days
when it was nearly impossible to find anyone who would look
seriously at his scores. Naturally welcoming the change, I am still at a
loss to explain it, for the music is the same; though I am now more
critical of it than I was in the days of rash youth, it is the same innocent
grandeur that still excites my admiration, and I have never been able
to fathom why just as many people should not have appreciated it
then as do now. Such qualities do not alter with time or fashion; we
hear airy theories about climates of opinion, but where do such climates
originate? Not, I think, in the mass of music lovers, who tend to react
to what they are given and who learn to accept most of what is offered
frequently and regularly enough, provided it is not too unkind. I
suspect (to use no stronger a word) that it is the purveyors of opinion
in the press who are mainly responsible. Concert promoters were
unwilling to risk Bruckner while most of the critics were hostile to
him, while the public were continually being told that it was a waste
of time to go and hear him. Now that the "climate" has changed (in
other words, now that all the old journalists are dead or retired, and
new ones have taken over with different views), the risk is no longer
serious and the number of Bruckner performances is rapidly increasing.
We can only hope that the present incumbents will have long and
preferably silent lives.
In the chapters that follow I have not hesitated to use previously
published material of my own wherever I have been unable to find
better words; all such matter is here revised, and elaborated or clari­
fied. The largest such portions are the chapters on the Seventh and