(( Romantic ) Scherzo (From Symphony N° Q) Overture In

SYMPHONY N 4 (( ROMANTIC ) SCHERZO (FROM SYMPHONY N° Q) .J'\I\.• OVERTURE IN GMINOR .J'\I\.• LOVRO VON MATACIC PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA Angel Album 3548 B (35359-360) A N T 0 N B R u c K N E R 824 - '8 9 6 b y ~1 i c h a e I nOS e B o rn in 1926, Mich ael Rose was educated at Marlbor ouKh, stu di ed m o dem langua ges at O x fo rd (Ma"d"l en C olle"e) , and s erved a s an infant cy offic er du ring the war. In a d d i tion to writing about mu.8lc IIlnd c o mposing it, h e has d one special B . B . C . bro adcasts and ha s contribute d notes o n operas presented at the Edinburgh F estiv al. RU C KNER ?" said Brahms. "That's a small vi ll age in Up per Austria, and evidence of s wi ndle which wi ll be forgotten a year his hum ble peasant background coloure d hi s or two afte r I'm dead." Bue Wa gner: personality to the e nd of his life. At the age of ~ "The re is only one compos er whose 17, he took up the profe ssion of his father a nd idea s approach chos e of Beethove n, and that IS grandfathe r as assistanc s chool-teacher in the ciny Bruckner." Thus the two gre at protagonists of village of Windhaag. Hi s first posts were humili 19th Cenc ury musical conflict lend authority co a ating and overworked; but when he was 21 he ob controve rsy which concinues to this day ; pe rhaps tained a rathe r more conge nial appointme nc at there is no composer who se arc arous es sharper Sc. F lorian, and kepr ir for the next te n years. For dissension upon s lighter acquaincance . Ot her thi s little town he came to have the greatest af great concroversial fi gures of the 19th Cencury - fection; ofte n in later life he would return to it fo r Berlioz, Lis zt, e ve n Mahler - inspire partisanship; the peace he needed. For fifty years its tailor bue their music bas status, is played, and cannot provided the s ingular clothes he al ways wore - the be ignored. Ye t none of them arouse s the apostol peasanr's Sunday suit, of indefinable cut, short ic re vere nce and devotion, or th e concemptuous jacket, and broad s hapele s s trousers; and when he ridicule, which are lavished upon the seldom heard died hi s body was laid beneath the great organ of and, eve n now, little known music of the Austrian the Augustinian monastery. Upon this instrument country organise - "half a Caes ar, a nd half a Bruckne r often playe d, before long as official village schoolm aster ... organist; for mu s ic - particularly composition It see ms strange that so simple and kindly a occupied every mome nr not spe nr on professional man should have aroused such antagonisms; but dutie s. E ven before coming to St. Florian he had his position and function in musical history are found time to compose a little and to take hard-won curiously at odds with his character. Anton Bruck lessons in piano, organ and harmony; his industry ner was born Se ptember 4, 1824, in Ansfelden, a now may be judged by (he fifty odd compositions, -2 mostly ecclesiastical, wh ich he had to his credit ignorant of contemporary mUSIC, can scarcely be wh e n he left. e xaggerated. To s ay that he was influenced by it In spite of this evidence of mus ical tale nt, is true , but beside the point. He found in Wagner Bruckner, at 32, was still oddly uncenain of his confi rma tion of all tho se tendencies, in his own true vocation. Only a year before, the question musical instincts, whic h Sechter had suppressed; had seemed decided by his s ucce ss in the final and the discovery at last relea sed his creati ve examination for high-school teachers; yet at the imagination and gave it direction. Aft er a develop same time he was striving for membership of the ment perhaps slower than that of any other compa Vienna Hofkapelle, and eve n for a totally different rable artist, at the age of 40 Bruckner was born as post as coun secretary! The turning point came a composer. F rom this date, his music derive s its wi th a vacanc y for cathedral orga ni st at Linz. peculiar i ndividuality from the equation of his ow n Bruckner's prowe ss on this instrume nt was al instinct, prom pted by Wagner, with the fundame n ready