Sunday Afternoon Music: One of the Most Beautiful Melodies You’ll Ever Hear
Many people don’t know Anton Bruckner’s symphonies, and those who do often don’t know the 6th. But it is one of my favorites — and this particular passage struck me as something that I didn’t want to keep to myself today. I have carved out 2 1/2 minutes for you to listen to. Even if you normally skip my music posts, give this short clip a shot. This is the second theme from the second movement, an Adagio.
It hurts to cut it off. Even more beautiful music lies just around the corner, mere seconds after the end of that short clip. But I wanted to keep the excerpt short, so more people would give it a chance. If you’re intrigued, you can pull the video progress bar back to the beginning and listen to the whole symphony — all 58 minutes of it.
The Karajan recording is my favorite version, and I’m very pleased to see it freely accessible on YouTube.
Bruckner is one of my very favorite composers. I used to check out his symphonies on vinyl from the Fort Worth Public Library as a child. I had a particular fondness for the Bruno Walter/Columbia Symphony Orchestra version of the Ninth. (But there I go repeating myself, I realize; I already told you this in 2009. When an old blogger starts repeating his stories, just nod politely and smile.)
If I introduce just one person to Bruckner, that’s — well, that’s not enough. But it would still improve the world a little bit. And that’s the best that we can try to do, on any given day.
[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]