TromboneChat

New to me anyway! I had not heard of this piece until several months ago.

Near the end of the 19th Century the former British and German Empires did a land swap. One outcome was the return of the North Sea island of Helgoland to Germany. Thus it became the subject of this cantata movement, a commission from the Men's Choirs of Vienna.

Bruckner, fresh off the success of his 8th Symphony and at the height of his powers, gives this all the things we love in him... broad themes, grand chorales, explosions, sudden silence, and a darkness-before-the-dawn coda with lots of tremolo ding-dongs in the strings and an incandescent finale.

This is his last completed work.

This Chicago recording is probably the most nuanced.



This British version has more furies.

Wow. Great! And there's no forgetting who composed it.

robcat2075 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 13, 2024 9:47 pm...explosions...

Perhaps he had a premonition of the island's future.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Big_Bang

Great find!

In the first several bars, the strings have a slash through the note stem. Isn't that a subdivision indication? Measured tremolo? I don't hear it.

AtomicClock wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2024 9:39 am In the first several bars, the strings have a slash through the note stem. Isn't that a subdivision indication? Measured tremolo? I don't hear it.

That indicates repeated notes, in this case 2 eighth notes per written quarter. This shorthand doesn't indicate the number of repeated note, instead the total number of flags indicates the note value of the repeated notes. One flag=8th notes, 2 flags=16ths, etc. just as usual. So the number of repeated notes is in relation to the note values of the written notes. If one of the notes in that intro was a dotted quarter, it would have 3 notes instead of two, if one was a half note it would have 4. If a quarter note has two slashes, that would be 4 sixteenths. A pair of 8th notes with one slash would be 2 times 2 sixteenths (because the normal flag of the notes + the slash = 2 flags, just like sixteenths have two flags)

But I don't hear it. Those recordings sound like individual quarter notes to me. Maybe the second note is played piano (upbow?), but I've never heard the notation described with any dynamic or articulation style other than what you said.

Bad ears? I had the same experience live recently, reading violin cues in my part.

AtomicClock wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2024 10:36 am But I don't hear it. Those recordings sound like individual quarter notes to me.

One of the fun things about Bruckner is how he has people sawing away at stuff that's just barely discernible amidst the general tumult.

He's doing a couple of things that work against clarity...

First, it's real tough for a body of 40, 50, 60(?) string players to bow in precise unison. Too many chefs, too far apart on stage. There's going to be a fair amount of splatter on each note, creating an overall haze rather than distinct articulations.

Second, he's got the winds doubling the same line but with slurred notes, smoothing things out even more.

And then the acoustics of the hall blur everything, too.

If you go to 8:50 and hear the strings play their line, first with a tenuto marking, then with split quarter notes, a difference can be briefly detected at moments.

AtomicClock wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2024 10:36 am But I don't hear it. Those recordings sound like individual quarter notes to me. Maybe the second note is played piano (upbow?), but I've never heard the notation described with any dynamic or articulation style other than what you said.

Bad ears? I had the same experience live recently, reading violin cues in my part.

I hear it, but yeah it's subtle, and with the legato winds on the same line, it's quite blurred. They're also playing those 8th notes very sustained. It sounds to me that they are reading Bruckner's intention here as just something that gives more weight to each note of the line.

Am I the only one who thinks of Bruckner as a kind of "poor man's Mahler?"

Like Schubert is a poor man's Beethoven: Similar, just not as good!

JTeagarden wrote: ↑Thu Mar 06, 2025 10:28 am Am I the only one who thinks of Bruckner as a kind of "poor man's Mahler?"

Probably.

When i go to the symphony, the tickets cost just as much for either!

JTeagarden wrote: ↑Thu Mar 06, 2025 10:28 am Am I the only one who thinks of Bruckner as a kind of "poor man's Mahler?"

Like Schubert is a poor man's Beethoven: Similar, just not as good!

I know how tempting that can be, I don't see them that way. Bruckner was an organist, Mahler was a symphonist. The orchestration of Bruckner's symphonies often sound like organ pieces that require 3 or 4 organists in one hall. And of course, we know about the expansive symphonic orchestration of Mahler's symphonies. Also, Bruckner tended to use "families" of instruments, while Mahler continuously explored different combinations of instruments in a chamber-music fashion. Mahler also used soloists much more than Bruckner did.

