I was 16 years old, and testing my new tape recorder in 1967 by recording a symphony from a local classical FM station. When I played it back I fell in love with this mystery symphony, because I had no idea whose it was. I played that tape many times. I went off to college the next year (MIT) and they had a wonderful classical library, and by accident I stumbled on the exact recording I'd recorded and learned it was Karajan's recording of Bruckner's 2nd symphony on DGG. I still treasure it, and of course now I treasure all the other of the great Bruckner symphonies too.
I was in Vienna 2 weeks ago and besides seeing 5 operas heard the VP in the Musikverein play the 8th to a sold out audience. It was ofcourse thrilling and I never heard Bruckner played live in my life before so this was a double thrill.
We just heard the VPO on tour with Thielemann perform the 8th two days ago at Zellerbach Hall on the campus of UC Berkeley. Thrilling and Epic! I have heard major American orchestras and the VPO itself perform Bruckner on numerous occasions, and this was one of the best live Bruckner concerts I have ever heard...
I first heard Bruckner on classical radio...the scherzo of the 9th was played alone (I'm pretty sure it was Barenboim), and I was blown away by the sheer power and volume of the orchestra! I soon bought a copy of the 9th and then worked my way backwards through the cycle, and have been a fan ever since...I once heard someone compare Bruckner's scherzos to tanks dancing!!! Not a bad comparison
I had heard the scherzo on a documentary about World War II... and of course it well fit you-know-what regime. Menace meets innocence. I was in my teens and I was starting to outgrow the pop music of the time.
I started listening classical music in 1970, bicentennial year of Beethoven. Since then I decided to listen to all the great symphonies of all composer's. That's how got to know about Bizet, Franck, Brahms and Tchaikovsky among others. I got budget label Bruckner 4 and 7 but I was overwhelmed by how different they are from others. It took awhile for me to learn his idioms and started enjoying it. Local conductor named David Loebel had a lecture before subscription concert. He compared three composers, Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner. They composed same number of symphonies. He walked over to the side of stage and walked straight back to the center and said that was Beethoven. He walked back to that side and this time walked back toward the center but stopped looking around and walked few steps and stop once again looking around and up and said he stopped and smelled the flowers and listened to the birds, and that's how his symphonies evolved. For Bruckner, he said he didn't go anywhere he is standing inside the church looking around at the stained glass windows. They look all different depend on how the Sun is hitting them. And that's the Bruckner. I just got back from VPO Bruckner 8 concert in NY. I do think classical symphonies culminated in monumental Bruckner 8. My buddy, the late Fred Shipkey, introduced me to Bruckner 5 by lending me his 25 cds of all different recordings.
My first Bruckner was prompted by a two volume set of books by Milton Cross. I think it was called the Lives of the Great Composers. For Bruckner he recommended the Symphony No. 4, and the title "The Romantic" caught my attention. I loved the scherzo hunting music. Years later when I started to attend the Pittsburgh Symphony, one of the concerts that William Steinberg mounted began with the Te Deum, and after the intermission he did the Symphony No. 8. It was a marathon concert.
My first experience was a recirding of Karajan/Berlin of the 7th. I had never reallly heard him, and what little I had just resnated w me. It was on casette tape, and I played this incesantly! It was the most glorious music I had ever heard. Ive been hooked on Bruckner ever since!
I discovered Bruckner when I was 15. I was looking for Bartock and went through the all the Bs and found beautiful box of the 8th symphony, by Karajan with the Berliner Philharmonic. I was intrigued so I bought it and looked for Bruckner on the encyclopedia at home (no internet at that time) and heard that magnificent music and I was hooked (after the second time hearing it). I started looking for any information I could find about this very different and extraordinary music and composer. My next was the 7th and just confirmed my love for his music.
I had an uncle, professor of psychology at the university of kingston, ontario canada, originally from scotland, who was married to my mother's sister, (he wrote a book on the history of psychology in the west) he also played the piano, and was a fan of bruckner.........when i have 14 years old....one day when I was visiting, he made me listen to bruckner's 7th which I did not know.. ..I fell under the spell of this grandiose music....and since that day bruckner never left me....
Thank you for telling this. My first encounter with Bruckner must be the weirdest of all my encounters with composers. I knew from my childhood Händel, Bach, Beethoven, Berlioz etc, but not Bruckner. One day I went to the Sibelius Academy library in Helsinki to look for something that I don't anymore remember. There were these listening rooms that you could reserve and from one of these - as i passed by the door - I heard just so captivating and strange music that I stopped right there and listened. I had no idea what it was. I was so intrigued by this music that I waited all the time to the end that I could ask to person listening to this music what it was. After perhaps one hour the door opened and I had my chance to ask. The person answering me was astounded that I did'nt know Bruckner's music (it is just amazing - so much as I was only to "art" music from my childhood onwards that Bruckner had escaped me - and remember Bruckner's influence on Sibelius). What I heard was his third symphony.
In my Music History class in college. The professor spent the last 30 minutes of a class playing a sample of one recording each by Mahler and Bruckner. He said "you can like them or not, I don't, but they exist." And that was my introduction.
I was 14 years old and a school friend of mine (13!) knew and liked Bruckner's music. I was already into Beethoven, Mahler and Wagner, so Bruckner spoke to me immediately (the Ninth). Living in Amsterdam was a bonus... That friend of mine later worked at the Concertgebouw, writing a book about the orchestra's history with Bruckner... (As you might gather, I'm Dutch.)
Having been away for 10 days (with no internet access), just discovered this video. Thank you for the well told engrossing story about how you discovered Bruckner. Apart from Bruckner 8, I still struggle with his music. Too many dead spots. Oh dear.
The first time I heard Bruckner's music (the Fifth Symphony) was on a radio program where a panel of musicians compared three performances. They played a performance by the Cleveland Orchestra and Von Dohnányi, among others. That recording was ultimately chosen as the best. Celibidache was mentioned a number of times by the panel, but no recording of him was played. Coincidentally, not much later I came across a CD that contained his live recording (EMI). I played that CD endlessly while writing my thesis. Maybe not the best recording and performance, but I have fond memories of it.
I discovered Bruckner when I bought a cheap Teldec CD with the 7th symphony played by Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Barenboim. I talked about this symphony with mey German teatcher, who was a classic music connoisseur and a Bruckner fanatic. He told me that the best recordings ara by Jochum. I bought te complete DG set of Bruckner's symphonies and I loved it!
I grew up listening to a lot of orchestral music because of my father, who was very passionate about it, but he mostly stuck to the "mainstream" composers. As I started to develop my own taste, I always felt more attracted to masses in minor keys, requiems, the sound you get from Buxtehude or Bach's organ works, Wagner's operas, but those were the least available in our collection. Later into my teens I started collecting vinyl by myself, and father decided to gift me a bunch of classical records he got at this antique shop...one of those was Bruckner's 8th symphony, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, the deutsche grammophon pressing. I felt I found the music I had been searching for since forever. The sound was fantastic..the grandiosity,the darkness, the stillness, the might, the modulation of sound... I mostly listen to operas for the instrumentals and not the vocals, and it felt like I had found Wagner's music without the operatic singing. When I found the 9th some time later I was in heaven. Honestly I do not know how I did not run into Bruckner earlier, because all my classical music interests were in the vicinity of what Bruckner's music is and sounds like, or where it comes from. Since then I always listen to his symphonies and other works.... my favourite composer.
I came late in life to Bruckner, having been a serious classical music collector almost 50 years pre Bruckner. I was browsing the cd shelves in my local library, and came upon a recording of Bruckner’s third symphony by some not well known conductor whose name and orchestra escapes me. I was hooked and listened many times to the long first movement with the opening simple trumpet motive. Wanted to hear more, so ordered the Wand Sony complete symphonies and my Bruckner collection expanded to Karajan, Celidibache, Jochum , the Naxos series and many more.
I discovered Bruckner in my freshman year of college, when we sang "Locus iste" as an anthem for the offertory at Mass one glorious Sunday. I also got to do "Christus factus est" before I graduated and wrote a little Brucknerian motet of my own. My appreciation for the symphonies came later, starting with the 8th. On another topic, this video gained you the approval of my teenage son, who is also a percussionist. He appreciates your quest for the cymbal crash in Bruckner 7.
My first Bruckner 7th was that Rosbaud performance you mentioned. But my favorite Bruckner LP of my youth was the Boehm Bruckner 4th in the old London 2 LP Box. I found it at the public library back in my college days in Wichita and thus begun my lifelong love of that magnificent Vienna Horn sound. Still my favorite 4th on all time.
As I watched this, it struck me how different and, in some ways, similar our early experiences of classical music were. I, like you, was influenced by a musical mother, which led to rare occasional new record purchases. But I also inherited my father’s hifi, and while we lived far from Los Angeles, we were on a hill with an FM antenna in the attic that allowed us to barely pickup KFAC, then an all-classical commercial radio station. A whole new world opened up to me. Shortly after this the public library’s selection of stereo magazines with classical music reviews became regular reading. I clearly recall the recommendation of the Bruckner 4th as an entry point, but I hesitated, awash with Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Schumann. In my middle teens I purchased and built a Heathkit FM tuner to improve Los Angeles distant FM signals, which eventually led to my first real serious listen to a Bruckner Symphony. This was the 8th with Zubin Mehta conducting the L.A. Phil. in a radio concert broadcast by KPFK. I recorded a portion of the broadcast with the hi-fi’s tape-deck and remember being most taken with the Scherzo. I wonder how your own early music life would have turned out if you could have listened to a full-time classical music radio station?
Nice reminiscence. I think it reflects a lot our own first encounters with this odd fellow and his weird music. I found him when I was making a little 8-millimeter film (remember those?) and needed some soundtrack music. My parents, who did not listen to classical, somehow had a handful of classical records (my uncle had dumped a bunch of records on us), including Bruckner 7/Ormandy, still sealed. I took to the scherzo first as it was relatively lively, and the rest was history.
My first "bruckner" was the scherzo of the ninth played in the Swedish Radio. It turned me on at once, me twelve years young at the time. Then of course the Romantic also over broadcast and I taped it on cassette in mono. My first LP was the nr 9 with Keilberth, as a christmas gift the year I was 14. and now I had a Toshiba stereo. Wow. The next Bruckner I listened to at the library and it was nr 6 with Haitink. Now I was really hooked at this amazing sound of A.B. At my junior high school a teacher and his colleagues one day stood some yards from my listening place (headphones) at the library. One of the other teachers said to him: look there is TB please ask him what music he is listening to. He approached me and asked this proposed question. "Its Bruckner, Sir, his sixth symphony! Then I became inited as the youngest member of the Swedish Bruckner Society. This was 1973.
I discovered Bruckner when I was 12, and through the Seventh Symphony. I was staying at my aunt and uncle's house, and they always had their stereo tuned to a classical radio station. They were away for a few hours and the Bruckner Seventh came on, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. But I didn't really get to hear much more of Bruckner until I got to college 4 years later, where the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford had an enormous record collection, and there I discovered the symphonies, one by one, in the Jochum performances. Extraordinarily unique, beautiful, and very profoundly moving. The Sixth remains my absolute favorite.
My first exposure to Bruckner was at a Friday afternoon concert in 1962 with Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra in the Academy of Music playing the Symphony No. 7. I was 15 year old, an age at which I found the piece intreguing, but long. From there over the next several years I did my Bruckner explorations via WFLN FM by listening to the broadcasts and taping several of the symphonies off the air. Usually, I liked the scherzi best. My first actual Bruckner LP was the Walter/Columbia Sym. recording of No. 4 purchased several years later. Now have this particular recording once again in my Walter Complete Columbia box. Acquiring multiple copies of recordings of all of the Bruckner symphonies occurred years later. I had copies of all nine Vaughan Williams symphonies long before the nine by Bruckner.😉
My first experience with Bruckner was hearing my parents perform Locus Iste with their choir. And they did not usually perform 19th century repertoire but early music, like Ockeghem, Desprez, Di Lasso etc., but of course a motet like Locus Iste fits in with that. It stuck with me because the Mr. Bean theme is also based on it, and that was back when they were aired on TV. Was 6-7 years old at the time. Only discovered his symphonic music in earnest when I was well in my twenties but instantly became a near religious afficionado. By the way, my favourite Bruckner recording is Hans Zender conducting the 3rd Symphony in its original 1873 setting with the Südwest-Rundfunkorchester. It's a live recording from 2005 that was never issued on CD but can be found on RUclips, it was recorded from a 256kbps internet stream so the sound quality is good.
