No, not the Handel one. I'm talking about Anton Bruckner's Symphony #5, which ended my channel-surfing when I found it on PBS last night. I have no idea which orchestra was performing it, and I generally don't care to watch orchestras on TV because you get all the close-ups of the musicians, and anyone who's been part of an orchestra knows just how funny-looking you are when intensely concentrating and making the assortment of funny faces required to play a woodwind, brass, or reed...but this music caught me and held on tight. I'd never heard of this man before, not being too familiar with the Romantic era, but was immediately taken by the enormous creativity and surprising and innovative, yet perfectly coherent, turns of his symphony. The third-to-last movement, especially...never saw that ending coming, but man, was it brilliant.
A quick Google search reveals that Anton Bruckner, born in Austria, was a quiet, unassuming man who didn't self-promote or seek fame like most of his contemporaries. A devout Roman Catholic, he composed solely for the church until, at the age of 40, he met Wagner and was introduced to the (at the time) new concept of being able to break the established rules of composition while still creating big, powerful music, and at 60 he became famous for the first time on the strength of his 7th symphony.
I am indebted to PBS for this delightful discovery, and hope to score a couple of albums one of these days.
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