One of my friends asked me yesterday, rather bluntly but with no malice. "Why did it take so long for you to post your favourite Bruckner recordings? It's not difficult to just give me a list?" I was a little taken aback. My frank answer is, "I'm too fastidious."
Yes, I'm a fastidious person, particularly in classical music. Maybe that's why I like Bruckner's music so much, as I suppose he was also fastidious. When I decided to compile a list of my favourite Bruckner recordings, I prepared seven flash cards, each dedicated to one symphony, from No. 3 to No. 9. I just jotted down my choices off hand. Then I went to my CD shelf and briefly browsed through my collection to see if I'd left out some which did not come to mind in the first place. I understand that some will say those which do not come to mind in the first place should be no good. There must be some truth in this statement, but I reckon that I don't have an elephantine memory and I have quite a lot of Bruckner CDs, so this sort of reminder is necessary for me, especially when I'm preparing a list of many and not a single favourite for each symphony.
Then I had to take out all the CDs in my draft list and listened to all of them once again to see if the impressions in my memory are still valid. With so many new additions in the past ten years, some old warhorses are bound to come up to great competition. So it takes time. Too short a list may just be too biased and oversimplify things unnecessarily. Too long a list will render it useless. However there is no magic number. My initial decision is around 6 for each symphony and if possible list at least one for each version in one symphony (but the total number for each symphony is still around 6). After that I had to scan the covers or take pictures of the CDs.
A big question is: what are my criteria for my favourites? It goes without saying that personal tastes are very subjective, and can be quite different from objective judgement. Some would say why not prepare two lists, one subjective and one objective. I don't agree because I believe that separating objective and subjective choices is too artificial. We live in a world when we base our actions or decisions on both objective and subjective factors; we just cannot segregate them meaningfully. Either way it is biased. When music appreciation is a personal experience, there is no true objectivity in the strictest sense. It also applies to other forms of art. It makes me task no less easier as I have to find the right balance between objective judgement and subjective personal taste, as they are intertwined.
I hope I can make good use of the weekend to post my favourites for Symphony No. 3 shortly.
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