My first Bruckner experience was actually in Leipzig when attending the 2000 BachFest. We got tickets to hear Bruckner's 9th performed by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. Two memories aside from the music stand out: many of the string players having to towel off their sweat following the first movement, and meeting Blomstedt after the concert with him remarking "ah, you're an American!" when requesting his autograph on his CD recording of the work.
My first experience with Bruckner was the 8th on a cheap radio around 1984. I was in college and was working over the summer in a very hot shipping and receiving department and WFMT in Chicago played the full symphony. It was very different from anything else I had heard and I was captivated. Although Bruckner is often described as a cathedral in sound the picture that came into my mind was some sort of epic space voyage. At the end the announcer mentioned the piece and the performers (Haitink/Concertgebouw) and I went out and grabbed the performance right after work so I could hear it again.
My introduction to the mighty Bee was Karajan’s recording of the 8th with the VPO. I was hooked by the end of the first movement then the scherzo and then the adagio started and oh my! I’d never heard anything like it. It’s still one of my favourite recordings.
As a (morbid?) nine-year-old, I learned that Bruckner had passed away prior to completing his 9th symphony and dug out Dad's Walter edition of it just to hear what conking out mid-piece sounded like. (I was not aware of the perhaps deservedly obscure 4th movement). That experience and Dad's Max Rudolph/Bruckner 7th recording (performed by the Cincinnati symphony orchestra - our HOME TOWN TEAM!) hooked me for life.
There's much to be said for the home team. This fellow Ohioan first heard the 7th at Severance Hall with the best band in the land, the Cleveland Orchestra under guest conductor Christoph Eschenbach. Wow! That ethereal beginning reaching me in my front row balcony seat was unreal.
i first came across the music of Bruckner when I was probably around ten years old when I came across a hoard of 78s which included a set of Bruckner 7, conducted by Eduard van Beinum. I didn't get it, mostly because I was too busy changing records, but I got it years later as a violinist in a symphony orchestra!
Great remembrance. I got a cheapie LP of the 4th randomly from a subscription. I thought it was okay, but I set it aside and forgot about it. I never got why it’s called “the Romantic”. Then I heard the 8th on the radio. I went, WOW! So I started collecting Bruckner. At one point I got Kempe’s 2 LPs of the 5th. I liked parts of it, but I just didn’t get it as a whole. It collected dust for many years before I heard it again on the radio and my ears were opened to it. I love it now!
The first time I experienced Bruckner was when I was in the All-State orchestra during my high school years. We played an arrangement of the Scherzo of the seventh symphony. I enjoyed it, but it didn’t leave a lasting impression on me. While my dad was working on his master’s degree at Southern Miss, I was reading his music history textbook about Bruckner’s Eighth and the ending with all four themes of each movement were combined. I thought Wow, that would be interesting to hear. In my freshman year at Southern Miss, I actually got to play Bruckner’s Eighth. Playing that symphony was a wonderful impression and really started my listening journey of Bruckner’s music. Paul D.
My first Bruckner experience was in high school, tenth grade about 1973, I went to hear the Louisville Orchestra play the Mozart D major flute concerto with Paula Robeson. I had a crush on a flute player from school, and she was there too. This was my first symphony concert, living out in the Kentucky sticks west of Louisville growing up, there weren't many opportunities for Culture. Matthias Bamert was conducting, and the concert opened with one of his compositions. Don't remember much about that piece except there were four different sizes of gongs and tam tams lined up in front the orchestra being tickled with various kinds of sticks. Then Paula came out and played Mozart, and gyrated around so much I was uncomfortable and felt she was in danger of falling off the stage. After intermission was Bruckner 6. I thought it would never end. Maybe not the best starting place for Bruckner, and a first symphony concert experience for that matter. But I persisted anyway, because, like you I wanted to be different. I dug through Dad's vast record collection and found Bruckner 3 and 9 with Schuricht and the VPO on Seraphim, plus the Rosbaud 7. Later there was the Haitink 8, but the clincher was Barenboim's Chicago 4. As a tuba picker and music ed major in college, that blew me away. I made a pilgrimage to Chicago to hear No. 0 and Helgoland when I was at college in western Kentucky.
Yes! The first Bruckner symphony I got to know was the Seventh, conducted indeed by Hans Rosbaud on Turnabout. There was heavy snow on the ground outside and I was at my parents' home, on vacation from university, and engrossed in a book. The Bruckner just insinuated itself into me, became part of my mental state at the time, particularly the slow movement with its wistful conclusion. I now have on order the box set of Hans Rosbaud Bruckner symphonies.
I went to a Rochester Philharmonic concert back in the 80's when David Zinman conducted the 8th. I only saw the name Bruckner on the occasional lp in the record stores and never gave him much thought. The concert ad described the symphony as "Monumental" (which piqued my interest), so I went and was very impressed. After that hunted down the rest of the symphonies like everyone else did. I'd love to hear that first performance again just out of morbid curiosity since at that time, I didn't know what the hell I was listening to. :)
A German friend who is a classical fan encouraged me to listen to Bruckner when I commented that his works are difficult to comprehend - he told me that since I enjoyed Mahler - I should listen to Bruckner similarly .. I started with No 4 and 7 - still trying to discover further
Coincidence, really. I had acquired, from a school mate, a record player of dubious quality. First thing my father did on seeing the dreaded object was to forbid me access to his collection - and I can't say I blame him (not for that, anyway). He did, however, come to the rescue with, initially, two records. Or rather, one set (Haydn's London symphonies by the Little Orchestra of London under Leslie Jones - nice, energetic, rather small-scale performances with a harpsichord presence that I'm proud to say irritated the crap out of me even then in about 1977) and a record: Bruckner 4 with Haitink and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. I would have been about 15 then. I was hooked from the very first listening of Bruckner 4, and many more listenings followed. Very many. Obsessively many. Playing a record gray may be the stuff of legends, but I did it. Or rather, my record murderer did. As a consequence, I imprinted so violently on the performance that no other recording has been able to get accepted into what I laughingly refer to as my brain to this day. A few months after that, I got the 6th as well, and shortly after that the 8th. All duplicates from my father, who had obtained the complete set (the brown/gold front with the embossed oval plastic cutout that usurps so much useful space once a collection really gets going). The first three movements of the 4th hit me immediately, the adagio most of all. The finale lagged a bit behind, but I got there quickly enough. My favourite movements, though, were the first of the sixth symphony, and the adagio of the eighth. I discovered, completely by happy chance, that the sixth is THE MOST PERFECT music to accompany a reading of The Hobbit. Try it! Oh, and by the way: I never listened to any movement on its own. Works are started at the beginning and end after the finale. Always. No arguments.
I was a freshman at NYU in the 1960s and I came across a record store in the Village called the Discophile, presided over by a man named Franz who held court several evenings a week and played rare recordings for us. I had read about Bruckner in school and at my request he played a recording of Furtwangler playing the 7th. he also introduced me to the 9th - same conductor. It took me a while but I eventually came to love Bruckner's music and he has long been one of very favorite composers. By the way I recently discovered that the Discophile and Franz were famous, and the NY Times once wrote that the that store was considered by some to be "the preeminent record store in the world" in it's time and that Franz was especially well known tn the NYC music community. Who knew?
@@qewfsdsd65445 I do not know the name of the original owner, but I found out that when that owner died he willed the ownership of the store to Franz, a magnificent, generous and thoroughly appropriate gesture! I actually was fortunate to spend several evenings at that shop in the company of Franz and his Many regulars and have wonderful memories of those times.Thanks for your comment.
The first time ever I heard Bruckner was at a rock concert. I was 16 or 17. The band had the beginning of the 4th as their concert intro (Blomstedt/Staatskapelle Dresden). I spoke to the band after the show, asked NOTHING about THEIR music but only about the intro. Got the record the next day. A longlive love began...
I was in a record store in my early 20s and bought the Decca Bohm CD double, I remember loving the cover art of the Bavarian mountains, and loved how atmospheric and ethereal the music sounded. And I thought the way the climax of the 4th was built up from nothing was unlike anything I had heard before, stunning.
Fun tale from you! I heard Bruckner snippets in High School, but they did not stick. As a college freshman I got the Bongartz/Leipzig Gewandhaus Bruckner 6 and liked it a lot. The one that really got me was a little later - HvK/BPO Bruckner 9 from the 60s. I've kept lots of Bruckner around since then.
Oh the memories! I had the same Rosbaud recording of the 7th. Actually my discovery occurred at a live performance of the 4th with Ormandy. Those horns at the end of the 1st movement. Wow! Then to my surprise I heard snippets of the 3rd movement in an episode of The Lone Ranger! Who knew?! My latest experience with No. 4 was last week at a live performance led by 95 year old Herbert Blomstedt with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Astoundingly exciting!
On the radio after a live performance of the 4th with Philadelphia/Ormandy, the announcer came on and said, “An hour-long Symphony by Bruckner casts a magical spell.” You don’t hear editorial comments like that by radio announcers anymore.
Thanks for sharing, I discovered Bruckner when I was 24, with the 5 also, the recording with the Berliner Philarmoniker and Gunter Wand, I played the thing all along my train trip from Paris to Rennes (3 hours). After that I said to myself: that's my guy🎉Bruck is my fellow friend since and I call him "Brucknercito"😂 If you speak Spanish and know Bruckner you'll catch the joke. 😊
Dear Dave, I began collecting and listening to classical music about twenty years ago. I live in Copenhagen, Denmark, where we are fortunate to have a recordstore with an enormous amount of stuff on their shelves. The previous owner, who retired some years ago, introduced me to Bruckner's music by recommending the Gunther Wand-recording of the seventh symphony with the BP from the late nineties. That got me hooked on Bruckner. The seventh, as Bruckner symphonies go, is a very accessible work to start with, I think, and it was the right way for. On an unrelated note, Mr Stilling, who sold it to me, also introduced me to Arnold Bax and countless other composers. I owe him a lot, though it cost me a lot of money. I enjoy your videos tremendously and hooe, you'll go on posting new ones forever. Sincerely, Mikkel Clemmensen
Great talk Dave! My first experience with big B, was with the 4th, romantic, with Eugene ormandy and the Philadelphia. I picked it up at record land, summer of 1972, I was in 8th grade. Reason being I had read a short bio of Bruckner in a small book of great composers by Milton cross, I thought, now thats a interesting person. The other reason the LP cover was really cool, with great art work. Well I was floored, those horns, it was instant Saul like conversion. This music was unique, unlike anything I had ever heard. After that like you it was the 7th with Carl schurict on Nonesuch. Which I liked, but not as much as the 4th. Then over time, the 8th and 9th with klemperer. Which by the way I didn't know how much hed cut the finale of the 8th till I heard a solti concert on radio!. I think I have more recordings of Bruckner then most other composers, well Schubert and Haydn too. Thanks Dave, love your work. Paul, oh by the way my dad always called the theme of the 5ths first movement, star wars music.
Thanks, Dave, for this charming and amusing account of your first encounters with Bruckner. Mine came a bit later than yours, but my first reactions to the music were similar. Sometime in my high school years I chanced upon the Walter recording of Bruckner 9 in the local college library. I had never heard a note of the composer, so I thought, why not? I listened attentively, but perplexed at a score that sounded like a take-off on Beethoven's Ninth by an amateur composer who didn't know how to write coherent symphonic movements! Later, as a music major in college, I thought I should get to know this important composer, so when a copy of Schuricht's Bruckner 7 (reissued her on Nonesuch) turned up at the university bookstore, I purchased it and wasted no time to get to know the work. The piece struck me as pleasant in places but deadly dull elsewhere, particularly in the slow movement (which Schuricht actually takes at an unusually brisk tempo, with no cymbal crash). A year or so later I borrowed a copy of Haitink's Bruckner 5 (Concertgebouw/Phillips) from a fellow student--determined to get to the bottom of the Bruckner cult. It was this work that did it for me. As an avid Bach lover that fugal finale really spoke to me, but the whole work, with its gigantic cathedral-like architecture struck me from the first as sublime. And, wouldn't you know, Bruckner 5 remains my personal favorite among his symphonies. I got to know the other symphonies gradually over the following decade, to be swept away by my first encounter with the Eighth. I remain a non-cultic Brucknerian.
