Anton Bruckner is one of
the great masters of the symphony, having taken the model left by Beethoven’s
Ninth and run with it in his own series of Nine, all of which sound like a chip
from that great model. However,
Bruckner’s scores are infused with a wonderfully eccentric dichotomy; at one
moment they are heaven and hell battles out of a Bruegel painting, while the
next minute, an innocent polka barges in and sets the entire orchestra
dancing. The sacred and the secular,
the arcane and the naive—these dual qualities make listening to any Bruckner
symphony a strange experience, and within the context of the nineteenth
century, a highly original one. No one
wrote like him until Mahler took up his pen, and many of his works—particularly the Second
and Third Symphonies, owe him a tremendous debt.
Amazon is currently
offering the complete cycle of symphonies (minus the shorter, yet completely
mature First) for mere dollars under the capable baton
of Daniel Barenboim. When I briefly
worked at the Chicago Symphony in 1999, I had the privilege of hearing
Barenboim lead the CSO in Bruckner’s most famous symphony, the Fourth
(subtitled the “Romantic”), which was a tremendous experience. You can
download each one for between $2.69 and $3.99, all in superior sound and played
by the Berlin Philharmonic (who lives and breathes this repertoire).
Here’s a rundown of the
symphonies and where to start if you’re a Bruckner beginner:
