I think I just fell in love with Bruckner

[mjames]

I've always had a tough time understanding his music but just now as I was listening to his 6th symphony for the first time ever I was enchanted by this man's music. I would say that the reason it has taken me so long to like it is because the music is long AND very dense, thankfully since I'm improving in music it's gotten easier for me to follow his ideas. And I'm also taking a contemp. piano course so I guess all the weird and hard to follow music might have improved my listening skills. <.>

Any late romantic recommendations similar to Bruckner's music? I want to get more in touch with the "really really long" symphonic works of that era.

[ahinton]

I've always had a tough time understanding his music but just now as I was listening to his 6th symphony for the first time ever I was enchanted by this man's music. I would say that the reason it has taken me so long to like it is because the music is long AND very dense, thankfully since I'm improving in music it's gotten easier for me to follow his ideas. And I'm also taking a contemp. piano course so I guess all the weird and hard to follow music might have improved my listening skills. <.>

Any late romantic recommendations similar to Bruckner's music? I want to get more in touch with the "really really long" symphonic works of that era.

The sixth is a wise choice as one struggling to come to terms with Bruckner's music - but I don't think that it's just because I admire Bruckner very much that I don't find his music "dense" - or very little of it, anyway. The most popular of his symphonies has probably always been the seventh and it's arguably the most approachable. There aren't so many really major gargantuan symphonic works from Bruckner's time; Liszt's A Faust Symphony, wonderful as it is and on quite a large scale, is as much symphonic poem as symphony qua symphony. The really large scale symphonic work in Bruckner's time was Wagner's musikdramas. Wagner wrote a relatively modest symphony when a student and, after completing Parsifal, was contemplating writing another; how fascinating might that have been had he actually written it?! Move on to Mahler, whose symphonic work began in the 1880s when Bruckner was at the height of his powers, as his ten are the obvious next port of call. Rachmaninoff's ever popular second weighs in at a little over an hour, too, but by then we're in the 20th century; Elgar's first symphony is roughly contemporary with it. A few years earlier (1904) you have Busoni's piano concerto, which is a massive symphony in all but name. But with Bruckner himself, don't neglect to explore the masses as well.

Best,

Alistair

[visitor]

Tony is legit. always loved it.
btw folks interested might wanna have a looksy here, some piano transcriptions of said and other related works

http://www.abruckner.com/downloads/scoresorchestraltr/pianotranscription/

[pencilart3]

http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=60916.0

[gep]

Well, welcome to the wonderful and singular world that is Bruckner. If you love the 6th, you'll love the other 10 he wrote too, no doubt!

If you're in for something similar but rather more unknown, explore the three symphonies of Richard Wetz, or the one by Hans Rott or, but this is a bit of a leap, Fritz Brun (all 10 currently available) or Allan Pettersson's 16.

Happy hunting!

All best,
gep