Evolution...?

On my way to work today I was listening to a brand new recording of Anton Bruckner's 4th symphony. I was able to hear the first movement before having to shuffle my way into the branch. The first movement is filled with lovely Austrian undertones and ethnic melodies, with deep Romantic themes. After all, it was premiered in 1881 in Vienna and was Bruckner's first taste of success and placed him on the symphonist map. His first three symphonies apparently were flops and he took 7 years and three revisions before he allowed this one to be performed. If you ignored that this was an orchestral piece, you would think I was discussing a great film and its director. Its hard to imagine people back then actually keeping tabs on composers and looking forward to premieres of pieces. That kind of thing is unheard of in music these days. The closest to it that we have is with movies. The closest draw to the Bruckner story I can think would maybe be Peter Jackson. Peter Jackson spent much of his early directing years making pretty crappy horror movies. Then suddenly word gets out hes making an epic film based on "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. I mean I remember watching "making of" trailers my freshman year of college in 1998. The first of the series came out in 2001. People back then just got into it, symphonies were the movies of their day. According to legend, Stravinsky's debut of the ballet "Rite of Spring" caused violent outbursts by the audience, including keeping time on someones head. That had to hurt, with how rhythmic Stravinsky is. His primitivism was able to bring out the primal beast in man. Amazing. Similarly, some of you might remember when "New Jack City" came out. This movie caused fights and rioting to break out in urban areas that it was shown. I just find it interesting how over time, our main stimulus for emotion has changed from audio to visual. Music can still make us cry and laugh, but its not an immediate reaction like a photo, not to mention a lot more people are going to find humor in an Adam Sandler movie these days than a PDQ Bach audio CD. Sad, but our society has "evolved".

On a little side topic, have you ever popped in a CD you hadn't listened to in a long time, and just thought to yourself "Why do I not listen to this every day?" This happened to me the other day when I decided to put in "Sam's Town" by The Killers. I am definitely a fan of the Killers and I loved this album, the newer of the two. But it had been maybe 2 months since I listened to it, after listening to it every day, singing along to it loudly, and then I decided I should be sick of it and stopped. But I put it back in and I immediately was grabbed by their sound again. Just hooked, reeled me right back in. This CD has a little gem in it that is titled simply "Enterlude". The song is repeated and developed some for "Exitlude". The songs lyrics sound like a simple child's poem, but are incredibly optimistic and are placed with simple straight piano chords that can't help but to make you smile. I can't help but to get excited about the Killers almost every day. I like them, can't help it. A lot of people didn't like the Sam's Town album, but they are the ones that thought Hot Fuss was nothing but a pop album, and not one telling a story. Sam's Town continues in telling a new story.

Peace and good intonation to you all