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Musical Discussions
Topic: Tradition

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Posted by steverino on 04-17-2024
I'm just mentioning these two composers as they were significantly influenced by Bruckner without exactly copying him. Each wrote 3 symphonies. Wetz lived from 1875 -1935 mainly in Erfurt and Weimar while Scherber lived from 1907 to 1974 mainly in Nuremberg. Scherber's Symphony 3 is a modernistic take on the Bruckner style. Scherber also wrote a series of very fine songs. Their symphonies have been recorded. A few came out on LP and then more on CD. I find both composers interesting but YMMV.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 07-10-2024
Thank you,

Posted by Bill on 07-16-2024
On amazon prime founds Scherber Symphony !. Opening phrases direct from Bruckner, same with style. Bratislava Symphony pretty good recording. You shgould try it. Only violin sonata from Wetz. 

Posted by steverino on 07-31-2024
One other symphony that I think fits in the general Bruckner style, albeit early Bruckner of Sym 3 and 4, is Victor Bendix' Symphony 1 in C Major. Bendix was a Danish composer who lived 1851-1926. The Bendix Sym 1 was written at the same time as Bruckner was working on his Sym 7. It is subtitled Fjeldstigning translated as Mountain Climbing and I find it quite stirring and evocative. This is the only Bendix symphony that has any relation to the Bruckner style as his later  symphonies 2-4 are more what I would call  Nordic pastoral.
It has been recorded twice once by the Omsk Symphony on Danacord and more recently on the Da Capo label by the Malmo Symphony.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 08-01-2024

Posted by steverino on 08-01-2024
I like Bendix' later symphonies but I just wanted to caution that they weren't Brucknerian as the Sym 1 was. His Symphony 4 was written around the time Sibelius was working on his Sym 3 and there is a certain convergence at times. Bendix is the only Danish composer I like as Nielsen never clicked with me.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 08-02-2024
Bendix is a very strange fruit. I remember years ago we were playing games with Clark Jonson when we played very short pieces to each other, and we should be able to identify the composer's nationality.  Clark was killing me with Bendix and in his phrases, I saw Scottish’s motives. I was killing Clark with Imre Kalman as he thought it was Russian music.

Posted by steverino on 08-02-2024
His first symphony is quite Germanic but yes the later ones just have some rather vague "lands of the Vikings" ambiance. But this is the difference between second rank composers with first rank. The latter have a very personal style while the former tend to a more mimetic or magpie quality to the style used. Nevertheless I find his music attractive and enjoyable. Another slightly enigmatic composer is the turn of the century Swiss Robert Hermann.

Kalman was Hungarian (sometimes going by Emmerich rather than Imre) and that's what he sounds like to me, mixed with Vienna of course. Not quite as good as Lehar but several of his enjoyable operettas are still performed.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 08-05-2024
Your description of second-rank composers vs first-rank is spot on in my view. Interestingly, I know very little about the "lands of the Vikings" ambiance and am quite ignorant about its sonic harmonics. Even if I hear Fins, Swedish, Danish or Norway music, I do not get its identity. Perhaps because I never was there.   
Nowadays, in times when everyone talks about national economies and the rest of nationalist values, I need to admit that I am a bit racist in terms of music. I do not like USA music, I do listen to and appreciate it, but not particularly a huge fan of any slave music. Have a complex relationship with generally all Western European music. Where I completely feel at home is German music. The more music to me sounds Germanic, the more I like it. Isn’t it funny for a Russian Jew?

Posted by steverino on 08-09-2024
To me Grieg is sort of a standard I use to judge Nordic. I would call it a lighter airier German music, less angst, less heavy rhythmically with high clean woodwinds.Yet still recognizably German in basic style. Finland is a bit ambiguous since it was part of Russia for an extended period, hence Sibelius' early fascination with Tchaikovsky.  The English speaking countries have historically been far stronger in popular music than classical and that still holds today. I wonder if classical music concerts will really survive in the Americas except in a few big cities in coming decades.

Posted by Paul S on 08-09-2024
Steve, for sure, classical music has gotten more support in Europe than it gets here in the US. Perhaps it's a matter of how close we are culturally to the art form?  It's also said that people's attention spans have decreased, and the US might just lead the charge in this. As a jazz lover, I point to this shot heard around the World. Also hard to argue about the widespread popularity of our "popular music". I am glad to be able to listen to Music from around the World, but I have wondered if the "virtual" aspect of contemporary music has made it "more ephemeral", or if this is part of Music's "living presence" even as it is part of its "evolution". For me, as I age, the Dialog includes more and more static.

