The Essence of Bruckner: An Essay Towards the Understanding of His Music (A Gollancz paperback) (Paperback)

~ Robert Wilfred Levick Simpson (Author)

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Product Description

This is a revised and expanded edition of Robert Simpson's study, first published in 1967, of Bruckner's music. It includes additional material on the 3rd, 4th and 8th symphonies, whose original versions have only recently become available, and a new chapter on the String Quintet. Dr Simpson, himself a composer, is also the author of "Carl Nielsen, Symphonist" and the BBC music guide, "Beethoven Symphonies".

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Victor Gollancz (February 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 057505221X
• ISBN-13: 978-0575052215
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,278,905 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clarifies this Enigmatic symphonist, September 8, 2000

By	scarecrow "scarecrow" (Chicago, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Shame this is out of print. Simpson was annotator,promoter at The BBC. He is a composer himself of large scale symphonies.

Bruckner has long been an enigmatic creator, a late bloomer,spending years in pedagogical subjection of counterpoint.And his oefish,awkward demeanor gave a false impression to those who surrounded him,usually less talented unclairvoyant scholars who sought the necessity to revise his symphonies. Simpson here scours these giant symphonic boulders one by one,revealing where a great rupture takes place,where Bruckner's symphonic vision begins to look outward,beginning with the Fifth Symphony. Although the D-minor Third begins this transmogrification of vision. Bruckner looked well beyond the shadow of Beethoven,not utilizing that aesthetic pallette of pent up momentums,and overwrought festering movements that get resolved. Instead the Bruckner movement in fact doesn't move,there is no forward moving implication, we must simply withstand the overbearing presence of each movement in its own right,within its own oceanic spaces. Simpson is a good writer and brings some literary image to the outside gestural features, as his machine-like repetitive conconctions, its moments which simply begin and end mindlessly at times,as the various variegated Scherzi. You need the score I found to read Simpson for he does drag us through these symphonies as a callable narrative,moment to moment,step by step,(not quite note for note) inch by inch. This can get tedious,but that is what was the usual fare of musical analysis. Now hopefully there are those essays which introduce more social and political dimensions to the creation of art.