outstanding. It is characteri s tic of his tals of Sechter's teaching. For Wagner personally, musicianship in general that he was ne ver a virtu Bruckner developed a reverence am ounting to ado oso, and always a poor sight-reader - but hi s ration. He could never be persuaded to sit in the technique was astonishing, and his imp rovis ations Master's presence; he ofte n s tood for ho urs gazing overwhelming. Even so, humble and indec isive, at the wi ndows of Wagne r's house; and in Bayreuth he had to be pre ssed into competing for the vacant and elsewhere he always carried a bl ack tailcoat, post - his fr ie nds begging him, in despair, to be into which he quickly changed if he saw Wag ner s ure that he removed his galoshes, and shawl , and approaching. overcoat wi[ h a button missing, before the official Sechter never liked his pupils to comp ose while i nterview. they studied with him, but during hi s last six At Linz, Bruckner became a pupil of Schuben's years at L inz Bruckner made up fo r lost time with teache r, the famous theoris t Si mon Sec hter. T here some forty new works. Amongst th ese were the is something very touching in Bruckner's eager last Masses; for after Linz, wi th two notable ex determination, at his age, to submi t him s elf to ceptions, he fo rsook church music a nd confined Sechter's rigorous fi rs t principles; but hi s fai th in him self to his nine symphonies, the officia] first the virtues of study, like hi s naive respect for the of which wa s completed and performed before examinations which conscie ntiously punctuated he left. his career, was deeply charac teristic. At all After Linz, Vi e nna. At 44, with all the old events, Sechter's schol astic methods sui ted hi m agonies and hesitations once again, Bruckner c uriously well, and left abiding traces (p articu finally accepted the post at the Conse rvatoire larly harmonic) in his future wOl k. His industry vacated by Sechter' s death, a nd moved to the city was such that even Sechter felt boun d to warn him where he spent the last 28 ye ars of his life. In against overwork - and after fi ve gru elling years 1868, Vienna wa s jus t beginning to feel the force the inevitable exa mination (upon which the pupil of the greatest musical controversy of the ce nrury; insisted) concluded wi th a comme nt from th e before long, Bruc kner was drawn unwillingly into board: " He ought to have examine d us. It the conflict. At its centre, stood the dreaded critic At Linz, too, Bruckner first heard Wa gner's Hanslick, arbiter of Viennese musical taste, up mUSI C. The imponance of this revelation to a holder of Brahmsian conse rvatism, and biue r musician, who all his life had been s tartlingl y opponenr of Wagner. Oddly enough, Hanslick was - 3 instrumental in gerring Bruckner to Vienna; he ap proved of the traditional elements in Bruckner's earlie r style, and hoped for an ally in this solid pupil of Sec hter. Al as for Hanslick, he knew nothing of the 1ater re velation, or of Bruckner's rebirth as th e Wagnerian s ymp honist par e xcel lence; bue fro m 1872 onwards the series of Bruck ner's symphonies proceeded to justify this tid e beyond any doubt. The T hi rd Sym phony wa s even dedicated to the arch-enemy ; and, in Vienna, in 1875, Wagner pointed to its composer in public and said: "There's Bruckner. lie's my ma n." Hans lick's pen turned against the new e ne my, and poor Bruckner came to dread its judgments upon e ach successive work: "Everything flows, wi th out clarity and without order, willy-nilly into dis mal long wi ndedness .... le is not out of the ques tion that the future belongs to this muddled hang over style - which is no reason to regard the future with envy. F or the time being, ho we ver, one would prefe r th at symphonic and chamber music remain undefiled by a style onl y re latively jus tified as an illustrative device for certain dramatic situa tions .... " Notices like this soon transformed the c ritic into (he very De vil in Bruc kn er's e yes; and at a Ro yal Audience he even begged Hi s Ma jesty Bruckne r' s l a st Vienna residence in the Belvedere Palace P ark.

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