More importantly, I see Mahler as being very emotional. He has high points (tension-release climaxes in melody, harmony, and development) every other minute. That's part of the attraction of a Mahler symphony--there's so much sonic and emotional back-and-forth that even listeners can be drained (and satisfied) after hearing one of his symphonies. It's a sonic workout.

Bruckner, OTOTH, takes a l-o-n-g time to make his point. Tension tension-release climaxes in melody, harmony and structure can take 5 or 6 minutes to develop, let alone the main climax of a movement, which can take 15-20 minutes.

Mahler says A LOT. Bruckner says only a few things, but he speaks slowly, and repeats them to be certain you heard him.

Similarly, I see Schubert more as a kind-of early Romantic version of Haydn: impeccably structured and always correct. He was a court composer after all, and had to please his master.* Beethoven, OTOH, was not beholden to any master other than money. He made music and sold it (sometimes two or three times!) to earn his living. He was a peasant, and I think his music displays his background.

I don't see either Bruckner or Schubert being "poor man's" anybody. Just my 2 cents.

*The "Surprise" and "Farewell" symphonies are notable exceptions where Haydn was very outspoken.

I will listen to more Bruckner, I took to Mahler immediately, first time I heard Bruckner, I thought I was lsitening to a Mahler piece I didn't know, and it didn't have the same pay-off.

Hard to put your finger on why some composers are so satisfying, and others are not, supposed "reasons" are always more personal visceral responses dressed up to sound logical.

JTeagarden wrote: ↑Thu Mar 06, 2025 12:26 pm I will listen to more Bruckner, I took to Mahler immediately, first time I heard Bruckner, I thought I was lsitening to a Mahler piece I didn't know, and it didn't have the same pay-off.

Hard to put your finger on why some composers are so satisfying, and others are not, supposed "reasons" are always more personal visceral responses dressed up to sound logical.

Yeah.

Bruckner requires time and patience to really hear.

When talking about the differences between Mahler and Bruckner, Herbert Blomstedt quipped, "“Mahler documents his crises in his symphonies, Bruckner overcomes them.” https://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/ ... -bruckner/

JTeagarden wrote: ↑Thu Mar 06, 2025 12:26 pm I will listen to more Bruckner,

If you don't like it, don't listen to it. I'm fine with that.

You also don't need to spend any more time trying to convince the rest of us that we're mistaken.

Fair enough. Enjoy, sorry for sticking my beak in, Hell has a special place for people who ruin other's enjoyment of things, I will heed my good advice.

I would also thoroughly disagree that Schubert is a poor man's Beethoven. Of course they share a musical language, but also they have their own distinct personal styles. Schubert's "Great" in C major is not like any of Beethoven's symphonies, for example.

I'm generally not a big fan of comparing composers in terms of quality while assimilating their styles as the same. One may like one less than another, that's fine, but each composer is different. I find it more interesting to work to understand hat exactly makes their styles recognizably theirs, rather than focusing on whether they're better or worse than another.

One example for me was when I worked on some pieces by Ferdinand David other than his trombone concerto. I spent some weeks listening to recordings of his violin concertos to select one for a performance, then because it only exists as a set of parts, transcribed it all and prepared a performance score, and conducted it. And it was eye opening. Suddenly our trombone concertino was not just this somewhat generic early German romantic piece, but displayed stylistic elements that I could find specifically in other works of his, the little idioms and colours that defined his personal style and made it different than, say, Mendelssohn, despite their clearly sharing a language.

One big element of Mahler's music that to me sets it apart from Bruckner and everyone else, is how contrapuntal it is. It's all about intertwined melodies and motifs and horizontal lines

Ultimately, my judgments about composers being better or worse than another is really me searching for justifications (“ Rechtfertigungen“) for what ultimately amounts to a personal preference.

Bruckner obviously gets played, because he is a significant composer.

Schubert could probably write more good melodies in a day than Beethoven could write in a year. That is a talent not to be dismissed.

Beethoven succeeds by being able to cleverly develop his dit-dit-dit-dahs, but when they talk about "art song" there's a reason Schubert comes up first.

Bruckner looks back to both of them. He can do the short motif and and he can do the long melody.