Tagebucheintragung Kloses: »Probe. Bruckner unausstehlich.« (*).
"Die Lyra" Nr. 14 berichtet auf S. 123/5 über das Konzert am 27.3.1887 [WAB 90] (ausführlicher als am 1.4.1887), signiert "A.":
"Wiener Männergesangverein. "Die "Lyra" war bekanntlich bereits öfter genöthigt, die Programme des Vereines zu bemängeln, weil ihnen der Anreiz des Neuen manchmal fehlte [... diesmal 5 neue Nummern ... Lyra hatte öfters angemahnt ...] und sprechen wir dies insbesondere betreffs A. Bruckner aus. Daß unter dem Neuen nicht Alles durchaus so gut sein mag, daß es auch dauernde Kunstgeltung erlangt, ist natürlich und darf keinen Verein gereuen. [... Heuberger kein voller Treffer, Engelsberg zündend (wurde wiederholt) ...] Weit ernster, gediegener, schwieriger und ursprünglicher, kühn in manchen Gängen, anmuthig im Solo, künstlerisch im Schlußsatze, erwies sich A. Bruckner's neuer Chor "Um Mitternacht". Der bessere und größere Theil der Hörerschaft verstand und ehrte dies ebenfalls sehr gut aufgeführte Chorwerk, und Herr Kremser hätte schon nach dem anhaltenden, wenn auch natürlich nicht so ungestümen Beifalle, mindestens den Schlußsatz wiederholen dürfen! [... über die Werke von Edwin Schulz (Interpretation unzureichend) und H. Jüngst ...mit Mendelssohns "Vespergesang"] schloß das Concert anspruchsvoll ab. A." (**).
The Cherokee Sentinel Nr. 5 veröffentlicht auf S. 1 in der 7. Spalte eine Stellungnahme zur Aufführung der 7. Symphonie am 5.2.1887:
"The Humbug of Fashionable Craze.
A Boston man is actually so lost to local pride as to write to the Gazette that he cannot appreciate "classical" music. Moreover, he finds others who are in the same fix. "At the symphony concert recently a work by a composer named Bruckner was performed. It took nearly an hour in the playing, and from beginning to end there was not a moment in which it afforded me the slightest pleasure. There was nothing melodious in it, and, as far as I was able to judge, nothing that suggested a purpose beyond noise making and a curious attempt to try how far extreme chromatic harmonies and ear-distributing modulations could be carried without violating the rules of the music grammar." The gentleman adds:
I wanted to enjoy it, but I could not. Others appeared to enjoy it without the slighest effort. It is true that there were not many of these; but as few as there were, their superior capacity to find what I could not find filled me with envy. Here was classical music, so extremely classical that it required an exceptional and special talent to understand it; while I feel that if I lived for a hundred years I could not attain to that point of achievement. I was almost inconsolable at my lack of taste, till upon leaving Music hall I met a group of musicians who were discussing the work, and who agreed that it was the dullest and most incomprehensible making of much-a-do about nothing that they had ever listened to. "But the applause," I suggested. "Oh!" replied one of them, a well-known and eminent artist, throughly eclectic in taste, "some people chew paper, slate pencils, spruce gum and other flavorless things, not because they can possibly derive any nourishment from them, but because they have perverted appetites, and masticating these things has become a habit with them. So it is with those who applaud such a work. It is habit, my dear fellow; a bad habit, founded upon a perverted taste which pretends to more than it knows. It is chewing slate-pencil music. Let us go and have a glass of beer to take the taste of it out of our mouths." This was hard on those who applauded this tone-nightmare, but I was comforted." [keine Signatur] (***).
"The Humbug of Fashionable Craze.
A Boston man is actually so lost to local pride as to write to the Gazette that he cannot appreciate "classical" music. Moreover, he finds others who are in the same fix. "At the symphony concert recently a work by a composer named Bruckner was performed. It took nearly an hour in the playing, and from beginning to end there was not a moment in which it afforded me the slightest pleasure. There was nothing melodious in it, and, as far as I was able to judge, nothing that suggested a purpose beyond noise making and a curious attempt to try how far extreme chromatic harmonies and ear-distributing modulations could be carried without violating the rules of the music grammar." The gentleman adds:
I wanted to enjoy it, but I could not. Others appeared to enjoy it without the slighest effort. It is true that there were not many of these; but as few as there were, their superior capacity to find what I could not find filled me with envy. Here was classical music, so extremely classical that it required an exceptional and special talent to understand it; while I feel that if I lived for a hundred years I could not attain to that point of achievement. I was almost inconsolable at my lack of taste, till upon leaving Music hall I met a group of musicians who were discussing the work, and who agreed that it was the dullest and most incomprehensible making of much-a-do about nothing that they had ever listened to. "But the applause," I suggested. "Oh!" replied one of them, a well-known and eminent artist, throughly eclectic in taste, "some people chew paper, slate pencils, spruce gum and other flavorless things, not because they can possibly derive any nourishment from them, but because they have perverted appetites, and masticating these things has become a habit with them. So it is with those who applaud such a work. It is habit, my dear fellow; a bad habit, founded upon a perverted taste which pretends to more than it knows. It is chewing slate-pencil music. Let us go and have a glass of beer to take the taste of it out of our mouths." This was hard on those who applauded this tone-nightmare, but I was comforted." [keine Signatur] (***).
Derselbe Text erscheint wortgetreu auch in The Aurora News Nr. 12 (Nebraska) auf S. 7 in der 5. Spalte (°).
Zitierhinweis:
Franz Scheder, Anton Bruckner Chronologie Datenbank, Eintrag Nr.: 188704155, URL: www.bruckner-online.at/ABCD-188704155letzte Änderung: Feb 02, 2023, 11:11