I heard Buckner 7 on the radio as a teenager and it totally stopped me in my tracks. I remember standing next to the speaker through the finale, waiting to learn what on earth the music was and who composed it.
My first experience with Bruckner was hearing his Te Deum at UC Davis. But I didn't hear any of his symphonies for a while longer, because most of my classical listening is on radio and radio stations don't often play hour-plus symphonies. My introduction to Bruckner's symphonies was playing his 4th; when I went to the first rehearsal, I still hadn't heard any Bruckner other than the Te Deum..
I also discovered Bruckner via his Fifth Symphony at UCLA. Many in my circle could not grasp the depth of his work. (Honestly, they were f'ing snobs!) During Covid, I decided to take the time to immerse myself in Bruckner's symphonies, predominantly conducted by Eugen Jochum or Gunther Wand. Delving into Bruckner's music and his life story was intreguing. His compositions, structured like musical "blocks" with captivating textures, cadences, and archipelagos of motifs, have deepened my appreciation for his genius. Despite his personal quirks/flaws, he persevered.
I discovered Bruckner around the age of 20. It was a concert on television. The 4th. I was immediately drawn to this music. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. I don't remember well but I think it's the 1st and 3rd movements that have me more. But what I remember is that when I heard the coda, I was impressed. It's hard to describe an emotion so I would say it was magnificent. I decided to listen to other symphonies and the next one was the seventh. I liked it right away and There you go. Now Bruckner is one of my favorite composers. My favorite Bruckner work is the 8th. I had never noticed that the 1st theme of the finale of the 7th sounded so much like the 1st of the 5th. When you said and sang it I wondered how I hadn't noticed that before. Thanks !
When I was an adolescent I glanced through a Schwann catalog, and was intrigued by this composer named Bruckner, who, like Beethoven and Mahler, also wrote nine symphonies. But I didn't pursue my curiosity until college, when I found the Klemperer/New Philharmonia Ninth Symphony recording in a cut-out bin for 99 cents. I immediately loved the music, although I sensed that there were better performances out there, and, indeed, that turned out to be true. Gradually I got to know all of the symphonies from recordings, and occasional live performances, as well as reading through them in four-hand transcriptions. Somehow, however, the music never really hit home for me until I heard Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic in New York in early 1989, live at Carnegie Hall in the 8th Symphony.
I began to get familiar with Bruckner 45 years ago or so, when I first purposely listened to the 8th Symphony. I liked it ... I think that I have a special fondness for expansive music ... and Bruckner's 8th surely filled the bill. I had instrumental training in public school and so, had been introduced to various portions of classical instrumentals works, including some Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Brahman and Prokofiev. Also, my Dad had a LP which featured Bizet and Rimsky Korsakov. And, of course, I heard snatches of what I'd come to recognize as being from Bizet's Carmen opera (from Gilligan's Island), the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah, etc. So, it ultimately became apparent to me ... that I had an affinity for what I came to know as Classical music. I liked other music, as well ... in fact, a sampling of almost every category of Western music. I was in my early adulthood when I began to collect Classical music samples. My first were Beethoven symphonies 5 and 9, then I added in some Brahms (Symphony 3). Ultimately, I collected all of Beethoven's symphonies and Brahms. I probably didn’t get around to Bruckner until I reached my 30's, and as I said, the 8th was my first. That was followed by the 4th, then the 5th, and culminated with the 7th. I recently (about 30 years later) began to tentatively give an ear to his other symphonies, ... the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 9th, ... but they really haven't grabbed me to-date as the others have. I thoroughly enjoy what I know 9f Bruckner's works, ... and he figures prominently in my listening time ... along with Sibelius, Rachmaninov, etc.
My first exposure to Bruckner was the Scherzo from his 4th symphony which was constantly being played on a L.A. classical radio station. In the 1960s my local library had an extensive classical record collection that included several recordings of Eugen Jochum performing Bruckner with the Berlin Philharmonic. Symphony No. 7 and the Scherzo from Symphony No. 9 were my favorites, but I was never drawn to Bruckner as I was with Mahler, although now in my autumnal years, I do listen more mostly due to Mr. Hurwitz.
I discovered Bruckner by weird chance. In my early twenties, studying theology, I found a bargain box by ZYX Classic of the second and the fourth symphony conducted by some guy named Adolph (really!) in a sale basket in the supermarket next to pasta and sausages. And from that moment on I was addicted to Bruckner...
went to an afternoon concert at the university that i attended. heard the 8th symphony. what an emotional rollercoaster. cried during the adagio movement
I remember the first time I ever heard of Bruckner was in a little music dictionary that I used when I was a young budding violinist. In the brief bio, it said that Bruckner was noted for how long his symphonies are. A few years later I heard the 4th symphony in concert. I must have been interested in going for what was on the first half of the program because surely it wasn't for the seemingly endless, undying monstrosity that I had to endure. It was only many years later when I was working on my undergrad degree when I heard Bruckner again. It was part of a big box set of Karajan symphonies. I probably got it because I wanted the Brahms symphonies, but I gave Bruckner another try. Wow! I don't know what it was but now I was pulled in by his music, particularly the 4th and 8th symphonies. It is such a journey to listen to a Bruckner symphony, but, oh so rewarding. It will be an uncommon opinion, to be sure, but I think that Bruckner was "the" great symphonist of the 19th century. If I could only take one symphony with me from that hundred-year period, filled to bursting as it is, I would take Bruckner 8.
21 years old, Bruckner 4 in a community orchestra. One early rehearsal we were running the finale, and we, the strings were all getting tendentious from the tremolo. But then there was this moment - you know, a Bruckner moment, with this inevitable and overwhelming wave washing over everything, and oh the tears came.
I can't help but identify. My friend worked at borders waaay back in the day and gave me the 7th with Berlin, Karajan, and EMI as overstock. The frist movement planted a seed. It wasn't until I came across the 5th at tower records that captivated me with the main cell that was mentioned. It made me feel like i was on an epic journey. My friends surprisingly enjoyed listening to it up to Yosemite. The boisterous first movement, the intoxicating counterpoint of the second, whirlwind third, and crazy fugue finale that has a feeling of reward at the end for making it all the way through, still gives me chills when I go back to it. It definitely is an investment in time, energy, and not an everyday thing but definitely 👌 worth the journey. It's always nice to listen to on a nice long bike ride in new territory. Not much of a fan of the 4th either. Too saccharine for my taste but i appreciate it. I really enjoy your take on different pieces by the way. Thank you🤘
The 5th I heard was by London and Möst BTW. I'm no expert but I like it and can't stop laughing at hearing u talk about ur troubles because I felt the same way at first...🤣🤣🤣 "then u had to hear it twice..."🤣
Dave, I had a similar experience of "collecting" these small melodic pieces from Bruckner (like "taa daa da da daa ..." from the 5th) that tended to get stuck in your head, when I discovered him.
My first exposure to Bruckner was Bruno Walter’s recording of the 4th that also contained Wagner’s Overture and Venusberg Music from Tannhauser with chorus I got from the Columbia Record Club I subscribed to in high school. I had not heard any Bruckner, but loved Walter’s Brahms that I had recently bought. As I recall, the only thing I liked after listening to the symphony was the “hunting” Scherzo. However, I thought the Wagner was great. Now I listen to a lot of Bruckner, but little of Wagner-my favorite being the Siegfried Idyll! After the 4th I received the 9th also with Walter and liked it better than the 4th. Much later I was quite taken with the motets thanks to my wife who sang some of those in her college choir. Besides the 9th, I liked the 5th, 6th, and 7th best as well as his choral works, including the masses.
In college, 1962-63, we had a pretty good recording library and a big, old mono setup. The lady played a Bruckner Symphony (don't remember which) for me. I was impressed, puzzled, and interested. A year later I heard the 7th on KDKA-FM in Pittsburg with Steinburg, lots of noise due to the distance, not sure if it was live. Now that was very interesting, so I read about it and the Wagner Tubas. (I am a brass player.) Next I heard Leisdorf at Tanglewood live doing the 4th. Well, I just had to get that recording which was not as good as live.
I read about Bruckner in Ethan Mordden's "A Guide to Orchestral Music" as the CD craze was at its height. My first was Bruckner's Fourth. I love 3 through 9.
My first Bruckner was the #4; it was a birthday gift from a friend, one of three CDs she gave me along with the Sibelius #2 and Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time".
My first engagement was a radio broadcast in 1984 - Abbado/VPO of Symphony No 7, then the recording of 7 by Karajan on DG, then as luck would have it Stan Skrowaczewski conducred the Seventh with the Halle in Sheffield that Autumn. Then I was hooked. I think I heard 5 & 9 with Stan conducting in subsequent years. My love for Bruckner was really rekindled by Juanjo Mena who conducted a moving Bruckner 6 in Manchester with BBCPO in 2012 - just released on Chandos. I will be interested in your view on that CD.
Bruckner was one of the composers I tried because he had a lot of listings of symphonies in the Schwann catalog. I'd already realized that I tended to like composers who wrote symphonies, so his concentration on them caught my attention. I began with the one that had the most recordings listed, figuring it was the most popular. That was not in those days the Fourth. It was the Seventh. Ormandy, RCA, one disc with the slow movement split between sides. I thought it was gorgeous and put him on my list to eventually get all of them.
I discovered Bruckner while I was in high school. Our chorus joined forces with the chorus from another school to perform _Te Deum_ with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago under the direction of Margaret Hillis. This would have been in 1971 or '72.
Mine was strikingly similar. I had checked out the Karajan recording of the 5th from the Ottawa (Kansas) Library while at college, more out of curiosity than anything else. I loved the opening movement from the first listen, but it took a while to get into the rest of the symphony, even though I was (and continue to be) thrilled by the grand climax at the end. I then returned the recording and forgot about Bruckner for a while. Much later I found a recording of the 7th (also minus the cymbal crash) and liked it enough to start exploring further. Both the 5th and 7th are now among my favorites, with the 8th and 4th close behind. And I'm slowly working my way through the rest.
I heard the Seventh on a live concert broadcast and loved it and went off to the record shop - got the Haitink / Concertgebouw - then a few weeks later I picked up the Fifth (Karajan/Berlin) and I was on my way.
Bruckner was tough for me to get into, the very strange, "meandering" quality of this symphonies were nothing like anyone elses. It took me 3+ times for each work for me to finally "get them", and he is now my fav symphonist. Stuff like Brahms 3rd I grasped the first listen. Bruckner seems to have scattered ideas, stop and go qualities that nobody else has. Slow music followed by huge climaxes, then it stops and starts... love it now!
My first Bruckner was the 4th, the Klemperer recording on Angel from a lending library. It was not love at first hearing but I was intrigued. I knew all of the standard rep from Haydn on but I had trouble with Bruckner's sense of structure and progression. My real learning experience was from a friend who had years ago recorded a Koussevitzky BSO broadcast of the 8th off the air on acetate discs at 78 rpm. He handed me the tape and asked if I'd check it because he wasn't sure he'd gotten it assembled in the right order and on pitch. So I borrowed a score from the library (luckily the right one) and went through it. It took hours correctly reassembling the sides as he had indeed gotten some out of order but that allowed me to dive into the structure as I put it back together. Also learning that Koussie had cut out a lot of it getting it down to a running time of about 55 minutes! Hearing it complete in Jochum's 1964 BPO recording was then a lesson in itself. The 7th is still my favorite. But Mahler goes to the desert island with me.
The first time I heard Bruckner is when I was a first-year uni student. Back then I was into Baroque music only and had just started listening to Beethoven. One day, I shared some psychoactive substances with friends. After having some fun, I got home, but I was still under the influence and couldn't sleep. So I went to RUclips, and the fourth movement of Bruckner Symphony No. 5 conducted by Sinopoli and performed by Staatskapelle Dresden was there on the recommendation. I played it, and the intro alone made me cry. That moment, I became a fan of Bruckner's.
(Repost) In the late 1960's we purchased a series of boxed sets (from Readers Digest I believe) of recordings of "classical masterpieces." one of the LP's was Klemperer's performance of Bruckner 4. I listened to it and liked it, but was not immediately led to exclaim "wow, that's great'" I was 16 years old.However, it did spark a level of curiosity, and I listened to and enjoyed Haitink's Concertgebouw Bruckner 5, Szell's Bruckner 3, and Mehta's VPO Bruckner 9. In 1976 I bought Karajan's BPO Bruckner 8 on DG out of curiosity ( I had no prior experience with the work). That was the true turning point, from which I developed an enduring love of Bruckner which led to the acquisition of many Bruckner recordings (including 15 or so of the 8th symphony). The journey continues to this day.
