Who would you consider a Brucknerian composer?

[britishcomposer]

Martin Scherber (1907-74). I know his 3rd Symphony. Sounds like an apotheosis of Bruckner. One continuous movement lasting almost an hour. Quite weird.
Probably Gerhard Frommel (1906-84), but I know only his 1st Symphony from  1937/39. His slightly earlier Concert for clarinet piano and strings is more neoclassical though.

[Holger]

In case of Frommel, his First Symphony (which is a great piece in my view) shows some Bruckner influences but not only, while other pieces by him are far away from Bruckner. I know quite a number of his works, for example there is a neoclassicist Suite for Orchestra which was only composed a few years before the First Symphony but which is actually near Stravinsky. These traces can also be found in the scherzo of the First Symphony but they are much less obvious there, of course. Frommel's Second Symphony is also a very different piece, lighter and with dance music allusions. In later years, Frommel was even interested in Gamelan music! However, there is also an early and rather broad "Herbstfeier" cantata which is more in the vein of the First Symphony (and also a great piece with its ritual tableau of autumn / harvest scenes of baroque Franconia). Anyway, altogether Frommel doesn't seem to be a Brucknerian composer in my view, there are too many distinct influences in his output and also a clear own voice. He would be much worth a rediscovery. Naxos will release his first three piano sonatas in a while.

Regards,
Holger

[britishcomposer]

I had the first movement of the 1st Frommel in mind. Where did you find all the other works? Have they been broadcast? Yes, I know the suite, forgot about it.

[Holger]

In particular, I like the first movement of Frommel's First very much, its main theme is so powerful and remindable! Besides that, the music is very well composed in my view.

I got most of the Frommel pieces I have from other collectors (I use to exchange a lot of rare stuff, I mean LPs and broadcast recordings) and also three of them from Frommel's son.

Regards,
Holger

[Paul Barasi]

Whilst Hans Rott wasn't really influenced by Bruckner's structure, he was by his music. For instance, the key theme of Rott's Symphony seems to have its origins in the B5 finale.

[eschiss1]

and the opening of Wellesz 2 by the finale of Bruckner 4 as has been elsewhere noted (actually, the Moderate-Scherzo-Slow structure of many of Wellesz' symphonies seems - I say seems - inspired by the accidental structure of how Bruckner's 9th turned out, leaving aside the fascinating and completable sketches of the finale of which Wellesz may not have been aware anyway.)

[Rainolf]

Yes, that's interesting! Bruckner's 9th seems to be a non intended predecessor of this Moderato-Scherzo-Slow-structure, some composers developed in the 20th century. E.g. Enescu's 3rd, Rubbra's 1st and 8th, Höller's 1st, and even Simpson's 9th.

[eschiss1]

Hrm. Finale of Rubbra 1 (a symphony I think very highly of, especially that movement) only partly fits the mold, I tend to think (that concluding fugal section being ... well, maybe that's asking too much similarity, and the slow movement of Bruckner 9 does get active though in its center rather than towards its conclusion. Höller as in York Höller? I've seen a recording of a cello concerto at the library, but not head tail nor antenna of a symphony as yet.)

[Rainolf]

It was Karl Höller's 1st I thought of. And you are right about Rubbra's Finale. The difference to Bruckner is, that Rubbra planed the Lento of his 1st as a last movement, Bruckner didn't that with his Adagio. The more I listen to Bruckner's 9th, I find the thesis of the "finished unfinished" symphony less convincing. For my ears this adagio is more or less a great prelude to the finale. Rubbra and Enescu make sure that their slow movements are the Finali of their works, when they gave them indications of finality, Enescu with the choir, Rubbra with the sublime crescendo-accelerando-fugue. And even Höller, whose 1st isn't realy a "Finalsymphonie" like Rubbra's or Enescu's, goes in that direction. His Adagio-coda is much longer than Bruckner's and the climax is in the center of the movement.

[Hovite]

Moving away from symphonies, there are two composers wrote tributes to Bruckner.

Gottfried von Einem's "Bruckner Dialog", Op. 39, uses material from the 4th movement of Symphony No. 9, and Georg Trexler wrote three organ works based on Bruckner's themes: "Introduktion und Passacaglia über ein Thema der VIII. Symphonie von Anton Bruckner", "Meditationen über Themen des ,,Te Deum" von Anton Bruckner", and "Toccata über ein Thema aus dem Gloria der Messe in e-Moll von Anton Bruckner".

I have not yet heard any of these.

[X. Trapnel]

The most Brucknerian music I know not by Bruckner (though not quite so monumental) is the scherzo from Luis de Freitas Branco's Second Symphony. There are some strikingly Brucknerian passages in Marcel Tyberg's recently resurrected Third Symphony and although his music sounds nothing like Bruckner I think Alberic Magnard's symphonies suggest a French analog to the Bruckner aesthetic in their austere (I'd never call Franck's music austere), exalted beauty and rustic quality in the scherzos.

[dafrieze]

I definitely agree with the idea of Magnard as being at least slightly influenced by Bruckner.  The first time I heard Magnard's Third Symphony (on the radio), I had tuned in sometime during the first movement and didn't know what I was listening to.  By the end, especially the last couple of minutes, I was convinced that it had been by a French disciple of Bruckner.  The Magnard Third is, I think, one of the very small handful of undiscovered masterpieces.

[X. Trapnel]

The Fourth is an even greater work, an amalgam (though utterly original) of French Bruckner and French Scriabin. He's not so much undiscovered as unacknowledged. Critical establishments, both journalistic and academic, are not in the business of revaluation, just reinterpretations (reiterations with a twist) of the master narrative of twentieth-century music.

[britishcomposer]

I hear more Mahler in Magnard than Bruckner...

[X. Trapnel]

I'm always willing to hear Mahler in anything as there can never be enough Mahler, but I miss the pictorial, programmatic/narrative, proto-expressionist elements of Mahler in Magnard. Like Bruckner (and Franck from whom he derives in large measure), I think of Magnard as having a unified, compact if you will, vision, nearly mystical though not religious. If I say that Mahler seems like an artist in search of an all-encompassing vision I don't mean it as any sort of denigration a la Copland ("Beethoven is a great composer. Mahler is like a great actor playing a great composer," or somesuch), it's an aspect both of his very real greatness and his universality.