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7/14/2025, 5:21:40 PM
>In my time in Vienna - that is, at the beginning of the century where I grew up before the first World War (doesn't this make me sound terribly old?) - it would never have occurred to any sane-minded person to mention Bruckner and Mahler in the same breath. People associate them for superficial reasons. They both came from the territory of the old Austro-Hungarian empire, they both wrote long symphonies, they both wrote nine symphonies, and both names end on 'er' - maybe that has something to do with it - but they couldn't be more dissimilar. A phenomenon like Bruckner, whom we really can consider only as the innocent receptacle of divine grace and not equipped with very much or very high intelligence - was actually a very primitive, peasant-like person. One most beautiful story is that when he received a decoration from the old Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria and was received in audience too thank for it, very affably, the Emperor asked him whether there was anything he could do for him. So Bruckner naively said: "Yes, if your Majesty could do something about Hanslick, that he doesn't pan me all the time". Hanslick at that time being the most powerful music critic of the town and of the time. And, on the other hand, Gustav Mahler was exactly the opposite - a highly sophisticated intellectual - they couldn't be more dissimilar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc3CxN6RELg&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc3CxN6RELg&t=1s
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