I was belatedly doing my classical self-education via CD purchases in the late 80s and picked up the 4th symphony conducted by Bruno Walter. I remember enjoying it and playing it many times, but it never inspired me to investigate further Bruckner as a priority.
I was working in London in the early 80s, and started listening to Mahler. A colleague at work liked Mahler and Bruckner, so he suggested I try Bruckner, and we went to a concert at the Barbican - but I dont remember what was played. Anyway, that was when CDs were first produced, and I started with the Solti/CSO 4th and Sawallische Bavarian State 6th. Now I have multiple versions of all the symphonies, including 14 8ths - the 8th is the pinnacle of symphonies
I got to know Bruckner when I was around 15 from my music theory class but didn’t pay attention to him. I first heard his piece in Apple Music Classical Music Radio, and it was the finale of the eighth (Karajan & Vienna Philharmonic). I liked it yet its length and progression were problematic to me. I don’t listen to his music that much but feel satisfied every time I give him a listen.
Oh. My. God. I don’t think I would have made it through Bruckner if the first thing I had heard was the 5th. I came to Bruckner playing the 7th Scherzo in my HS orchestra, and picked up a recording of it. Berlin-Barenboim, BTW. I mostly listened to the last two movements. Then moved on to the 4th thanks that DG twofer with the CSO-DB 7th. Eventually landed on the Cleveland-Dohnanyi 5th.
I picked up the Tintner recordings of the 4th and 5th back in 2003 or thereabouts. My first impressions were positive but I wasn't sure I had the "correct" recordings, because back then I thought only DG and Decca did classical music legitimately, and Naxos was a secret but necessary shame because of my budget. I still have those discs and have only ever listened to Tintner's version of the Fifth. When I bought Michael Steinberg's 1995 book The Symphony I went on a quest to obtain and listen to every symphony in that book. That's how I discovered Martinu and Nielsen.
First Bruckner was Otto Klemperer conducting the Vienna symphony orchestra on an old mono recording. We later got the Klemperer/Philharmonia recording, which was a vast improvement. After that I ventured into the other symphonies. Loved the soundworlds he was capable of achieving. I don't regard him as one of the greats, but an interesting one.
I don't believe anyone comes to love and appreciate Bruckner easily. When I was young and "learning the repertory" he was avoided like the plague - I am not sure why but I must have had a bad experience somewhere!! I recall at the Proms in 1967 going to hear either Szeryng or (perhaps) Kogan play the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Haitink and the Concertgebouw. The second half was Bruckner 9. I left at the interval. Now I wish I had stayed as Haitink and the orchestra knew everything you need to know about Bruckner and the last movement of the symphony is marvellous. I thought my epiphany came courtesy of dear, old Erich Leinsdorf and the RPO with the 4th Symphony at the Festival Hall in 1972 but in fact I had heard him do the 7th with the LSO there in 1970 so "recollections may vary"!! I suspect it was the cymbal crash that did it for me as this is always one of the big thrills of the symphonic repertoire with the relentless adagio (sehr langsam) building to the orgasmic moment. I made the mistake of taking my then fiancee to the RFH when we were courting to hear Giulini do the 8th. I don't know what I could have been thinking of - of all symphonies to take a musical novice to - I must have been mad. She has forgiven me (now) but I rarely play Bruckner at home just in case!!!
I was led to Bruckner in my teens via my interest in Mahler; my first purchase was the Eighth Symphony with Solti/VPO. That started it! One day, in the late afternoon, I got a phone call from my friend who said, “The Philadelphia Orchestra is playing Bruckner’s Eighth under Klaus Tennstedt this evening at Carnegie Hall. Would you like to go?” I said, “I’m on my way. Meet you there.“ I guess Bruckner Symphony tickets were not such a hot item in the mid 70s.
As I was getting into Mahler in my late 1960's college days, I read that he was a friend and advocate of Bruckner. I was (and still am) a dedicated Mahler devotee, so I figured if Mahler respected him, he was worth exploring. As it happened, my college library had a copy of a double LP on Supraphon, a label I had never seen before, containing Bruckner 7, coupled with a suite from Gotterdammerung. It was by the Czech Philharmonic, conducted by Lovro von Matačić. One listen to the B7 showed me that Mahler was right. That also was my first taste of Matačić, a really outstanding conductor whose Bruckner ranks with the best I've heard.
I bought my first Bruckner record because I had been to led to think that he would sound like Wagner. So, I chose the 7th with Ormandy (and the cymbal crash) and felt there were some great moments, but a lot of longeurs. But I kept listening over and over expecting something big to happen, and it never did. I still enjoy the 7th but never quite became a Bruckner fan. Wesley.
Hello . My brother listened much to Wagner operas. So I read a book about Wagner and there it stood that a composer named Bruckner had dedicated a symphony to "the master".I was curious about how it sound and I bought the complete set whith Karajan to a very good price. This was in 1991 and I was 22 years old. I started to listnen to no 3, but was not so impressed. I then moved on to no 5 and then it clicked. Since then I have heard all symphonies in different editions many times. Best wishes Fred from Kristianstad.
I borrowed a record of the Fourth (Romantic) Symphony from the library. Klemperer was the conductor. on EMI/Angel. The record had the warning that it could easily be played too loud. As usual the liner notes made me curious.
My first experience of Bruckner was really only about nine months ago. I had heard the masses before then, but never really the symphonies. Honestly, I had judged Bruckner by his negative reputation and avoided him. Then I heard the lectures about 4 and 7 on the Sticky Notes podcast, which got me to listening to those - and I loved them. Then I listened to the rest of Bruckner’s symphonies and loved (almost) all of them (still not sold on the very early ones - 00, 0, or 1). My favorite is the 5th.
David Lord, you almost opened up a fifty-year-old mental filing cabinet drawer buried deep inside of my brain with this one...! It might be a subliminal thing, but for me, almost quite accidentally, it was also Bruckner's 5th Symphony, or at least part of it, as the last 5 minutes of it was being broadcast on an old THAMES production of a documentary called The World at War, narrated by Lord Larry Olivier himself. The painful part of that documentary was the Nazi German armed forces parade which took place in Berlin supposedly to observe Adolph Hitler's 50th birthday in April 1939, the specific newsreel documentary clip, was likely newsreel propaganda of the period, from which that music was played on the World at War Documentary. So in a sense my Bruckner journey started there for about a five-minute newsreel clip. My two first Bruckner purchases came about four years after that, when I became much more devoted to classical music that I was with that original television documentary airing. Eventually within the year 1974 I gathered up all of bruckner's music, or as much of it as I could find on LP in my nearby situated local record stores of that time. Inevitably I would cut my teeth so to speak on Jochum's 6th and 8th, traveling to Karajan's 4th and 7th on EMI; to Haitink's 0, 1, 2; ultimately to Klemperer's 5; to the Walter 9th; and finally to Karl Bohm's Third. Most of the stuff I received for Christmas time of 1974 as gifts from my late Mom. They were extremely special, priceless treasures to me throughout the next forty years, and it was only in the last several that I finally parted with all of my vinyl stuff, most, incidentally with having given it away to the Salvation Army, then because I thought that I might have been moving, however now, very much to my regret. Best wishes John
Coming into classical LPs just as an enjoyable hobby and it's striking how much great stuff was on those cheapo labels, Urania, Turnabout, Nonesuch etc. Fabulous eastern European orchestras licensed or pirated from Eterna, and all that stuff licensed from the Erato catalog too, by guys like MHS.
Bruckner was someone I encountered fairly early as well, only having known the truly big names like Beethoven and Mozart before that. For me Bruckner came before Brahms, Mahler or Sibelius, among symphonists. So I never really understood why he was supposed to be oddball or an acquired taste. The Fourth was pure magic for me as a teenager and still is.
My first experience of Bruckner was discovering a music copy at the age of 12 amongst our sheet music at home of the 4 part motet "Locus iste". The notes were simple enough for me to play on the piano and I recognised then what a gem of a piece it is, worthy of a place alongside Mozart's "Ave Verum". I knew of Bruckner by not altogether complimentary reputation and, when I was 19, taking pot luck and out of idle curiosity, I borrowed Ormandy's recording of Bruckner 5 and tried to follow it with the score. I gave up after a few pages when the sound and the printed notes parted ways and left me in complete puzzlement. Was this a mismatch of editions, I was thinking? The music continued and I sat back to listen to the rest, not realising that I had the discs in the wrong order and had just played the finale on side 4 instead of beginning with side 1. Yet the music was still cogent to me, even without hearing the first 3 movements and impelled me to play sides 1-3 without delay. I haven't looked back since: as Dave said, if you can start with the 5th and make sense of Bruckner, the rest of his oevre pose no problems!
In my early 20's, 30 years ago, I bought the Penguin Guide on Classical recordings, the only source then available to me where I lived in South Africa off reviews on classical recordings. I then decided to read the guide from cover to cover. That helped me a great deal to start discovering the names of great artists. And also new compoosers. Getting to the Bruckner reviews, one sentence hooked me to investigate Bruckner- they talked about Bruckner as this "unique symphonist".I just HAD to try his symphonies, and eventually bought at one go numbers 1, 5, 4 and 8. And now... I have a LONG list of great and wonderful symphonists in my collection, but my personal BIG 3 for symphonies will always be (in now particular order) Shostakovich, Mahler and BRUCKNER.
Aside from remembering Yehudi Menuhin in the TV version of his Music of Man arguing that orchestral music reached its height with Bruckner and Mahler, it meant little to me as Menuhin never presented any reasons for this argument. As a result, I did not pay it much more attention. What I knew of Brucker was from a group that Dave has never named - the Bruckner critics. I was told repeatedly that Bruckner was too simplistic, too much of a minimalist, and never produced any music worth listening too - so I avoided him. But when I was doing attending university out of town and living with an elderly couple, I noticed among their small and eclectic LP collection a recording of the 9th by Bernstein and the New York Phil. I decided to listen to it and see if it was as bad as everyone had told me. A couple minutes into the opening of the first movement, I realized how much I had missed out and decided I would start collecting all of Bruckner's symphonies. I have a number of "favourite" composers and so not tied to Bruckner alone, but music without Bruckner makes no sense to me.
It was all Dad's fault. He had the Walter Bruckner 4th with the Columbia SO, and when it got the the "Hunting" scherzo I kind of sat up and thought YESSSS! Big, loud, brass giving it their all - this is a symphony!!
I first heard Bruckner on classical radio (in Romania in 70s, 80s): 1(Eugen Jochum); 3 & 6 (Bernard Haitink). Then LP: 7 & 4 (Kurt Masur); 5 (Lovro von Matacic - Supraphon); 9 (Gennady Rozhdestvensky ); 8 (Svetlanov); 2 (Cristian Mandeal - Cluj)
There is this guy on YT who frequently talks about Bruckner and bad Bruckner and somehow a horse is involved. So I was curious and bought a Box (Jochum, Dresden, Brilliant Classics) but there was no horse! So far I listened to 1-6 (some Symphonies are way too long). Still no horse. Maybe the horse will appear after I listened to all? I would like to take the opportunity to ask, if there are any recordings of "Andante für Wagnertuben Des-Dur".
I was 16 years old, and testing my new tape recorder in 1967 by recording a symphony from a local classical FM station. When I played it back I fell in love with this mystery symphony, because I had no idea whose it was. I played that tape many times. I went off to college the next year (MIT) and they had a wonderful classical library, and by accident I stumbled on the exact recording I'd recorded and learned it was Karajan's recording of Bruckner's 2nd symphony on DGG. I still treasure it, and of course now I treasure all the other of the great Bruckner symphonies too.
I was in Vienna 2 weeks ago and besides seeing 5 operas heard the VP in the Musikverein play the 8th to a sold out audience. It was ofcourse thrilling and I never heard Bruckner played live in my life before so this was a double thrill.
The Thielemann concert... I envy you!
We just heard the VPO on tour with Thielemann perform the 8th two days ago at Zellerbach Hall on the campus of UC Berkeley. Thrilling and Epic! I have heard major American orchestras and the VPO itself perform Bruckner on numerous occasions, and this was one of the best live Bruckner concerts I have ever heard...
