Bruckner's music has always sounded to me as if it was written on or for the organ: it's that big cathedral sound of his. I started listening to Bruckner early in 2008 and shortly after that I acquired recommended recordings of Rachmaninov, Schumann, Schubert & Sibelius symphonic works. I rarely listen to Bruckner, Rachmaninov or Schumann's symphonies, I couldn't imagine life without Schubert or Sibelius now.fergus wrote: Dave, there are two things that one needs to appreciate if one is having difficulty with the music of Bruckner and one is that he was a deeply religious man; personally I feel that this comes across very strongly in his music. The second thing, far more important musically in my opinion, is that he was an organist; I would not be surprised if he composed a lot of his music on the organ or at least if it had quite a large influence on his composition. The next time that you are listening to his music see if you can conceive that it is being played on the organ. I think that he was almost playing the orchestra as though it was an organ....listen to the textures and the phrasings carefully. I know that I have some odd ideas but that fact struck me very early on in my Bruckner listening and it changed my perception somewhat on his music when I first started to listen to it and it made a lot of sense to me.
End of rant!
