Criticism
Otto Kitzler did not consider this symphony to be particularly inspired, leading Georg Tintner to "wonder whether he had a good look at the Scherzo." Tintner considers the Finale of the work to be the weakest of the four movements.
Bruckner himself labelled it "Schularbeit" (schoolwork). Biographer Derek Watson says that compared to the Overture in G minor, the F minor Symphony "is certainly thematically uninspired and less characterful," but that it does have "some moments of warm melodiousness and consistently fine if unoriginal scoring." Also, the score is quite lacking in dynamics and phrasing marks compared to Bruckner's later works.
On the other hand, taken on its own, it is a beautiful symphony, reminiscent of Schumann, Schubert, Weber and Mendelssohn, but also including some daring, highly inspired passages. According to Nowak, "much about the work betrays the style of the times, but Bruckner’s own mode of expression can already be recognized in a number of other traits."
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Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)
“I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“The visual is sorely undervalued in modern scholarship. Art history has attained only a fraction of the conceptual sophistication of literary criticism.... Drunk with self-love, criticism has hugely overestimated the centrality of language to western culture. It has failed to see the electrifying sign language of images.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)