@@petejilka968 Yes, Thielemann was the conductor . Too hear it in Vienna was too thrilling. Glad you got to experience this also.
I was at that same concert in Vienna, in the second row. Incredible performance.
@@drssexy2142 wipe your drippy nose.
I first heard Bruckner on classical radio...the scherzo of the 9th was played alone (I'm pretty sure it was Barenboim), and I was blown away by the sheer power and volume of the orchestra! I soon bought a copy of the 9th and then worked my way backwards through the cycle, and have been a fan ever since...I once heard someone compare Bruckner's scherzos to tanks dancing!!! Not a bad comparison
I had heard the scherzo on a documentary about World War II... and of course it well fit you-know-what regime. Menace meets innocence. I was in my teens and I was starting to outgrow the pop music of the time.
For me it was the scherzo alone of the 7th on classical radio! 😂
I started listening classical music in 1970, bicentennial year of Beethoven.
Since then I decided to listen to all the great symphonies of all composer's. That's how got to know about Bizet, Franck, Brahms and Tchaikovsky among others. I got budget label Bruckner 4 and 7 but I was overwhelmed by how different they are from others. It took awhile for me to learn his idioms and started enjoying it.
Local conductor named David Loebel had a lecture before subscription concert.
He compared three composers, Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner.
They composed same number of symphonies.
He walked over to the side of stage and walked straight back to the center and said that was Beethoven.
He walked back to that side and this time walked back toward the center but stopped looking around and walked few steps and stop once again looking around and up and said he stopped and smelled the flowers and listened to the birds, and that's how his symphonies evolved.
For Bruckner, he said he didn't go anywhere he is standing inside the church looking around at the stained glass windows.
They look all different depend on how the Sun is hitting them.
And that's the Bruckner.
I just got back from VPO Bruckner 8 concert in NY.
I do think classical symphonies culminated in monumental Bruckner 8.
My buddy, the late Fred Shipkey, introduced me to Bruckner 5 by lending me his 25 cds of all different recordings.
My first Bruckner was prompted by a two volume set of books by Milton Cross. I think it was called the Lives of the Great Composers. For Bruckner he recommended the Symphony No. 4, and the title "The Romantic" caught my attention. I loved the scherzo hunting music. Years later when I started to attend the Pittsburgh Symphony, one of the concerts that William Steinberg mounted began with the Te Deum, and after the intermission he did the Symphony No. 8. It was a marathon concert.
My first experience was a recirding of Karajan/Berlin of the 7th. I had never reallly heard him, and what little I had just resnated w me. It was on casette tape, and I played this incesantly! It was the most glorious music I had ever heard. Ive been hooked on Bruckner ever since!
I discovered Bruckner when I was 15. I was looking for Bartock and went through the all the Bs and found beautiful box of the 8th symphony, by Karajan with the Berliner Philharmonic. I was intrigued so I bought it and looked for Bruckner on the encyclopedia at home (no internet at that time) and heard that magnificent music and I was hooked (after the second time hearing it). I started looking for any information I could find about this very different and extraordinary music and composer. My next was the 7th and just confirmed my love for his music.
I had an uncle, professor of psychology at the university of kingston, ontario canada, originally from scotland, who was married to my mother's sister, (he wrote a book on the history of psychology in the west) he also played the piano, and was a fan of bruckner.........when i have 14 years old....one day when I was visiting, he made me listen to bruckner's 7th which I did not know.. ..I fell under the spell of this grandiose music....and since that day bruckner never left me....
Thank you for telling this. My first encounter with Bruckner must be the weirdest of all my encounters with composers. I knew from my childhood Händel, Bach, Beethoven, Berlioz etc, but not Bruckner. One day I went to the Sibelius Academy library in Helsinki to look for something that I don't anymore remember. There were these listening rooms that you could reserve and from one of these - as i passed by the door - I heard just so captivating and strange music that I stopped right there and listened. I had no idea what it was. I was so intrigued by this music that I waited all the time to the end that I could ask to person listening to this music what it was. After perhaps one hour the door opened and I had my chance to ask. The person answering me was astounded that I did'nt know Bruckner's music (it is just amazing - so much as I was only to "art" music from my childhood onwards that Bruckner had escaped me - and remember Bruckner's influence on Sibelius). What I heard was his third symphony.
In my Music History class in college. The professor spent the last 30 minutes of a class playing a sample of one recording each by Mahler and Bruckner. He said "you can like them or not, I don't, but they exist." And that was my introduction.
I was 14 years old and a school friend of mine (13!) knew and liked Bruckner's music. I was already into Beethoven, Mahler and Wagner, so Bruckner spoke to me immediately (the Ninth). Living in Amsterdam was a bonus... That friend of mine later worked at the Concertgebouw, writing a book about the orchestra's history with Bruckner... (As you might gather, I'm Dutch.)
Having been away for 10 days (with no internet access), just discovered this video. Thank you for the well told engrossing story about how you discovered Bruckner. Apart from Bruckner 8, I still struggle with his music. Too many dead spots. Oh dear.
You're not alone.
The first time I heard Bruckner's music (the Fifth Symphony) was on a radio program where a panel of musicians compared three performances. They played a performance by the Cleveland Orchestra and Von Dohnányi, among others. That recording was ultimately chosen as the best.
Celibidache was mentioned a number of times by the panel, but no recording of him was played. Coincidentally, not much later I came across a CD that contained his live recording (EMI). I played that CD endlessly while writing my thesis. Maybe not the best recording and performance, but I have fond memories of it.
I discovered Bruckner when I bought a cheap Teldec CD with the 7th symphony played by Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Barenboim. I talked about this symphony with mey German teatcher, who was a classic music connoisseur and a Bruckner fanatic. He told me that the best recordings ara by Jochum. I bought te complete DG set of Bruckner's symphonies and I loved it!
I grew up listening to a lot of orchestral music because of my father, who was very passionate about it, but he mostly stuck to the "mainstream" composers. As I started to develop my own taste, I always felt more attracted to masses in minor keys, requiems, the sound you get from Buxtehude or Bach's organ works, Wagner's operas, but those were the least available in our collection. Later into my teens I started collecting vinyl by myself, and father decided to gift me a bunch of classical records he got at this antique shop...one of those was Bruckner's 8th symphony, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, the deutsche grammophon pressing. I felt I found the music I had been searching for since forever.
The sound was fantastic..the grandiosity,the darkness, the stillness, the might, the modulation of sound... I mostly listen to operas for the instrumentals and not the vocals, and it felt like I had found Wagner's music without the operatic singing. When I found the 9th some time later I was in heaven. Honestly I do not know how I did not run into Bruckner earlier, because all my classical music interests were in the vicinity of what Bruckner's music is and sounds like, or where it comes from. Since then I always listen to his symphonies and other works.... my favourite composer.
I came late in life to Bruckner, having been a serious classical music collector almost 50 years pre Bruckner.
I was browsing the cd shelves in my local library, and came upon a recording of Bruckner’s third symphony by some not well known conductor whose name and orchestra escapes me.
I was hooked and listened many times to the long first movement with the opening simple trumpet motive. Wanted to hear more, so ordered the Wand Sony complete symphonies and my Bruckner collection expanded to Karajan, Celidibache, Jochum , the Naxos series and many more.
I discovered Bruckner in my freshman year of college, when we sang "Locus iste" as an anthem for the offertory at Mass one glorious Sunday. I also got to do "Christus factus est" before I graduated and wrote a little Brucknerian motet of my own. My appreciation for the symphonies came later, starting with the 8th.
On another topic, this video gained you the approval of my teenage son, who is also a percussionist. He appreciates your quest for the cymbal crash in Bruckner 7.
My first Bruckner 7th was that Rosbaud performance you mentioned. But my favorite Bruckner LP of my youth was the Boehm Bruckner 4th in the old London 2 LP Box. I found it at the public library back in my college days in Wichita and thus begun my lifelong love of that magnificent Vienna Horn sound. Still my favorite 4th on all time.
As I watched this, it struck me how different and, in some ways, similar our early experiences of classical music were. I, like you, was influenced by a musical mother, which led to rare occasional new record purchases. But I also inherited my father’s hifi, and while we lived far from Los Angeles, we were on a hill with an FM antenna in the attic that allowed us to barely pickup KFAC, then an all-classical commercial radio station. A whole new world opened up to me. Shortly after this the public library’s selection of stereo magazines with classical music reviews became regular reading. I clearly recall the recommendation of the Bruckner 4th as an entry point, but I hesitated, awash with Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Schumann. In my middle teens I purchased and built a Heathkit FM tuner to improve Los Angeles distant FM signals, which eventually led to my first real serious listen to a Bruckner Symphony. This was the 8th with Zubin Mehta conducting the L.A. Phil. in a radio concert broadcast by KPFK. I recorded a portion of the broadcast with the hi-fi’s tape-deck and remember being most taken with the Scherzo. I wonder how your own early music life would have turned out if you could have listened to a full-time classical music radio station?
Nice reminiscence. I think it reflects a lot our own first encounters with this odd fellow and his weird music. I found him when I was making a little 8-millimeter film (remember those?) and needed some soundtrack music. My parents, who did not listen to classical, somehow had a handful of classical records (my uncle had dumped a bunch of records on us), including Bruckner 7/Ormandy, still sealed. I took to the scherzo first as it was relatively lively, and the rest was history.
My first "bruckner" was the scherzo of the ninth played in the Swedish Radio. It turned me on at once, me twelve years young at the time. Then of course the Romantic also over broadcast and I taped it on cassette in mono. My first LP was the nr 9 with Keilberth, as a christmas gift the year I was 14. and now I had a Toshiba stereo. Wow. The next Bruckner I listened to at the library and it was nr 6 with Haitink. Now I was really hooked at this amazing sound of A.B. At my junior high school a teacher and his colleagues one day stood some yards from my listening place (headphones) at the library. One of the other teachers said to him: look there is TB please ask him what music he is listening to. He approached me and asked this proposed question. "Its Bruckner, Sir, his sixth symphony! Then I became inited as the youngest member of the Swedish Bruckner Society. This was 1973.
I discovered Bruckner when I was 12, and through the Seventh Symphony. I was staying at my aunt and uncle's house, and they always had their stereo tuned to a classical radio station. They were away for a few hours and the Bruckner Seventh came on, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. But I didn't really get to hear much more of Bruckner until I got to college 4 years later, where the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford had an enormous record collection, and there I discovered the symphonies, one by one, in the Jochum performances. Extraordinarily unique, beautiful, and very profoundly moving. The Sixth remains my absolute favorite.
My first exposure to Bruckner was at a Friday afternoon concert in 1962 with Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra in the Academy of Music playing the Symphony No. 7. I was 15 year old, an age at which I found the piece intreguing, but long. From there over the next several years I did my Bruckner explorations via WFLN FM by listening to the broadcasts and taping several of the symphonies off the air. Usually, I liked the scherzi best. My first actual Bruckner LP was the Walter/Columbia Sym. recording of No. 4 purchased several years later. Now have this particular recording once again in my Walter Complete Columbia box. Acquiring multiple copies of recordings of all of the Bruckner symphonies occurred years later. I had copies of all nine Vaughan Williams symphonies long before the nine by Bruckner.😉
I have recordings of all Bruckner's & Vaughan Williams' symphonies. I enjoy the grandeur of Bruckner's works. I love Vaughan Williams' music.
My first experience with Bruckner was hearing my parents perform Locus Iste with their choir. And they did not usually perform 19th century repertoire but early music, like Ockeghem, Desprez, Di Lasso etc., but of course a motet like Locus Iste fits in with that. It stuck with me because the Mr. Bean theme is also based on it, and that was back when they were aired on TV. Was 6-7 years old at the time. Only discovered his symphonic music in earnest when I was well in my twenties but instantly became a near religious afficionado. By the way, my favourite Bruckner recording is Hans Zender conducting the 3rd Symphony in its original 1873 setting with the Südwest-Rundfunkorchester. It's a live recording from 2005 that was never issued on CD but can be found on RUclips, it was recorded from a 256kbps internet stream so the sound quality is good.
My first Bruckner experience was actually in Leipzig when attending the 2000 BachFest. We got tickets to hear Bruckner's 9th performed by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. Two memories aside from the music stand out: many of the string players having to towel off their sweat following the first movement, and meeting Blomstedt after the concert with him remarking "ah, you're an American!" when requesting his autograph on his CD recording of the work.
