FHS List A: Nineteenth-Century
Symphony
Dan Grimley
daniel.grimley@music.ox.ac.uk
Lecture 5. Bruckner and the Symphonic Sublime
• Wagner, Oper und Drama (1851): death of the symphony
in finale of Beethoven 9
• 1857 letter, ‘Über Franz Lizsts Symphonische
Dichtungen’: musical means ‘substantiated’ by the
‘object’ [i.e. poetic intention] they represent.
This was, of course, no longer the object as denoted in words
by the poet, but rather a completely different object beyond
all description, an object whose ineffable quality makes it
scarcely conceivable that it can likewise present itself clearly,
distinctly, compactly, and unmistakably to our faculties. [Oper
und Drama]
• Importance of mythic figures: Orpheus, Prometheus,
Faust, Hamlet as transcendental figures.
Challenges for the late 19th-century symphony
(after Dahlhaus)
• Need to develop/redefine symphonic form without
relying on conventionalized formula
• Desire to elevate programme music as ‘forefront of
historical evolution’ from picturesque genre to
poetic/philosophical sublime
• Unite expressive gestures of piano music with tradition of
thematic and motivic development [developing variation].
• Problem of late 19th century symphony: how monumental
style could exist under conditions of extreme motivic
density and development.
Paul Bekker, Die Symphonie von Beethoven
bis Mahler (1918)
• The motivation for creating a symphony lies in the artist’s
need to speak to a mass audience. ... The purpose of the
symphonic genre is to serve as the instrumental mediator
between the musician and a large audience. The symphony is
therefore according to the fundamental conditions of its
essence of wide-ranging general interest, the performance of
a symphony equivalent to a musical assembly of the people. ...
When I say ‘assembly of the people’, I must emphasise that
this term is first applicable to the Beethoven symphony.
• Brahms symphonies more like chamber music than Beethoven
model
Bruckner and the (Austro-)German Symphony
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Born 4 Sept 1824 near Linz, choral scholar at St Florian
1855—counterpoint lessons with Simon Sechter
9 May 1868 premiere of First Symphony, Linz; moves to
Vienna
1880 appointed court organist
Hermann Levi, letter of recommendation, honorary
doctorate, 1891:
Bruckner is, in my opinion, by far the most important
symphonist of the post-Beethoven period. That he has not
yet been generally recognised as such lies in the fact that
our time has deviated quite far from the great tradition of
our classics and that the so-called ‘Romantic’ trend
represented by Mendelssohn and Schumann (and Brahms)
has almost exclusively dominated concert programmes
and repressed the taste for the big monumental style.
•
Dies, 11 October 1896, Ninth Symphony incomplete
Bruckner Reception #1
• Eduard Hanslick, review of Seventh Symphony, 21
March 1886:
The audience admittedly did not show much ‘resistance’; it
fled in part even after the second movement of this
monstrous symphonic serpent, in droves after the third, so
that only a small remainder stayed to enjoy the Finale. But
this courageous Bruckner Legion applauded and rejoiced
with the force of thousands ... Bruckner is the new idol of
the Wagnerians. One cannot say that he has become the
fashion, for nowhere does the public want to follow it; but
Bruckner has become an army command and ‘the second
Beethoven’ in the articles of faith of the Richard Wagner
community.
Bruckner Reception #2
• Hermann Kretzschmar, ‘Anton Bruckner: Symphony
no. 4’ (Führer durch dem Konzertsaal, 3/1898)
Bruckner, like the pagans of ancient Germany, performs his
religious rituals in the forest. He processes through the
avenues of lofty tree trunks, in his mind the lines of the poet:
‘Though hast built up thine own pillars and founded thy
temple.’ His thoughts have gone back to those long gone
times when we Germans were still a forest folk; and the
forest was the most magnificent church, the most splendid
cathedral, that the lord of all worlds had built with his own
hands. The forest inspires the composer with deeply religious
feeling.
Bruckner and Symphonic Theory
• August Halm (Die Symphonien Anton Bruckners, 1923):
– Bruckner offers views into other regions and processes which are neither
necessary nor useful for the clarity of the material, nor for the coherence of the
narrative, but do serve the situation to be imagined the space, the aura of the
action in an almost mystical manner. A curtain goes up on moments, or rather
just barely unveiled, and wide, unimagined distances, other ages come into view
like a new horizon.
• Ernst Kurth (Bruckner, 1925)
– Bruckner does not shape his sonic material into a uniformly spread transparence, …
but rather projects sonic formations of multi-tiered depth. Bruckner creates a
sonic abundance full of luminescence and ambiguity, and its dispersal into the
void—the world and vast background, purely in the view of the mystic.
– That in Bruckner which still externally seems to be a group, has arisen entirely
as an intensifying wave.
Bruckner, Antisemitism, and the Third Reich
• Jozef Stolzing, 21 December 1890
The great German master is naive and
kind as a man, his innermost being is so
little founded on the influence of Jewish
elements, that he even associates with
Jews ... in a friendly manner. Also he has
no ‘Judentum in der Musik’, no
‘Modern’, no ‘Erkenne dich Selbst’ on his
conscience.
• 1930 foundation of new Bruckner
Gesamtausgabe, director Robert Haas
• 1937 Joseph Goebbels addresses
International Bruckner Society meeting,
Regensburg. Dedication of Bruckner
bust in Walhalla
• 1938 German annexation of Austria;
Bruckner’s music used at party congress
in Nuremberg and to open radio
broadcasts
Symphony no. 9 ‘in D minor’: first movement
EXPOSITION (1-226)
1
P
d minor (+ c♭)
97
S
A major/F♯ minor
167
C
d minor!—F major
DEVELOPMENT (227-332)
227
P
f minor—A major
RECAPITULATION (333-516)
333
P
d minor—V/d
421
S
D major/b minor (=c♭!)
459
C
b minor—V/d
CODA (517-565)
517
P + C d minor
Fanfare—Chorale
Gesangsperiode—lyrical
Ruhig
Sehr ruhig—expectant
Höhepunkt!
Sehr ruhig (Nachwelle)
Ruhig—expectant!
Affirmatory (apex wave)
Seventh Symphony, Adagio
STROPHE 1
1
P
37
S
c♯ minor
F♯—V7/c♯
STROPHE 2
77
P
c♯—modulatory Hymn reprise—interrupted!
133
A♭ (=G♯)
Gesangsperiode (abbreviated)
c♯ minor
c♯ minor
Intensification (Höhepunkt)
Tragic (Nachwelle); Abgesang
S
STROPHE 3
157
P
185 Epilogue
Feierlich—hymn
Gesangsperiode, idyllic
Bruckner: Conclusions
• Carl Dahlhaus: (19th-Century Music, 273-4):
– The logic of discourse, as perceived by Brahms, gives way to a
system of approximate correspondences. This impression of a
tight-knit web of relationships, spreading over the work with scant
regard to accuracy of detail, forms the correlate to a conception of
form based on rhythmically distinct ‘blocks’. If the monumentality
of Bruckner’s technique is manifest in his use of ‘blocks’, the
associations covering the architectonic layers with a web of
motivic relationships reaches a level of sophistication that enables
monumentality to appear as grand style.
• Symphony and cultural memory
• Paul Bekker: ‘Gesellschaftsbildende Kraft’