On Music

...Still, whether or not each individual performance may be to our liking, the Philharmonic's current commitment to Bruckner is a development deserving of all honor...

...These changes took the form of "Wagnerized" orchestration and, too often, of radical cuts, which distorted the form...

...Why has his appreciation in America (and concomitantly in England) lagged behind Mahler's...

...Some Mahler enthusiasts feared there might be a loss of interest after the centennial celebrations were over...

...Ave Maria and Mass in F minor, March 7; and the Fifth Symphony, May 23...

...I personally wish the Bruckner Cycle all possible success...

...In the late '30s, such a cycle would not have been possible in New York...

...William Steinberg—in other respects often an inspired Bruckner conductor— has in the past indulged in this practice on the grounds that it is necessary in order to make Bruckner's symphonies palatable to American audiences...

...So saying, I still must offer an ironic footnote: Mahler used to make cuts in Bruckner's symphonies...

...In Austria, unfortunately, political considerations caused the suppression or distortion of some important material...

...Those who already like Bruckner will be outraged by the cuts...

...A more technical question which has already come in for discussion this season is: "Which versions of Bruckner's symphonies should be used...

...And it is the sustaining strength of this music today, in an age even more skeptical and materialistic...

...One of the last recordings he made with the Columbia Symphony is a transcendent reading of the Ninth Symphony...

...The curious fact is that the versions printed and performed during Bruckner's lifetime did not always correspond with his ultimate intent...

...Only a few recordings of their music were available...

...Bruckner's devout Catholicism is, in fact, one of the basic components of his personality and art, and it finds its finest monument in the three great masses...

...At that time both Bruckner and Mahler, his Viennese contemporary, were rare guests on American concert programs...

...What has happened in the intervening 79 years...

...And why has his popularity in English-speaking countries been so slow in developing...

...Universalized in the symphonies, the composer's profound sense of belief can communicate with those of all faiths, for in this music Faith, Hope and Love are expressed in their highest form...

...Responsible for much of the first Kritische Gesamtausgabe was archNazi Alfred Orel...

...Visiting orchestras are also offering Mahler works...

...Now it is Bruckner's turn...

...As a teacher, the composer Arnold Schoenberg revealed to many of us the greatness of this music which might, without him, have remained a closed book...

...These questions are prompted by the occurrence of a musical event of great cultural importance...

...In my student days, the only way to hear most of the Bruckner and Mahler symphonies was to sit down with a like-minded friend and play the four-handed piano arrangements...

...In the composer's native Austria, of course, the "three Bs" are Beethoven, Bruckner, Brahms, in that order—though the treatment of Bruckner in Vienna during his lifetime is, to be sure, one of the unlovelier chapters in the history of that city's attitude toward its musical luminaries...

...One should still ask that each conductor state clearly which version he is using and why...

...The second factor in this remarkable change of taste was, simply, the development of the LP record...

...He sometimes allowed himself to be persuaded by well-meaning disciples into certain changes which, it was thought, would make the works more immediately acceptable to the public of those days...

...Already heard have been the Third Symphony, which is seldom played in New York, and the Eighth...

...An anecdote which I have elsewhere recounted (Chord and Discord, 1958) illustrates this point...

...Here I disagree with him completely...

...This is, incidentally, still an excellent way of becoming more intimately acquainted with the structure of this music...

...Two important factors, however, soon came into play to change this situation...

...Readers of the October 24, 1964 issue of The New Yorker encountered a quite different estimate of the same symphony by music critic Winthrop Sargeant: " the whole work has a nobility of the sort that one finds only in the greatest music...

...This church tradition plays an important role in the composer's musical development...

...Whence came this new appreciation of Bruckner...

...The first, certainly, was the large number of Austrian musicians, to whom this music was second nature, who came to the United States as a result of Hitler's rise to power...

...The popularity of the new records stimulated a continuous search for previously unrecorded material...

...In fact, however, the incidence of Mahler performances in the programs of our major orchestras has remained at a high level...

