Bücher von Constantin Floros

Anton Bruckner war zu Lebzeiten verkannt und umstritten. Heute gilt er als der bedeutendste Symphoniker nach Beethoven und vor Gustav Mahler, was die Originalität, Kühnheit und Monumentalität seiner Musik angeht. Das Bild des Menschen Anton Bruckner dagegen ist immer noch ein geradezu extremes Beispiel für die Macht der Vorurteile. Von keinem Geringeren als Gustav Mahler stammt das viel und gern zitierte Apercu: "Bruckner, ein einfältiger Mensch - halb Genie, halb Trottel". Der Bruckner-Experte Constantin Floros will das mit seinem Buch zurechtrücken. Seine These ist, das, anders als bisher behauptet, zwischen Persönlichkeit und Werk Bruckners eine enge Beziehung herrscht. Im mittelpunkt stehen daher existentielle Probleme: die Angst vor "Rivalen" wie Johannes Brahms und einer feindlichen Öffentlichkeit, das gestörte Verhältnis zu Frauen, Einsamkeit und "Sympathie mit dem Tod", die Vorstellung, durch sein Werk einem höheren Ziel zu dienen, von Musik als religiösem Bekenntnis. Wie Bruckner selbst zu seinem Werk stand, zeigt sein berührender Ausspruch: "Ich glaub, wenn's beim jüngsten Gericht schief ging, möcht ich dem Herrgott die Partitur vom Te Deum hinhalten und sagen: 'Schau, das hab ich ganz allein für dich gemacht', nachher würd ich schon durchrutschen".

The present autobiography sets out from the contrast between "establishment" and "outsiders" in science and scholarship.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky remains to this day one of the most-performed Russian composers. Based on recent studies and source editions, this book demonstrates the close interrelationship between Tchaikovsky's life and his work.

Following general reflections about the art of listening, the volume in hand presents exemplary work analyses. The roster of composers introduced extends from Mozart to Bernstein, that of the genres discussed from the piano piece to the opera. A register and a survey of the chief works referred to make this book a companion for scholars and laymen.

Manuscript sources contain significant hints that Gustav Mahler's symphonies are not "absolute music" but "erlebte Musik" according to his programmatic ideas. A knowledge of the programmatic ideas therefore provides insights which are crucial for an adequate interpretation of his works.

The book is designed as an introduction to the basic questions of musical semantics and represents the quintessence of fifty years of the author's researches into music from Beethoven to Nono.

Modern music notation developed out of the so-called square notation and this out of the Latin neumes. The question of where these neumes came from has long been the subject of scholarly debate. This study aroused a great deal of dispute, recent studies have revealed that relevance of Neumenkunde remains essentially unchallenged after 40 years.

For Alban Berg, personal experience was the indispensable condition of the creative process. His instrumental works are thus lived music, and most of his vocal compositions, too, are in a larger sense autobiographic: the Four Songs op. 2, the Altenberg Songs op. 4, Wozzeck and the concert aria Der Wein (Wine).

The subject of this book is the semantics of symphonic music from Beethoven to Mahler. Of fundamental importance is the realization that this music is imbued with non-musical, literary, philosophical and religious ideas.

Johannes Brahms was until now widely regarded as the archetype of the absolute musician. This title shows how close autobiographic and poetic elements are in fact linked to his oeuvre. It includes four chapters that investigate novel aspects by dealing in detail with the First Symphony, the German Requiem, Naenie and the Four Serious Songs.

Where Brahms and Bruckner really antipodes, as believed in the late 19th century or had their contemporaries overestimated the "dimension of their distance"? This book seeks an answer to this question. It is based on the principles of intermediality and on a method of semantic analysis, developed by the author and applied to numerous musical works.