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Posts: 1414
Location: Chicago
Joined: December 28, 2009
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As I've poked around and read, there are 2 big problems. The first is that the material wasn't subjected to any polishing. As anyone who's even written a paper for grade school know, your first draft is unlikely to be your best. I'm not talking about Bruckner's post-completion revisions. That's a completely seperate discussion. But, just the regular polishing and perfecting that any creative work goes through. Bruckner was really sick in his last years, and then dying, so there just wasn't anytime. He was just trying to get notes down on paper before the end.
The second problem is more subtle. I've just seen some hints that the finale wasn't coming to him, as if his powers of invention and inspiration had left him. It would be really useful to get more solid information on this point.
I personally have a hard time listening to the finale, in any state [complete or just fragments], because the music just sounds do ghostly. What I mean is that it's as if you're hearing the ghost of the composer creating the music, rather than the living artist himself in his full powers of artistic inspiration. The first time I heard that finale, my first impression was that it was incompentence. As I listened, it sounded like some frozen, featureless landscape that had previously been a verdant, tropical jungle of Brucknerland.
I really think there's a better and best solution. Bruckner himself considered using the Te Deum as the finale. I've read somewhere that it's a problem using the C major Te Deum as a finale for D minor symphony, but really, who cares? Only people with perfect pitch might even possibly notice, and even then probably never. But, we can try it out for ourselves at home. Just play the Te Deum as the last movement. It works! It makes a wonderful finale.
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