Best regards,
Paul S

Posted by steverino on 08-11-2024
Paul,  People underestimated the impact of the wars in Europe on our music scene. There was a large emigration of artists and performers to the Americas starting in the first decade of the 20th C due to the money offered. Even the celebrated Jeritza was happy to board the sea liner and rake in the dollars. And of course Gustav followed too among others. It became a flood in the 1930s of course. So all these people inflated the classical music scene here to proportions not seen before. But as you say it was not indigenous and once they aged out in the 60s and 70s the cachet of classical music began to fade. Even Lenny went to Europe in the 80s. The CD scene compensated for awhile because of the flood of repertoire that appeared on it, but now CDs are just being given away in the US although they hang on in Japan and Europe better. I can see the Far East continuing some level of classical music but at a much lower level than Europe including Russia of course. We are fortunate that a large repertoire of even second rank but worthwhile composers like those mentioned  in this thread were recorded for our benefit. That may be what is left outside of a few big cities in the Americas.

Posted by Paul S on 08-11-2024
Yes, I was not thinking about that, but it is certainly true that wars have done everything they could to eradicate Art. I used to say that Art is like a cockroach, in that it seems to survive against efforts to stifle it. Amazing, when you think about it, how Music endured the BS and also re-established itself ASAP. I guess we're still waiting to see how things go vs. the radio, TV, the computer, and the cell phone, now including AI. In some ways I'm glad I'm old; but I admit I remain curious to see and/or hear something greater than the best of what I've already experienced. I'm not holding my breath but I try to stay ready.

Paul S

Posted by Gargoyle on 08-19-2024
Is AI capable of "creation"?
Would it rather be a "simulation"?
If we look at the utility of recalling and applying textual information to comparative under educated individual like me, it looks one way. If I was knowledgeable on said particular topic, would I feel the same way? The synthetic nature would become vivid despite the competent prose.

The first time I saw a picture of an AI girl, it was indeed very attractive. By the time I saw the 5th and 6th example it became immediately clear that they are AI, as the girls all look related.

It is artificial, but to use the term "Intelligent" is pretty fast and loose depending on your threshold for intelligence.  Take a PC from 10 years ago with a basic OS, nobody would call this AI yet that old computer could perform over a billion calculations per second. Over a billion calculations in the time it takes to drop an orange.

If AI was truly intelligent, where are the new musical scales? Where is the culture of newfound traditions? Why is there not 600 years worth of "new" music available at my beck and call?

IMO "AI" is a good marketing term for a next level search engine. That's all it is. It compiles results to your query in an intelligible manor and sprinkles on a predetermined set of random variability that have had their extremities culled, depending on the nature of them medium.

I'm not worried about "AI" robots take over the world, I worry about those people that would program this fear into a mechanical capability.
It's a stupid thought, just as the first alien that you meet has two arms, two legs and two eyes.  Out of all the possible colours, why green?, that happens to be centralized in the sweet spot of our visual sensitivity to the electromagnetic spectrum. Coincidence?

If an aliens body absorbs, or is transparent to all visible light and only reflects X-rays, you would not even see it.  If you think a space ship has a dashboard you may considered an asshole by some.

In fact, lets test. Right now I will search in real time for a picture of an AI Alien, what do you think it will come up with? "artificial intelligence picture of alien" in google, click images.
This is literally the first image that shows up, posted in the New York Post of all places, a business that you could say sells narratives.


You can let go of your pearls now.



Posted by Gargoyle on 08-19-2024
This is a reasonable result, although still coached. A good example of what "AI" is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTuK4iqQtPI
EDIT: I acknowledge perhaps I am too far of topic, my apologies

Posted by steverino on 08-26-2024
Well you are not off topic so much as in an alternate universe. Are you unable to start your own threads of whatever you want to talk about?

Posted by Gargoyle on 08-27-2024
 steverino wrote:
Well you are not off topic so much as in an alternate universe. Are you unable to start your own threads of whatever you want to talk about?

something you would like to add to the conversation?

Posted by Romy the Cat on 08-27-2024
Gargoyle, could you reconsider your creative output for this site? Nothing you express has anything to do with the subject of this site. There are audio forums that would be more effective for your interests and more beneficial to you.

Posted by Gargoyle on 08-27-2024
end associating with you miserable pompous assholes.
The irony is completely lost on you fools. Where does it say its the richard wetz website.

This asshole in particular is free to discuss the sound of fuses and you want to say this site is not fore that.

Enjoy your site of non sequitur

Posted by steverino on 08-29-2024
The conversation here was about composers who were influenced by Anton Bruckner's music, so I actually started the conversation in this thread. Your posts had absolutely nothing to do with the thread topic obviously as even you admitted.  There is no Richard Wetz site as this is a thread on Romy's site, not it's own website. It's not my website either  but I made it clear I had no problem if you wanted to start your own thread whether it had something to with audio or not. I am a bit puzzled that you only talk about so called AI visual images rather than so called AI generated music that at least would have some mild relevance to the site. I suppose also that gargoyles are prone to speaking in expletives.

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