Evening star., 1944-12-14
This and That
By Charles Z. Trace,DeU.

Even enthusiastic record collectors
with many albums of symphonies by the
masters often fail to have any works
by Bruckner or Mailer.
Their very names may be unknown
to them, but in not having any of
the recordings of their works collectors
are missing something
In the first place they wrote real
music and in the second they were
most interesting men. Both men snd
music are in the grand line of the
great symphony composers.
Bruckner was an Austrian peasant
musician who never seemed to have
outgrown his rustic manners, but re-
malned simple child of nature ell his
life
His music has certain religious feel
ing to 1t, which is not to be wondered
at since the man was a church organist
and a master at that instrument.
Mailer, had he lived today, would
nave met extinction at the hands of
Hitler and his satellites. His symphonies
were an aside, as it were, to his living
earned as opera director. Now they are
Mailer.
Refugee musicians in recent years
have worked hard to make the music
Of both these men familiar to America,
AS the result Of their work Mailer
alone Is better known. His symphonies,
the classic nine, have been given on the
air and recordings have been made.
There are, we believe, three Of Mahler's
symphonies to be had in albums and
another work which is really a SYM
phony, "The Song of the Earth"
Bruckner has not Jared so we'll On
the air. 1t is seldom that one of his
symphonies is heard. There are four of
his symphonies on records. OF these the
fourth is perhaps the most Immediately
available to the average listener ac-
quainted with such music.
Anton Bruckner, the rustic genius, is
to us the best of the two.
He was man with whom many will
have an immediate sympathy.
He seems to have been born and
bred rustic, with no ability ever to ac-
quire the veneer of good manners which
so often merely helps to cover up a sour
nature.
He also was born musician.
Today his music sounds a bit old
fashioned, with Its long rests, to the
point, sometimes of the discomfort of
the listener. All composers, however,
have tricks which will strike some lis
tener as not good. We seldom near of
these in popular discussions of music,
but all musicians and many laymen
know about them.
1t has become not the thing to do
to criticize great musicians. It is true
that in their music they are great, but
that does not mean that they were
necessarily great men in other ways or
that their products are free from GER
tain flaws.
Gustav Mahler's symphonies are hurt,
to many ears, by the introduction of
the human voice in many of them. Pure
music, as such, should not have the
human voice in it, they think.
y X
The beginner with these two great
musicians will do well, perhaps, to stick
to the Fourth Symphony" of Bruckner
and the First Symphony" of Mahler.
These are melodious, interesting
works, in which neither composer works
his own line to the fine point where
it becomes too Mahlerish, too Bruckner-
ish.
The openings of both these works are
things of dream fire, cool and warm at
the same time, sparkling the imagina-
ton, prodding the sympathies, Turing
the soul to come out of cover, In these
dark days, and see the sun of human
love shining over the housetops of the
world. If anything can do this, at
least of human make, 1t Is music, and
no works are better fitted, one may be-
neve, for this supreme task than the
No. ] Of Mahler and the No. OF Bruck-
ner.