My first experience with Bruckner was the 8th on a cheap radio around 1984. I was in college and was working over the summer in a very hot shipping and receiving department and WFMT in Chicago played the full symphony. It was very different from anything else I had heard and I was captivated. Although Bruckner is often described as a cathedral in sound the picture that came into my mind was some sort of epic space voyage. At the end the announcer mentioned the piece and the performers (Haitink/Concertgebouw) and I went out and grabbed the performance right after work so I could hear it again.
My introduction to the mighty Bee was Karajan’s recording of the 8th with the VPO. I was hooked by the end of the first movement then the scherzo and then the adagio started and oh my! I’d never heard anything like it. It’s still one of my favourite recordings.
As a (morbid?) nine-year-old, I learned that Bruckner had passed away prior to completing his 9th symphony and dug out Dad's Walter edition of it just to hear what conking out mid-piece sounded like. (I was not aware of the perhaps deservedly obscure 4th movement). That experience and Dad's Max Rudolph/Bruckner 7th recording (performed by the Cincinnati symphony orchestra - our HOME TOWN TEAM!) hooked me for life.
There's much to be said for the home team.
This fellow Ohioan first heard the 7th at Severance Hall with the best band in the land, the Cleveland Orchestra under guest conductor Christoph Eschenbach.
Wow! That ethereal beginning reaching me in my front row balcony seat was unreal.
That is a very special B7...
i first came across the music of Bruckner when I was probably around ten years old when I came across a hoard of 78s which included a set of Bruckner 7, conducted by Eduard van Beinum. I didn't get it, mostly because I was too busy changing records, but I got it years later as a violinist in a symphony orchestra!
Great remembrance. I got a cheapie LP of the 4th randomly from a subscription. I thought it was okay, but I set it aside and forgot about it. I never got why it’s called “the Romantic”. Then I heard the 8th on the radio. I went, WOW! So I started collecting Bruckner. At one point I got Kempe’s 2 LPs of the 5th. I liked parts of it, but I just didn’t get it as a whole. It collected dust for many years before I heard it again on the radio and my ears were opened to it. I love it now!
The first time I experienced Bruckner was when I was in the All-State orchestra during my high school years. We played an arrangement of the Scherzo of the seventh symphony. I enjoyed it, but it didn’t leave a lasting impression on me. While my dad was working on his master’s degree at Southern Miss, I was reading his music history textbook about Bruckner’s Eighth and the ending with all four themes of each movement were combined. I thought Wow, that would be interesting to hear. In my freshman year at Southern Miss, I actually got to play Bruckner’s Eighth. Playing that symphony was a wonderful impression and really started my listening journey of Bruckner’s music.
Paul D.
My first Bruckner experience was in high school, tenth grade about 1973, I went to hear the Louisville Orchestra play the Mozart D major flute concerto with Paula Robeson. I had a crush on a flute player from school, and she was there too. This was my first symphony concert, living out in the Kentucky sticks west of Louisville growing up, there weren't many opportunities for Culture. Matthias Bamert was conducting, and the concert opened with one of his compositions. Don't remember much about that piece except there were four different sizes of gongs and tam tams lined up in front the orchestra being tickled with various kinds of sticks. Then Paula came out and played Mozart, and gyrated around so much I was uncomfortable and felt she was in danger of falling off the stage. After intermission was Bruckner 6. I thought it would never end. Maybe not the best starting place for Bruckner, and a first symphony concert experience for that matter. But I persisted anyway, because, like you I wanted to be different. I dug through Dad's vast record collection and found Bruckner 3 and 9 with Schuricht and the VPO on Seraphim, plus the Rosbaud 7. Later there was the Haitink 8, but the clincher was Barenboim's Chicago 4. As a tuba picker and music ed major in college, that blew me away. I made a pilgrimage to Chicago to hear No. 0 and Helgoland when I was at college in western Kentucky.
Yes! The first Bruckner symphony I got to know was the Seventh, conducted indeed by Hans Rosbaud on Turnabout. There was heavy snow on the ground outside and I was at my parents' home, on vacation from university, and engrossed in a book. The Bruckner just insinuated itself into me, became part of my mental state at the time, particularly the slow movement with its wistful conclusion. I now have on order the box set of Hans Rosbaud Bruckner symphonies.
Hard to say. Different conductors do best with individual symphonies. Overall I'd say ;probably Günter Wand or Eugen Jochum.@@qewfsdsd65445
I went to a Rochester Philharmonic concert back in the 80's when David Zinman conducted the 8th. I only saw the name Bruckner on the occasional lp in the record stores and never gave him much thought. The concert ad described the symphony as "Monumental" (which piqued my interest), so I went and was very impressed. After that hunted down the rest of the symphonies like everyone else did.
I'd love to hear that first performance again just out of morbid curiosity since at that time, I didn't know what the hell I was listening to. :)
A German friend who is a classical fan encouraged me to listen to Bruckner when I commented that his works are difficult to comprehend - he told me that since I enjoyed Mahler - I should listen to Bruckner similarly .. I started with No 4 and 7 - still trying to discover further
Coincidence, really. I had acquired, from a school mate, a record player of dubious quality. First thing my father did on seeing the dreaded object was to forbid me access to his collection - and I can't say I blame him (not for that, anyway). He did, however, come to the rescue with, initially, two records. Or rather, one set (Haydn's London symphonies by the Little Orchestra of London under Leslie Jones - nice, energetic, rather small-scale performances with a harpsichord presence that I'm proud to say irritated the crap out of me even then in about 1977) and a record: Bruckner 4 with Haitink and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. I would have been about 15 then.
I was hooked from the very first listening of Bruckner 4, and many more listenings followed. Very many. Obsessively many. Playing a record gray may be the stuff of legends, but I did it. Or rather, my record murderer did. As a consequence, I imprinted so violently on the performance that no other recording has been able to get accepted into what I laughingly refer to as my brain to this day. A few months after that, I got the 6th as well, and shortly after that the 8th. All duplicates from my father, who had obtained the complete set (the brown/gold front with the embossed oval plastic cutout that usurps so much useful space once a collection really gets going).
The first three movements of the 4th hit me immediately, the adagio most of all. The finale lagged a bit behind, but I got there quickly enough. My favourite movements, though, were the first of the sixth symphony, and the adagio of the eighth. I discovered, completely by happy chance, that the sixth is THE MOST PERFECT music to accompany a reading of The Hobbit. Try it!
Oh, and by the way: I never listened to any movement on its own. Works are started at the beginning and end after the finale. Always. No arguments.
I was a freshman at NYU in the 1960s and I came across a record store in the Village called the Discophile, presided over by a man named Franz who held court several evenings a week and played rare recordings for us. I had read about Bruckner in school and at my request he played a recording of Furtwangler playing the 7th. he also introduced me to the 9th - same conductor. It took me a while but I eventually came to love Bruckner's music and he has long been one of very favorite composers. By the way I recently discovered that the Discophile and Franz were famous, and the NY Times once wrote that the that store was considered by some to be "the preeminent record store in the world" in it's time and that Franz was especially well known tn the NYC music community. Who knew?
@@qewfsdsd65445 I do not know the name of the original owner, but I found out that when that owner died he willed the ownership of the store to Franz, a magnificent, generous and thoroughly appropriate gesture! I actually was fortunate to spend several evenings at that shop in the company of Franz and his Many regulars and have wonderful memories of those times.Thanks for your comment.
A wonder clip, Dave,. Thank you. And, of course, it's unleashed everybody else's story of how they discovered the great B. Wonderful
The first time ever I heard Bruckner was at a rock concert. I was 16 or 17. The band had the beginning of the 4th as their concert intro (Blomstedt/Staatskapelle Dresden). I spoke to the band after the show, asked NOTHING about THEIR music but only about the intro. Got the record the next day. A longlive love began...
I was in a record store in my early 20s and bought the Decca Bohm CD double, I remember loving the cover art of the Bavarian mountains, and loved how atmospheric and ethereal the music sounded. And I thought the way the climax of the 4th was built up from nothing was unlike anything I had heard before, stunning.
Fun tale from you! I heard Bruckner snippets in High School, but they did not stick. As a college freshman I got the Bongartz/Leipzig Gewandhaus Bruckner 6 and liked it a lot. The one that really got me was a little later - HvK/BPO Bruckner 9 from the 60s. I've kept lots of Bruckner around since then.
Oh the memories! I had the same Rosbaud recording of the 7th. Actually my discovery occurred at a live performance of the 4th with Ormandy. Those horns at the end of the 1st movement. Wow! Then to my surprise I heard snippets of the 3rd movement in an episode of The Lone Ranger! Who knew?! My latest experience with No. 4 was last week at a live performance led by 95 year old Herbert Blomstedt with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Astoundingly exciting!
On the radio after a live performance of the 4th with Philadelphia/Ormandy, the announcer came on and said, “An hour-long Symphony by Bruckner casts a magical spell.”
You don’t hear editorial comments like that by radio announcers anymore.
My first exposure to Bruckner was a youtube clip of trombonists practicing the finale to the 8th on treadmills.
Thanks for sharing, I discovered Bruckner when I was 24, with the 5 also, the recording with the Berliner Philarmoniker and Gunter Wand, I played the thing all along my train trip from Paris to Rennes (3 hours). After that I said to myself: that's my guy🎉Bruck is my fellow friend since and I call him "Brucknercito"😂 If you speak Spanish and know Bruckner you'll catch the joke. 😊
What really sold me on Bruckner was the Scherzo of the Ninth. Easily one of the most forward-looking musical works of the 1890's.
"if you can deal with #5 you can deal with anything" haha. A great talk - thanks
Dear Dave, I began collecting and listening to classical music about twenty years ago. I live in Copenhagen, Denmark, where we are fortunate to have a recordstore with an enormous amount of stuff on their shelves. The previous owner, who retired some years ago, introduced me to Bruckner's music by recommending the Gunther Wand-recording of the seventh symphony with the BP from the late nineties. That got me hooked on Bruckner. The seventh, as Bruckner symphonies go, is a very accessible work to start with, I think, and it was the right way for. On an unrelated note, Mr Stilling, who sold it to me, also introduced me to Arnold Bax and countless other composers. I owe him a lot, though it cost me a lot of money. I enjoy your videos tremendously and hooe, you'll go on posting new ones forever. Sincerely, Mikkel Clemmensen
Great talk Dave! My first experience with big B, was with the 4th, romantic, with Eugene ormandy and the Philadelphia. I picked it up at record land, summer of 1972, I was in 8th grade. Reason being I had read a short bio of Bruckner in a small book of great composers by Milton cross, I thought, now thats a interesting person. The other reason the LP cover was really cool, with great art work. Well I was floored, those horns, it was instant Saul like conversion. This music was unique, unlike anything I had ever heard. After that like you it was the 7th with Carl schurict on Nonesuch. Which I liked, but not as much as the 4th. Then over time, the 8th and 9th with klemperer. Which by the way I didn't know how much hed cut the finale of the 8th till I heard a solti concert on radio!. I think I have more recordings of Bruckner then most other composers, well Schubert and Haydn too. Thanks Dave, love your work.
Paul, oh by the way my dad always called the theme of the 5ths first movement, star wars music.
Thanks, Dave, for this charming and amusing account of your first encounters with Bruckner. Mine came a bit later than yours, but my first reactions to the music were similar. Sometime in my high school years I chanced upon the Walter recording of Bruckner 9 in the local college library. I had never heard a note of the composer, so I thought, why not? I listened attentively, but perplexed at a score that sounded like a take-off on Beethoven's Ninth by an amateur composer who didn't know how to write coherent symphonic movements! Later, as a music major in college, I thought I should get to know this important composer, so when a copy of Schuricht's Bruckner 7 (reissued her on Nonesuch) turned up at the university bookstore, I purchased it and wasted no time to get to know the work. The piece struck me as pleasant in places but deadly dull elsewhere, particularly in the slow movement (which Schuricht actually takes at an unusually brisk tempo, with no cymbal crash). A year or so later I borrowed a copy of Haitink's Bruckner 5 (Concertgebouw/Phillips) from a fellow student--determined to get to the bottom of the Bruckner cult. It was this work that did it for me. As an avid Bach lover that fugal finale really spoke to me, but the whole work, with its gigantic cathedral-like architecture struck me from the first as sublime. And, wouldn't you know, Bruckner 5 remains my personal favorite among his symphonies. I got to know the other symphonies gradually over the following decade, to be swept away by my first encounter with the Eighth. I remain a non-cultic Brucknerian.
