Abstracts - American Musicological Society

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ThursdaY afternoon
concerns in his compositional decisions, and 3) his
increasing sensitivity to text expression.
THE KECKE BESERL AND BRUCKNER'S SYMPHONIC SYNTHESIS
Stephen Parkany, Amherst College
In the early 1850s, while still in provincial
Linz, Bruckner fe11 in with a tiny coterie of rnusicians
there who embraced the avant-garde scores of Tristan
und Isolde and the Faust Syrnphony. (His previous,
better-known studies !{ith Simon Sechter and Otto
Kitzler had been remarkable more for sr{reat than for
distinctive inspiration. ) These new enthusiasms led
directly to the extraordinary formal innovations of his
Habilitationsschrift, rhe Synphony No. 1 of 'J-865-66 .
Relishing its boldness, Bruckner nicknamed the symphony
das kecke Beserl , or loosely, " the fresh kid. "
I evaluate the progressive emphasis upon the
dynarnic concept of ',intensification" (Steigerung) in
the influential text Kitzler assigned Bruckner, E. F.
Richter's Grundziige der rnusikalischen Form (1g52), and
apply the concepc to the neglected Symphony No. 1, in
which Bruckner first synthesized such progressive
formal techniques with traditional schemata. If we can
credit his later claim that this r,rork r{ras still his
rrmost difficult and best," this must be due to irs
Tristan- 1ike mastery of extensive linear bass
prolongations and of motivic developing variation,
growing (as in Tristan and the Faust Synphony) from a
single dissonant kernel. The complex yet cogently
expressive formal process that results renders the
kecke Beserl a landmark in what otherwise were the
symphonic doldrums of the l86Os.
RESPONDENT: Paul Hawksharrr, yale University
TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF BRUCKNER'S REVISIONS
Mariana Sonntag, University of Chicago
Notwithstanding all the attention accorded the
revisions of Bruckner's symphonies, we are no closer to
a musical understanding of how they were made or why
(except in instances vhere he alleviated unwieldy or
especially long mowements) How did Bruckner
"o^L
to
make these specific alterations and why these specific
passages? The revisions do not reveal rnuch
Bruckner,s approach to the synphony b.;;"";*;;^,:o:"' ";:,
post-compositional- -nade after Bruckner h",t
".^'l .:.
intents and purposes , finlshed the oi""-*",^--ror _al1
after it had already been -
p.rform.i -'' drrQ
L
otten
Fassungen thus leave us u,{rL
rrre various
producrs- -essentiatly, "before" ";;il"t."tt,o or"lillif"o