What is love?
How do you feel love?
A composer who describes love for me with a warmth as barely no-one else is Anton Bruckner.
Listen to this beautiful second movement of his 5th symphony. At least to the first three minutes, especially to minute 2:00 following and its golden and world-embracing sounds.
What do you feel?
Also a sun?
I connect Delaunay’s painting below “Circular Forms. Sun No. 1” from 1912-13 with this music. In the middle you can see the sun, world-embracing with its warmth.
Enjoy!
I love Anton Bruckner’s symphonies, especially the later ones. I will listen again to the 5th now with a new approach. In all honesty, the 5th has never been a favorite, so I’ll enjoy re-visiting it now from this perspective.
Great, I am happy to hear that! Yes, enjoy the 5th! I recently also discovered in more detail Bruckner’s 3rd. Wonder how you would like that one too!
The third is interesting. I have an entire collection of Bruckner including the “unnumbered” symphony 0 and one “student symphony” which was before that. Both are exquisite. One summer I sat down with a notebook and made notes as I listened to each Bruckner symphony, trying to capture what I was “seeing” and “feeling”. There were places where Bruckner’s work absolutely transcends all thought; yet there are other places… well, I remember asking myself once, “What in the world was he thinking when he wrote this?” He was, of course, notorious for never being “finished”, always changing his compositions, and he definitely had an interesting life. I think every serious music student should study Bruckner and the evolution of his composition from the first symphonies through those breath-takingly beautiful final ones.
Yes, I also often wondered how he was like. He must have had a window into something larger than life. Or more: was he the window? I believe so. He must have had an incredible inner strength, an inner urge or vocation to continue composing despite his works weren’t recognized for many years. His long phrases and endless lines speak of a great endurance he must have had within himself. Was composing maybe like talking to himself, or to God? How fascinating that you capture what you saw and felt! I would be curious what you felt for example about the 5th! These “captures” which I try in my blog are for me an opening into a deeper dimension of life, where we connect to something bigger than us. The warmth I feel in the 2nd movement of his 5th, I also feel strongly in the 2nd movement of his 7th (and of course many more but these as key points). It is as the music touches a nerve within me which enables me to see the world as a whole in front of my eyes in an incredibly warm and embracing light.
I will see if I can find my notes from that summer. It’s always interesting to listen to a piece of music again and see how my thoughts and feelings may differ from previous experiences. One morning later this week I’ll try to listen to Bruckner’s 5th once more. Life is a little crazy right now. My husband is off work due to an injury and we’re wrestling around with paperwork and visits to six different doctors, so I’m never sure from one day to another how my schedule will go. Are you familiar with the work of Ernst von Dohnanyi? His Symphony No. 1 Opus 9 is mind-blowing to me. He was only 24 when he composed it, and it leaves me simply gasping in wonderment at how someone so young could create music with such emotion and passion. Bruckner was one of his influences, so you may already be familiar with Dohnanyi.
Great, thank you very much! I wish you and your husband all the best! Maybe Bruckner can be a help in these times. Interesting you mention Dohnanyi! I have to check out his first symphony! Maybe you know his Passacaglia for flute? It is a very fascinating piece, written at the end of his life after he went to America. May I ask you what you captured in his music?
Thanks for the good wishes. More doctor’s appointments today for my husband. We’ll see where that goes. For me, there’s a pure emotion I hear in Dohnanyi’s works that is at once both sorrowful and promising. Much of his music has a very lyrical quality that draws me in. He seems to touch upon so many different emotions, yet always leaves me with a sense of hope for the future. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
I wish you all the best for that! Thank you very much for your “captures”! I listened to Dohnanyi’s 1st symphony and I am really fascinated! Immediately I was reminded of Bruckner, yet he has his very own unique language. There is something very grand in his expression. Yes, I feel what you mean with both sorrowful and promising. He doesn’t “lament”, it is deep seriousness, together with hope. Overwhelming, full of ideas and wildness, partly almost Mahler-like! Absolute in expression, being serious about it.
I’m so glad you enjoyed Dohnanyi’s 1st. To think that he composed this when he was so young makes it all the more astonishing to me. I always have to ask, where does such passion come from? I’m still hoping to find quiet time to re-listen to Bruckner soon. The weekend is busy and then we have three days filled with appointments, so I’m looking at Thursday. It would be nice to relax and listen!