I heard Buckner 7 on the radio as a teenager and it totally stopped me in my tracks. I remember standing next to the speaker through the finale, waiting to learn what on earth the music was and who composed it.
My first experience with Bruckner was hearing his Te Deum at UC Davis. But I didn't hear any of his symphonies for a while longer, because most of my classical listening is on radio and radio stations don't often play hour-plus symphonies. My introduction to Bruckner's symphonies was playing his 4th; when I went to the first rehearsal, I still hadn't heard any Bruckner other than the Te Deum..
I also discovered Bruckner via his Fifth Symphony at UCLA. Many in my circle could not grasp the depth of his work. (Honestly, they were f'ing snobs!) During Covid, I decided to take the time to immerse myself in Bruckner's symphonies, predominantly conducted by Eugen Jochum or Gunther Wand. Delving into Bruckner's music and his life story was intreguing. His compositions, structured like musical "blocks" with captivating textures, cadences, and archipelagos of motifs, have deepened my appreciation for his genius. Despite his personal quirks/flaws, he persevered.
I discovered Bruckner around the age of 20. It was a concert on television. The 4th. I was immediately drawn to this music. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. I don't remember well but I think it's the 1st and 3rd movements that have me more. But what I remember is that when I heard the coda, I was impressed. It's hard to describe an emotion so I would say it was magnificent. I decided to listen to other symphonies and the next one was the seventh. I liked it right away and There you go. Now Bruckner is one of my favorite composers. My favorite Bruckner work is the 8th. I had never noticed that the 1st theme of the finale of the 7th sounded so much like the 1st of the 5th. When you said and sang it I wondered how I hadn't noticed that before. Thanks !
When I was an adolescent I glanced through a Schwann catalog, and was intrigued by this composer named Bruckner, who, like Beethoven and Mahler, also wrote nine symphonies. But I didn't pursue my curiosity until college, when I found the Klemperer/New Philharmonia Ninth Symphony recording in a cut-out bin for 99 cents. I immediately loved the music, although I sensed that there were better performances out there, and, indeed, that turned out to be true. Gradually I got to know all of the symphonies from recordings, and occasional live performances, as well as reading through them in four-hand transcriptions. Somehow, however, the music never really hit home for me until I heard Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic in New York in early 1989, live at Carnegie Hall in the 8th Symphony.
I began to get familiar with Bruckner 45 years ago or so, when I first purposely listened to the 8th Symphony.
I liked it ... I think that I have a special fondness for expansive music ... and Bruckner's 8th surely filled the bill.
I had instrumental training in public school and so, had been introduced to various portions of classical instrumentals works, including some Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Brahman and Prokofiev.
Also, my Dad had a LP which featured Bizet and Rimsky Korsakov. And, of course, I heard snatches of what I'd come to recognize as being from Bizet's Carmen opera (from Gilligan's Island), the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah, etc.
So, it ultimately became apparent to me ... that I had an affinity for what I came to know as Classical music.
I liked other music, as well ... in fact, a sampling of almost every category of Western music.
I was in my early adulthood when I began to collect Classical music samples. My first were Beethoven symphonies 5 and 9, then I added in some Brahms (Symphony 3).
Ultimately, I collected all of Beethoven's symphonies and Brahms.
I probably didn’t get around to Bruckner until I reached my 30's, and as I said, the 8th was my first. That was followed by the 4th, then the 5th, and culminated with the 7th.
I recently (about 30 years later) began to tentatively give an ear to his other symphonies, ... the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 9th, ... but they really haven't grabbed me to-date as the others have.
I thoroughly enjoy what I know 9f Bruckner's works, ... and he figures prominently in my listening time ... along with Sibelius, Rachmaninov, etc.
My first exposure to Bruckner was the Scherzo from his 4th symphony which was constantly being played on a L.A. classical radio station. In the 1960s my local library had an extensive classical record collection that included several recordings of Eugen Jochum performing Bruckner with the Berlin Philharmonic. Symphony No. 7 and the Scherzo from Symphony No. 9 were my favorites, but I was never drawn to Bruckner as I was with Mahler, although now in my autumnal years, I do listen more mostly due to Mr. Hurwitz.
I discovered Bruckner by weird chance. In my early twenties, studying theology, I found a bargain box by ZYX Classic of the second and the fourth symphony conducted by some guy named Adolph (really!) in a sale basket in the supermarket next to pasta and sausages. And from that moment on I was addicted to Bruckner...
Maybe a bogus release by Alfred Scholz. Please look up at musicbrainz.
went to an afternoon concert at the university that i attended. heard the 8th symphony. what an emotional rollercoaster. cried during the adagio movement
I remember the first time I ever heard of Bruckner was in a little music dictionary that I used when I was a young budding violinist. In the brief bio, it said that Bruckner was noted for how long his symphonies are. A few years later I heard the 4th symphony in concert. I must have been interested in going for what was on the first half of the program because surely it wasn't for the seemingly endless, undying monstrosity that I had to endure. It was only many years later when I was working on my undergrad degree when I heard Bruckner again. It was part of a big box set of Karajan symphonies. I probably got it because I wanted the Brahms symphonies, but I gave Bruckner another try. Wow! I don't know what it was but now I was pulled in by his music, particularly the 4th and 8th symphonies. It is such a journey to listen to a Bruckner symphony, but, oh so rewarding. It will be an uncommon opinion, to be sure, but I think that Bruckner was "the" great symphonist of the 19th century. If I could only take one symphony with me from that hundred-year period, filled to bursting as it is, I would take Bruckner 8.
21 years old, Bruckner 4 in a community orchestra. One early rehearsal we were running the finale, and we, the strings were all getting tendentious from the tremolo. But then there was this moment - you know, a Bruckner moment, with this inevitable and overwhelming wave washing over everything, and oh the tears came.
@@finlybenyunes8385 Yeah, probably tendonitis, that would be fitting.
I can't help but identify. My friend worked at borders waaay back in the day and gave me the 7th with Berlin, Karajan, and EMI as overstock. The frist movement planted a seed. It wasn't until I came across the 5th at tower records that captivated me with the main cell that was mentioned. It made me feel like i was on an epic journey. My friends surprisingly enjoyed listening to it up to Yosemite. The boisterous first movement, the intoxicating counterpoint of the second, whirlwind third, and crazy fugue finale that has a feeling of reward at the end for making it all the way through, still gives me chills when I go back to it. It definitely is an investment in time, energy, and not an everyday thing but definitely 👌 worth the journey. It's always nice to listen to on a nice long bike ride in new territory. Not much of a fan of the 4th either. Too saccharine for my taste but i appreciate it. I really enjoy your take on different pieces by the way. Thank you🤘
The 5th I heard was by London and Möst BTW. I'm no expert but I like it and can't stop laughing at hearing u talk about ur troubles because I felt the same way at first...🤣🤣🤣 "then u had to hear it twice..."🤣
Dave, I had a similar experience of "collecting" these small melodic pieces from Bruckner (like "taa daa da da daa ..." from the 5th) that tended to get stuck in your head, when I discovered him.
My first exposure to Bruckner was Bruno Walter’s recording of the 4th that also contained Wagner’s Overture and Venusberg Music from Tannhauser with chorus I got from the Columbia Record Club I subscribed to in high school. I had not heard any Bruckner, but loved Walter’s Brahms that I had recently bought. As I recall, the only thing I liked after listening to the symphony was the “hunting” Scherzo. However, I thought the Wagner was great. Now I listen to a lot of Bruckner, but little of Wagner-my favorite being the Siegfried Idyll! After the 4th I received the 9th also with Walter and liked it better than the 4th. Much later I was quite taken with the motets thanks to my wife who sang some of those in her college choir. Besides the 9th, I liked the 5th, 6th, and 7th best as well as his choral works, including the masses.
In college, 1962-63, we had a pretty good recording library and a big, old mono setup. The lady played a Bruckner Symphony (don't remember which) for me. I was impressed, puzzled, and interested. A year later I heard the 7th on KDKA-FM in Pittsburg with Steinburg, lots of noise due to the distance, not sure if it was live. Now that was very interesting, so I read about it and the Wagner Tubas. (I am a brass player.) Next I heard Leisdorf at Tanglewood live doing the 4th. Well, I just had to get that recording which was not as good as live.
Wonderful story
I read about Bruckner in Ethan Mordden's "A Guide to Orchestral Music" as the CD craze was at its height. My first was Bruckner's Fourth. I love 3 through 9.
My first Bruckner was the #4; it was a birthday gift from a friend, one of three CDs she gave me along with the Sibelius #2 and Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time".
My first engagement was a radio broadcast in 1984 - Abbado/VPO of Symphony No 7, then the recording of 7 by Karajan on DG, then as luck would have it Stan Skrowaczewski conducred the Seventh with the Halle in Sheffield that Autumn. Then I was hooked. I think I heard 5 & 9 with Stan conducting in subsequent years. My love for Bruckner was really rekindled by Juanjo Mena who conducted a moving Bruckner 6 in Manchester with BBCPO in 2012 - just released on Chandos. I will be interested in your view on that CD.
Bruckner was one of the composers I tried because he had a lot of listings of symphonies in the Schwann catalog. I'd already realized that I tended to like composers who wrote symphonies, so his concentration on them caught my attention. I began with the one that had the most recordings listed, figuring it was the most popular. That was not in those days the Fourth. It was the Seventh. Ormandy, RCA, one disc with the slow movement split between sides. I thought it was gorgeous and put him on my list to eventually get all of them.
I discovered Bruckner while I was in high school. Our chorus joined forces with the chorus from another school to perform _Te Deum_ with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago under the direction of Margaret Hillis. This would have been in 1971 or '72.
Mine was strikingly similar. I had checked out the Karajan recording of the 5th from the Ottawa (Kansas) Library while at college, more out of curiosity than anything else. I loved the opening movement from the first listen, but it took a while to get into the rest of the symphony, even though I was (and continue to be) thrilled by the grand climax at the end. I then returned the recording and forgot about Bruckner for a while. Much later I found a recording of the 7th (also minus the cymbal crash) and liked it enough to start exploring further. Both the 5th and 7th are now among my favorites, with the 8th and 4th close behind. And I'm slowly working my way through the rest.
I heard the Seventh on a live concert broadcast and loved it and went off to the record shop - got the Haitink / Concertgebouw - then a few weeks later I picked up the Fifth (Karajan/Berlin) and I was on my way.
Bruckner was tough for me to get into, the very strange, "meandering" quality of this symphonies were nothing like anyone elses. It took me 3+ times for each work for me to finally "get them", and he is now my fav symphonist. Stuff like Brahms 3rd I grasped the first listen. Bruckner seems to have scattered ideas, stop and go qualities that nobody else has. Slow music followed by huge climaxes, then it stops and starts... love it now!
My first Bruckner was the 4th, the Klemperer recording on Angel from a lending library. It was not love at first hearing but I was intrigued. I knew all of the standard rep from Haydn on but I had trouble with Bruckner's sense of structure and progression.
My real learning experience was from a friend who had years ago recorded a Koussevitzky BSO broadcast of the 8th off the air on acetate discs at 78 rpm. He handed me the tape and asked if I'd check it because he wasn't sure he'd gotten it assembled in the right order and on pitch. So I borrowed a score from the library (luckily the right one) and went through it. It took hours correctly reassembling the sides as he had indeed gotten some out of order but that allowed me to dive into the structure as I put it back together. Also learning that Koussie had cut out a lot of it getting it down to a running time of about 55 minutes! Hearing it complete in Jochum's 1964 BPO recording was then a lesson in itself.
The 7th is still my favorite. But Mahler goes to the desert island with me.
The first time I heard Bruckner is when I was a first-year uni student. Back then I was into Baroque music only and had just started listening to Beethoven. One day, I shared some psychoactive substances with friends. After having some fun, I got home, but I was still under the influence and couldn't sleep. So I went to RUclips, and the fourth movement of Bruckner Symphony No. 5 conducted by Sinopoli and performed by Staatskapelle Dresden was there on the recommendation. I played it, and the intro alone made me cry. That moment, I became a fan of Bruckner's.