...Quite another matter is the superimposition of cuts made by the conductor himself...

...Conducting and listening to Mahler now became the "in" thing to do...

...The more "popular" Fourth and Seventh, both of which have been performed recently in New York, have been omitted, as have the first two symphonies (which would —especially the bold First—be a welcome inclusion in some later season...

...Bruno Walter, who had come to Bruckner rather late in life (as he makes clear in his autobiography, Theme and Variations) presented us with exemplary performances of Bruckner symphonies, some of which have fortunately been preserved on discs...

...The breakthrough for Mahler came earlier than for Bruckner...

...Ninth Symphony, February 14...

...Improvements in sound equipment brought the desire for recordings which would display a rich spectrum of tonal effects—a requirement which both Bruckner's and Mahler's music could more than adequately fulfill...

...Thus, this season the Philharmonic has played, or will play, the Kindertotenlieder, the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, and the Fourth and Sixth Symphonies...

...Contemporary scholars, by going back to Bruckner's manuscripts, have attempted to restore what they believe to have been Bruckner's original intent...

...those who do not like him will not be induced to like him any better by a possible 10-minute saving in time at the expense of formal logic...

...The following Bruckner works will be played in the balance of the cycle (for the convenience of interested readers, I include the broadcast dates of the Sunday performances carried by many stations around the country): Sixth Symphony, December 20...

...For the first time in its history (as far as I know) the New York Philharmonic is mounting a full-scale Bruckner cycle...

...The great Viennese orchestral masses—those of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert as well as Bruckner's—are not heard in our churches and do not find their proper home in the concert hall...

...The factor of the greater "modernity" of Mahler has already been mentioned...

...When God calls me to Him one day," Bruckner is supposed to have said, "and asks me, 'What hast thou done with the talents that I have given thee?' why, then I'll hold up the score of my Te Deum before Him, and surely He will judge me mercifully...

...Incidentally, a similar development has taken place in England, in former years not exactly famous for its interest in the composer...

...The questing, tormented spirit of Mahler, as laid bare in his symphonies, seemed close to the spirit of our time, whereas Bruckner seemed to belong to another age— indeed, it has been pointed out a number of times that his roots go back to the Austrian Baroque...

...Again, the New York Philharmonic gave a powerful impetus to the Mahler movement with its Mahler cycle of 1960, presented as part of the world-wide celebration of the centennial of the composer's birth...

...Many listeners, who had perhaps become curious about these composers through reading about them in books or articles, now had the means to satisfy their curiosity—and proceeded to do so...

...Then, too, it must be remembered that Bruckner's music— the symphonies as well as the masses—is deeply rooted in a tradition not well known outside of its native land: the tradition of Austrian church music...

...This situation is gradually becoming clarified...

...We need what Bruckner has to say...

...Conducting assignments have been given to two men strongly identified with Bruckner's music, both holders of the Bruckner Society of America's medal of honor for service to that composer: Josef Krips and William Steinberg...

...That Bruckner could and did mean this literally, in the midst of the skeptical and materialistic age into which he had, anachronistically, been born, was his sustaining strength...

...Their activities as conductors and teachers brought Bruckner's and Mahler's works to the attention of many who might otherwise have remained unaware of them...

...For the first time lengthy works could be made available to the record-buying public in a more practical, portable and pleasing format than had hitherto been possible...

...ON MUSIC By Dika Newlin A Change of Taste Readers of the December 12, 1885 issue of Keynote (New York) were treated to the following appreciation of Anton Bruckner's Third Symphony: "A hearing of the work induces a feeling of surprise that any sane publisher should have accorded the score the dignity of print, that is only equaled by a natural wonderment on the part of the listener that anyone should punish an inoffensive audience by the infliction of its performance, for anything more inane and wearisome cannot well be conceived than this olla podrida of miscellaneous rubbish the scoring is throughout puerile in the extreme, and the absence of intelligent construction or inventive ability completes the sum total of Herr Bruckner's musical imbecility...