Remember "Rebecca", the Hitchcock movie based on the Du Maurier story, where a world-weary Lawrence Olivier asks innocent and naive Joan Fontaine (what a name) at some spot along the Cote d'Azur: 'So what did your father paint?' - after she'd told him that's what her father had been (doing). 'He painted trees'. 'Trees?' 'Well, yes, one particular tree. He made paintings of the same tree. All his life.' She does explain this to Olivier, a la seeking perfection, an ephemeral pursuit, hopeless, of course.
This scene is not an important one in the Rebecca plot, but I'm reminded of it when I listen to Anton Bruckner's symphonies; repeated (magnificient) attempts at conjuring the same atmosphere, composing the same tree, so to speak. A recent biography tells me that's not the case, but judge for yourself. Listen to Bruckner's 3rd, 6th and 7th, and let me know how you see it, hear it, rather. In any case, Bruckner offers a delightful melange of the bombastic and fine, the brassy and violinistic, the lightly dancing and portentous, I ask you to give him some 'time of day', some time.
Not quite sure how I believe this image from Urbino relates - religion, maybe? For Bruckner, yup, could be a match.