Now I know how to enjoy Bruckner. Take a psychoactive substance. Anything is worth a try!
(Repost) In the late 1960's we purchased a series of boxed sets (from Readers Digest I believe) of recordings of "classical masterpieces." one of the LP's was Klemperer's performance of Bruckner 4. I listened to it and liked it, but was not immediately led to exclaim "wow, that's great'" I was 16 years old.However, it did spark a level of curiosity, and I listened to and enjoyed Haitink's Concertgebouw Bruckner 5, Szell's Bruckner 3, and Mehta's VPO Bruckner 9. In 1976 I bought Karajan's BPO Bruckner 8 on DG out of curiosity ( I had no prior experience with the work). That was the true turning point, from which I developed an enduring love of Bruckner which led to the acquisition of many Bruckner recordings (including 15 or so of the 8th symphony). The journey continues to this day.
I was belatedly doing my classical self-education via CD purchases in the late 80s and picked up the 4th symphony conducted by Bruno Walter. I remember enjoying it and playing it many times, but it never inspired me to investigate further Bruckner as a priority.
I was working in London in the early 80s, and started listening to Mahler. A colleague at work liked Mahler and Bruckner, so he suggested I try Bruckner, and we went to a concert at the Barbican - but I dont remember what was played. Anyway, that was when CDs were first produced, and I started with the Solti/CSO 4th and Sawallische Bavarian State 6th. Now I have multiple versions of all the symphonies, including 14 8ths - the 8th is the pinnacle of symphonies
Um, no, it's not.
I got to know Bruckner when I was around 15 from my music theory class but didn’t pay attention to him. I first heard his piece in Apple Music Classical Music Radio, and it was the finale of the eighth (Karajan & Vienna Philharmonic). I liked it yet its length and progression were problematic to me. I don’t listen to his music that much but feel satisfied every time I give him a listen.
Oh. My. God. I don’t think I would have made it through Bruckner if the first thing I had heard was the 5th. I came to Bruckner playing the 7th Scherzo in my HS orchestra, and picked up a recording of it. Berlin-Barenboim, BTW. I mostly listened to the last two movements. Then moved on to the 4th thanks that DG twofer with the CSO-DB 7th. Eventually landed on the Cleveland-Dohnanyi 5th.
I picked up the Tintner recordings of the 4th and 5th back in 2003 or thereabouts. My first impressions were positive but I wasn't sure I had the "correct" recordings, because back then I thought only DG and Decca did classical music legitimately, and Naxos was a secret but necessary shame because of my budget. I still have those discs and have only ever listened to Tintner's version of the Fifth. When I bought Michael Steinberg's 1995 book The Symphony I went on a quest to obtain and listen to every symphony in that book. That's how I discovered Martinu and Nielsen.
First Bruckner was Otto Klemperer conducting the Vienna symphony orchestra on an old mono recording. We later got the Klemperer/Philharmonia recording, which was a vast improvement. After that I ventured into the other symphonies. Loved the soundworlds he was capable of achieving. I don't regard him as one of the greats, but an interesting one.
I don't believe anyone comes to love and appreciate Bruckner easily.
When I was young and "learning the repertory" he was avoided like the plague - I am not sure why but I must have had a bad experience somewhere!!
I recall at the Proms in 1967 going to hear either Szeryng or (perhaps) Kogan play the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Haitink and the Concertgebouw. The second half was Bruckner 9. I left at the interval. Now I wish I had stayed as Haitink and the orchestra knew everything you need to know about Bruckner and the last movement of the symphony is marvellous.
I thought my epiphany came courtesy of dear, old Erich Leinsdorf and the RPO with the 4th Symphony at the Festival Hall in 1972 but in fact I had heard him do the 7th with the LSO there in 1970 so "recollections may vary"!! I suspect it was the cymbal crash that did it for me as this is always one of the big thrills of the symphonic repertoire with the relentless adagio (sehr langsam) building to the orgasmic moment.
I made the mistake of taking my then fiancee to the RFH when we were courting to hear Giulini do the 8th. I don't know what I could have been thinking of - of all symphonies to take a musical novice to - I must have been mad.
She has forgiven me (now) but I rarely play Bruckner at home just in case!!!
I was led to Bruckner in my teens via my interest in Mahler; my first purchase was the Eighth Symphony with Solti/VPO. That started it!
One day, in the late afternoon, I got a phone call from my friend who said, “The Philadelphia Orchestra is playing Bruckner’s Eighth under Klaus Tennstedt this evening at Carnegie Hall. Would you like to go?”
I said, “I’m on my way. Meet you there.“
I guess Bruckner Symphony tickets were not such a hot item in the mid 70s.
As I was getting into Mahler in my late 1960's college days, I read that he was a friend and advocate of Bruckner. I was (and still am) a dedicated Mahler devotee, so I figured if Mahler respected him, he was worth exploring. As it happened, my college library had a copy of a double LP on Supraphon, a label I had never seen before, containing Bruckner 7, coupled with a suite from Gotterdammerung. It was by the Czech Philharmonic, conducted by Lovro von Matačić. One listen to the B7 showed me that Mahler was right. That also was my first taste of Matačić, a really outstanding conductor whose Bruckner ranks with the best I've heard.
I bought my first Bruckner record because I had been to led to think that he would sound like Wagner. So, I chose the 7th with Ormandy (and the cymbal crash) and felt there were some great moments, but a lot of longeurs. But I kept listening over and over expecting something big to happen, and it never did. I still enjoy the 7th but never quite became a Bruckner fan. Wesley.
Hello .
My brother listened much to Wagner operas.
So I read a book about Wagner and there it stood that a composer named Bruckner had dedicated a symphony to "the master".I was curious about how it sound and I bought the complete set whith Karajan to a very good price. This was in 1991 and I was 22 years old. I started to listnen to no 3, but was not so impressed. I then moved on to no 5 and then it clicked. Since then I have heard all symphonies in different editions many times.
Best wishes Fred from Kristianstad.
I borrowed a record of the Fourth (Romantic) Symphony from the library. Klemperer was the conductor. on EMI/Angel. The record had the warning that it could easily be played too loud. As usual the liner notes made me curious.
My first experience of Bruckner was really only about nine months ago. I had heard the masses before then, but never really the symphonies. Honestly, I had judged Bruckner by his negative reputation and avoided him. Then I heard the lectures about 4 and 7 on the Sticky Notes podcast, which got me to listening to those - and I loved them. Then I listened to the rest of Bruckner’s symphonies and loved (almost) all of them (still not sold on the very early ones - 00, 0, or 1). My favorite is the 5th.
David
Lord, you almost opened up a fifty-year-old mental filing cabinet drawer buried deep inside of my brain with this one...!
It might be a subliminal thing, but for me, almost quite accidentally, it was also Bruckner's 5th Symphony, or at least part of it, as the last 5 minutes of it was being broadcast on an old THAMES production of a documentary called The World at War, narrated by Lord Larry Olivier himself. The painful part of that documentary was the Nazi German armed forces parade which took place in Berlin supposedly to observe Adolph Hitler's 50th birthday in April 1939, the specific newsreel documentary clip, was likely newsreel propaganda of the period, from which that music was played on the World at War Documentary. So in a sense my Bruckner journey started there for about a five-minute newsreel clip. My two first Bruckner purchases came about four years after that, when I became much more devoted to classical music that I was with that original television documentary airing. Eventually within the year 1974 I gathered up all of bruckner's music, or as much of it as I could find on LP in my nearby situated local record stores of that time. Inevitably I would cut my teeth so to speak on Jochum's 6th and 8th, traveling to Karajan's 4th and 7th on EMI; to Haitink's 0, 1, 2; ultimately to Klemperer's 5; to the Walter 9th; and finally to Karl Bohm's Third. Most of the stuff I received for Christmas time of 1974 as gifts from my late Mom. They were extremely special, priceless treasures to me throughout the next forty years, and it was only in the last several that I finally parted with all of my vinyl stuff, most, incidentally with having given it away to the Salvation Army, then because I thought that I might have been moving, however now, very much to my regret.
Best wishes John
Coming into classical LPs just as an enjoyable hobby and it's striking how much great stuff was on those cheapo labels, Urania, Turnabout, Nonesuch etc. Fabulous eastern European orchestras licensed or pirated from Eterna, and all that stuff licensed from the Erato catalog too, by guys like MHS.
Bruckner was someone I encountered fairly early as well, only having known the truly big names like Beethoven and Mozart before that. For me Bruckner came before Brahms, Mahler or Sibelius, among symphonists. So I never really understood why he was supposed to be oddball or an acquired taste. The Fourth was pure magic for me as a teenager and still is.
Bruckner 9 with Jochum on DG. I loved it immediately. That said, I'm still not crazy about early Bruckner: symphonies 00, 0, 1 and 2.
My first experience of Bruckner was discovering a music copy at the age of 12 amongst our sheet music at home of the 4 part motet "Locus iste". The notes were simple enough for me to play on the piano and I recognised then what a gem of a piece it is, worthy of a place alongside Mozart's "Ave Verum".
I knew of Bruckner by not altogether complimentary reputation and, when I was 19, taking pot luck and out of idle curiosity, I borrowed Ormandy's recording of Bruckner 5 and tried to follow it with the score. I gave up after a few pages when the sound and the printed notes parted ways and left me in complete puzzlement. Was this a mismatch of editions, I was thinking? The music continued and I sat back to listen to the rest, not realising that I had the discs in the wrong order and had just played the finale on side 4 instead of beginning with side 1. Yet the music was still cogent to me, even without hearing the first 3 movements and impelled me to play sides 1-3 without delay. I haven't looked back since: as Dave said, if you can start with the 5th and make sense of Bruckner, the rest of his oevre pose no problems!
In my early 20's, 30 years ago, I bought the Penguin Guide on Classical recordings, the only source then available to me where I lived in South Africa off reviews on classical recordings. I then decided to read the guide from cover to cover. That helped me a great deal to start discovering the names of great artists. And also new compoosers. Getting to the Bruckner reviews, one sentence hooked me to investigate Bruckner- they talked about Bruckner as this "unique symphonist".I just HAD to try his symphonies, and eventually bought at one go numbers 1, 5, 4 and 8. And now...
I have a LONG list of great and wonderful symphonists in my collection, but my personal BIG 3 for symphonies will always be (in now particular order) Shostakovich, Mahler and BRUCKNER.
Aside from remembering Yehudi Menuhin in the TV version of his Music of Man arguing that orchestral music reached its height with Bruckner and Mahler, it meant little to me as Menuhin never presented any reasons for this argument. As a result, I did not pay it much more attention. What I knew of Brucker was from a group that Dave has never named - the Bruckner critics. I was told repeatedly that Bruckner was too simplistic, too much of a minimalist, and never produced any music worth listening too - so I avoided him. But when I was doing attending university out of town and living with an elderly couple, I noticed among their small and eclectic LP collection a recording of the 9th by Bernstein and the New York Phil. I decided to listen to it and see if it was as bad as everyone had told me. A couple minutes into the opening of the first movement, I realized how much I had missed out and decided I would start collecting all of Bruckner's symphonies. I have a number of "favourite" composers and so not tied to Bruckner alone, but music without Bruckner makes no sense to me.
It was all Dad's fault. He had the Walter Bruckner 4th with the Columbia SO, and when it got the the "Hunting" scherzo I kind of sat up and thought YESSSS! Big, loud, brass giving it their all - this is a symphony!!
I discovered Bruckner by way of a BBC Music Magazine CD of the Ninth conducted by Bernhard Klee with the BBC Philharmonic.
I first heard Bruckner on classical radio (in Romania in 70s, 80s): 1(Eugen Jochum); 3 & 6 (Bernard Haitink). Then LP: 7 & 4 (Kurt Masur); 5 (Lovro von Matacic - Supraphon); 9 (Gennady Rozhdestvensky ); 8 (Svetlanov); 2 (Cristian Mandeal - Cluj)
There is this guy on YT who frequently talks about Bruckner and bad Bruckner and somehow a horse is involved. So I was curious and bought a Box (Jochum, Dresden, Brilliant Classics) but there was no horse! So far I listened to 1-6 (some Symphonies are way too long). Still no horse. Maybe the horse will appear after I listened to all? I would like to take the opportunity to ask, if there are any recordings of "Andante für Wagnertuben Des-Dur".
Neigh!