Anton Bruckner said that by definition all great music must be sacred. He also said "They'll get angry at that!" regarding his 9th symphony. These remarks make a good springboard for this page.
If "all great music must be sacred" then either I have a problem with the definition of "great" or "sacred". William Booth said "Every note, and every strain, and every harmony is divine, and belongs to us". Rowland Hill (1844) said "The devil should not have all the best tunes". Many believe Satan = Lucifer = angel of music. It would not surprise me that the devil has the best tunes. But perhaps "best" is not "great".
Despite the commonality of mankind, people are divided on many counts and music is a major one.
Patrick Waller writes that, if he were invited to take only one recording on a desert island, it would be Bruckner's 8th symphony. Bruckner biographer Ernst Kurth wrote "The Adagio (of the 8th)...one of the the grandest and most profound revelations, not only in Bruckner's music but in the entire symphonic repertoire." The reader will hardly be surprised to learn that I align with these sentiments.
I "discovered" Bruckner by accident when, at secondary school age, I would scan the radio waves searching for music which I would immortalise on my new acquisition, a Fidelity valve reel-to-reel tape recorder. At this time I considered "classical" music generally too heavy for my liking. One's tastes in many areas mature with the years! There was a piece I particularly liked but did not know its title or author till much later - it turned out to be Bruckner's 7th. I joyed to know there were more such delights! Although Bruckner's popularity has increased, most people I meet are blissfully unaware of, or else hate, his music - how strange.
I think I am musical but far from a maestro. I play the piano for enjoyment though mainly "by ear" and not half as well as my son. I am not "into" music in the sense of analysing it - rather I enjoy listening to the overall effect.
GENRE
I judge a car by its usefulness - like whether it can tow a trailer, if the dashboard air vents blow cold air in your face whilst the other vents are set to hot - rather than my make, model and outward beauty. So Corsica, Cortina, Cadillac means little to me. In a similar ways the many musical genres do little for me: whether I like or dislike a piece of musics has little to do with its genre although some I might tend to avoid, and there's the rub for I might be missing something special by so doing!
BRUCKNER QUOTES
"They want me to write differently. Certainly I could, but I must not. God has chosen me from thousands and given me, of all people, this talent. It is to Him that I must give account. How then would I stand there before Almighty God, if I followed the others and not Him?"
"I cannot find the words to thank you as I would wish, but if there were an organ here, I could tell you!"
"When God finally calls me and asks "What have you done with the talent I gave you, my son?", I will present to Him the score of my TE DEUM, and I hope he will judge me mercifully."
QUOTES FROM BRUCKNER CRITICS
"Here's a question, what is the best moment for you in any Bruckner Symphony?, for me it has be the great coda at the ending of Adagio of the 8th Symphony, roughly about the last 4 minutes, here's what i wrote about it in my Blog that day, [the timings are for Barenboim's Berliner Philharmoniker recording 1994, the Adagio lasts 25:44].
"then... comes the coda, it's the most achingly beautiful part of this symphony [21:43 to the end], it has those sorrowful touches, the fading light at the end of the day, sorrow mixed with a bittersweet nostalgia, like two people who can't bear to say goodbye and part, there's this phrase, first called out on the clarinet [22:19], but then repeated again and again on the strings, with the horns joining in [23:21-23:56], this is the moment of moments in this Symphony, is there anything so gut-wrenchingly emotional as the ending of this movement?"
(Octo Rush)
"One of the greatest inspirations in all music" These are the words of the late Georg Tintner, conductor of the Bruckner Eighth Symphony on the Naxos label. He was specifically referring to the coda of the Adagio. The entire movement is incredible, Tintner even going as far as stating that "The Adagio is in my opinion, with that of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the greatest symphonic slow movement ever written."
Hugo Wolf, "The work renders all criticism futile; the Adagio is absolutely incomparable."
