However I certainly have reservations about both of them. I certainly don't view myself as a person of taste and refinement - picking up Ralph Moore's phrase (I love the Carry on films ! ) and I don't know many either - but I do find that Mahler's frequent lapses into vulgarity sit ill within the framework of a symphony lasting an hour and a half. I'm also conscious that Mahler was a person who was a person beset with various "Hang-ups" and that they seem to be reflected in his music. As someone who managed to get rid of most of his own personal hang-ups by the time I was out of my teens I don't particularly want to share those of others in the concert hall.
Bruckner - another person beset with neuroses - is , however, less problematic in this respect. I have come to prefer his music to Mahler's over the years (my partner has the seventh symphony on the hi-fi as I write ! ) but I have reservations there too. I'm afraid I lose patience with most of the finales which seem to me stop/go affairs leading to the final conclusion made up of material not particularly engaging in itself. Perhaps some people see a sense of struggle and achievement in these procedures but I prefer the unfinished 9th which lacks a finale.
If I had to offer advice on how to approach this music now that we can flick a switch or tap in a web address and have this music available , I would suggest listening to single movements at a time rather than going the whole hog. Everybody has different tastes but I would suggest for Bruckner the scherzo from the 7th. symphony (sounding in my ears as I write) and for Mahler one of the movements of the first; ( the lovely adagietto from the 5th is so well-known due to Death in Venice that I have avoided recommending this).
If you really can't summon up much enthusiasm for this music ( I rarely listen to "important" composers like Monteverdi or Webern) just spend your time listening to composers who do "Float your boat."
Life is short and we have to spend enough of our time engaged on things like earning a living without using our leisure-time trying to appreciate things that are not really congenial to us.
I hope , though, that you are able to discover some of the beauty that is undoubtedly present in the music of these two composers.
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