{"id":580,"date":"2009-10-30T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-30T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/2009\/10\/30\/bog-off-bruckner\/"},"modified":"2009-10-30T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-30T11:00:00","slug":"bog-off-bruckner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/2009\/10\/30\/bog-off-bruckner\/","title":{"rendered":"Bog off, Bruckner"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m off to hear my hubby Tom\u2019s orchestra, the LPO<\/a>, play a programme full of delicious Russian stuff tonight. We may have doubts about the \u2018Russian School\u2019, as per last month\u2019s print edition article, but you can\u2019t argue with Prokofiev, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, and especially not with Piers Lane<\/a> playing the piano. <\/p>\n

Well, you probably can argue with those composers \u2013 it\u2019s just that I personally wouldn\u2019t, as I love them to bits. What I do argue with is Bruckner<\/a>. Last Saturday they did Bruckner 8, this Wednesday it\u2019s no.6. People go nuts over this stuff. Including Tom. In the run-up to Saturday he kept saying: \u2018It\u2019s a really beautiful symphony, this\u2026Yannick<\/a> does it so well\u2026\u2019 \u2013 ie, heavy hint, you have to come and hear it. Er, I had to wash my hair. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been attending Bruckner symphonies, desperately trying to like the wretched things, for 25 years. After a quarter of a century of abject failure, enough is enough. I\u2019ve stood through an interminable one in a hot Proms gallery. I\u2019ve wallowed in the first 30 seconds of No.7, then cringed through the pig\u2019s ear that comprised the remaining well-over-an-hour by a composer who could invent the 19th century\u2019s most beautiful musical idea but couldn\u2019t follow it through. I\u2019ve suffered intense attacks of claustrophobia in these attempts in the Royal Festival Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie and a nasty ex-communist conference centre in Bucharest on 11 September 2001. I have tried and tried and TRIED, so I am not going to try any longer. I don\u2019t like Bruckner. Get over it.<\/p>\n

Remembered: an exam question at uni: \u201cHanslick once described Bruckner\u2019s symphonies as \u2018giant symphonic snakes\u2019. Discuss.\u201d I think I picked a question about something else that time. They wouldn\u2019t have liked it if I\u2019d proposed the thesis that giant snakes swallow rabbits whole, then curl up to sleep through the digestive process for several days on end, and Bruckner symphonies sort of do that too. They\u2019re indigestible, constipated and soporific. <\/p>\n

Discuss. <\/p>\n

<\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

No related posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m off to hear my hubby Tom’s orchestra, the LPO, play a programme full of delicious Russian stuff tonight. We may have doubts about the ‘Russian School’, as per last month’s print edition article, but you can’t argue with Prokofiev, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, and especially not with Piers Lane playing the piano. Well, you probably can argue with those composers – it’s just that I personally wouldn’t, as I love them to bits. What I do argue with is Bruckner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}