Bruckner as theory teacher

[robcat2075]

Some contemporary comments by and about Bruckner as music theorist and teacher, quoted in a dissertation by Miguel Ramirez

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[robcat2075]

The dissertation also mentions his students Schalk and Lowe at points.

They are not highly regarded today, but I recall reading that they were going around Germany playing piano-four-hand versions of Bruckner's symphonies for conductors to try to drum up interest.

And somehow that worked!

Is there any composer today with students so sure of his value that they take it upon themselves to do something like that?

And I wonder what the Schalk and Lowe Tour T-shirt looked like.

[robcat2075]

Today I find on the internets that famous violinist and baroque music hoaxster Fritz Kreisler entered the Vienna Conservatory at age 7 where he studied with Joseph Hellmesberger Jr., Jakob Dont, and... Anton Bruckner!

I presume having a seven-year-old in your university theory class was unusual but i don't know.

[Kbiggs]

I think there’s a similarity between Bruckner’s and Schoenberg’s education, teaching and composition. Schoenberg wrote one of the model books on theory that’s still used today: Structural Functions of Harmony.

As a child, I remember reading a line from a fairy tale about fighting witches. While fighting a witch together, one protagonist says to another, “She only makes rules so she can break them.”

I think a similar rule applies to theory and composition: learn the rules so you can break them properly.

[LeTromboniste]

Today I find on the internets that famous violinist and baroque music hoaxster Fritz Kreisler entered the Vienna Conservatory at age 7 where he studied with Joseph Hellmesberger Jr., Jakob Dont, and... Anton Bruckner!

I presume having a seven-year-old in your university theory class was unusual but i don't know.

European conservatories are traditionally not universities, one could (and oftentimes still can) study there as children, through school (usually in parallel to regular studies, either evenings or weekends, or sometimes replacing some of the children's regular school classes on certain weekdays) and then into university level. For instance at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where I did my masters, there are 7-year old sackbut players and elementary school kids learning medieval music theory!

[robcat2075]

European conservatories are traditionally not universities, one could (and oftentimes still can) study there as children...

I guess i should be unsurprised that the conservatories would wave in a seven-year-old boy but an 18-year-old woman set off panic alarms.

At 18, Ethyl Smith was wanting to further her musical studies but no British conservatory would admit a female student. So, she looked to Europe and eventually found one, Leipzig, that would consider her... but she would only be allowed to attend lecture classes if there were a screen in the room between her and the male students.

[Posaunus]

I guess i should be unsurprised that the conservatories would wave in a seven-year-old boy but an 18-year-old woman set off panic alarms.

At 18, Ethyl Smith was wanting to further her musical studies but no British conservatory would admit a female student. So, she looked to Europe and eventually found one, Leipzig, that would consider her... but she would only be allowed to attend lecture classes if there were a screen in the room between her and the male students.

A little context would be helpful here:

• You are referring to Ethel Smyth, who eventually became a reasonably well-known (but marginalized) English composer - and a rather radical women's suffragette, who was briefly imprisoned for her violent actions.
  [She eventually was granted a British damehood - the first female composer to be so recognized.]

• She attended the Leipzig Conservatory for one year - in 1876!
  I expect things are a bit different in the 21st century.

[robcat2075]

A little context would be helpful here:

You are referring to Ethel Smyth, who eventually became a reasonably well-known (but marginalized) English composer - and a rather radical women's suffragette, who was briefly imprisoned for her violent actions.
[She eventually was granted a British damehood - the first female composer to be so recognized.]

The one and only.

She attended the Leipzig Conservatory for one year - in 1876!
I expect things are a bit different in the 21st century.

That she left after a year hardly negates the unusual matriculation requirements they imposed.

I felt we had already established that we were talking about the 19th century... Bruckner and Kreisler prominently mentioned above and all that.

HAVE they stopped putting women behind a screen? Maybe after the Berlin Wall came down the practice came up for review.

[Cmillar]

Interesting to read about Bruckner and his thoughts. Thanks.

I think that composer Ernst Toch thought along those lines, as can be seen in his great book "The Shaping Forces in Music".

Know the "rules of theory", but don't get hung up on codified 'harmonic movement'.

To Toch, harmony was just the intersection of musical lines when they happen to occur at the same moment in time. The separate voices have a 'life of their own', and there is no such thing as 'consonance' or 'dissonance'.

'Consonance' or Dissonance' are totally determined by what happened before or after a point in musical time. There's no 'good or bad' consonance or dissonance...just notes and sounds playing together or separately on a journey through space and time.

Toch's book can be read a thousand times and there is always food for thought. Seems like he would have agreed with Bruckner on many aspects of music....except that Toch probably wouldn't have like the fact that Bruckner very often just threw together a lot of totally separate ideas that don't really develop or go anywhere in some of his symphonies (like the 8th, which is not his best work)

[robcat2075]

Interesting to read about Bruckner and his thoughts. Thanks.

I think that composer Ernst Toch thought along those lines, as can be seen in his great book "The Shaping Forces in Music".

Know the "rules of theory", but don't get hung up on codified 'harmonic movement'.

I get the sense that Bruckner was just teaching theory to snot-faced kids because that's what they hired him to teach.

To Toch, harmony was just the intersection of musical lines when they happen to occur at the same moment in time. The separate voices have a 'life of their own', and there is no such thing as 'consonance' or 'dissonance'.

I was not previously familiar with Toch so I listened to one of his symphonies. Ouch.
I agree that he seems not to know the difference between consonance and dissonance.

... Toch probably wouldn't have like the fact that Bruckner very often just threw together a lot of totally separate ideas that don't really develop or go anywhere in some of his symphonies (like the 8th, which is not his best work)

I can hear Bruckner crying all the way to the bank over that.

[Cmillar]

I can hear Bruckner crying all the way to the bank over that.

Maybe...but that doesn't mean all his music is great music (ie: 8th symphony)

Drake is laughing all the way to the bank too, but it's not exactly great music.

[Savio]

Yes, after Bach. Bruckner is the one to learn from. This chord progression is the most advanced in history. It start with the bass trombone on a high F. Then the bass line goes nearly chromatic from Bb to low Bb. It cannot be more advanced than this. Not even any jazz progression can end like this. The longest V to I cadence in the world! Enjoy

Leif