Anton Bruckner
Although Anton Bruckner wrote a great deal of sacred choral music (including not only his grandly conceived Mass No. 3, but also his more intimate Mass No. 2 and his astringent motets, which fuse Renaissance and 19th century techniques), he is best known for his symphonies: two unnumbered apprentice works, eight completed mature symphonies, and the first three movements of a Ninth. (The finale has been reconstructed by several hands, but most performances include just the movements Bruckner completed.) The symphonies, influenced to some extent by Wagner and identified with his school by the Viennese public, are monumental: expansive in scale, rigorous (if sometimes gigantist) in formal design, and often elaborate in their contrapuntal writing. Their sonorities are stately and organ-like; the Viennese critic Graf wrote that Bruckner "pondered over chords and chord associations as a medieval architect contemplated the original forms of a Gothic cathedral." Despite occasional folk influences in the scherzos, his symphonies are uniformly high-minded, even religious, in spirit. Together, they form the weightiest body of symphonies between Schubert (whom he greatly admired) and Mahler.
Bruckner was born in the town of Ansfelden, Austria, on September 4, 1824, the son of a schoolmaster/church musician and the eldest of 11 children. His first music teacher was his father, and at ten, he was deputized for his father as organist at church and made his first attempts at composition. At 13, the year of his father's death, he was accepted as a choirboy at St. Florian, which, however far afield he would travel, was to become his lifelong spiritual home. He spent the first years of his career as a choirmaster for a group of monks and teaching in various parishes, one of which was close to Enns, where he studied with Leopold von Zenetti beginning in 1843. In 1845 he returned to St. Florian as organist and teacher and remained there for the next decade. He next began studying composition and counterpoint with Simon Sechter, primarily by mail.
Until this point, Bruckner's output consisted mostly of sacred choral music and organ pieces, but now he would start to expand his horizons. He passed exams at the Vienna Conservatory in 1861, and then, the 37-year-old student approached cellist/conductor Otto Kitzler for lessons in form and orchestration. Around the same time, he created his first large works, including a Symphony in D minor that he later derisively named "die Nullte," the Symphony No. 0. Kitzler had introduced Bruckner to Wagner's Tannhäuser in 1863, and Bruckner was present at the premiere of Tristan und Isolde in 1865. He remained a near-fanatical admirer of Wagner, but the extent to which his own vast musical structures were modeled on Wagner's is a matter of debate. His symphonies sometimes show a spirituality similar to his sacred choral works, which he also continued to write.
Bruckner landed a teaching post at the Vienna Conservatory in 1868, but always retained something of his original rustic character. An often-repeated anecdote tells how he gave a tip to the aristocratic conductor Hans Richter after a successful rehearsal of his Symphony No. 4, telling Richter to go and buy himself a beer. Musical life in cosmopolitan Vienna at the time was split between two schools, the Wagnerians and the Brahmsians. The resulting criticism of his music from the Brahms faction, plus his own lifelong self-doubt are generally seen as the main reasons for his multiple revisions of many of his major works. Bruckner also gave organ performances throughout Europe in this period, impressing audiences with his improvisations that often produced ideas he would use in the symphonies. The Symphony No. 7 (1881-1883) was successfully premiered in Leipzig and New York before being revised and performed in Vienna in 1886. The Eighth brought a standing ovation when premiered in Vienna under Richter in 1892, with even Brahms heartily joining the applause. It was dedicated to Emperor Franz Joseph I, who had decorated Bruckner with the Order of Franz Joseph in 1886 and supported the composer in his final year. The last years of his life were spent in ill-health and working on the Ninth Symphony, but it would never be completed. Bruckner died in Vienna on October 11, 1896, and was buried in the crypt at St. Florian, below the "Bruckner Organ."
© TiVo Staff /TiVo
Similar artists
-
Brahms & Bruckner: Motets
Klassiek - Released by Signum Records on 30 okt. 2015
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Anton Bruckner : Symphony No. 8
Klassiek - Released by Challenge Classics on 8 jun. 2012
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in E-Flat Major, WAB 104 "Romantic" (1878/80 Nowak 2nd Edition) [Live]
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Klassiek - Released by PM Classics Ltd. on 23 feb. 2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
-
Bruckner: Symphony No. 6
Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Jaap van Zweden
Klassiek - Released by Challenge Classics on 17 mei 2013
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bruckner: Masses Nos. 2 and 3 & Te Deum
Heinz Rögner, Berlin Radio Chorus, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra
Religieuze vocale muziek - Released by Berlin Classics on 10 mrt. 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 in B-Flat Major
London Symphony Orchestra, Lance Friedel
Symfonische muziek - Released by MSR Classics on 5 okt. 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schuricht Conducts Bruckner: Symphony Nos. 7 & 9
Symfonische muziek - Released by Urania on 28 feb. 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Synphony No. 4 in E-Flat Major
Symfonische muziek - Released by Lodia Music International on 31 aug. 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
-
Bruckner No. 6 (for ensemble)
Camerata RCO, Rolf Verbeek, Marc Daniel van Biemen
Kamermuziek - Released by Gutman Records on 21 apr. 2023
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bruckner (Red Classics)
Klassiek - Released by Cobra Entertainment LLC on 11 aug. 2017
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E Major (Digitally Remastered)
Moscow RTV Large Symphony Orchestra, Yonas Alexa
Klassiek - Released by EMG Classical on 7 mei 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bruckner: Symphony No. 9, Live at the Salzburg Festival
Symfonische muziek - Released by Signum Records on 1 jan. 1989
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bruckner 7 (For Ensemble)
Symfonische muziek - Released by Gutman Records on 29 okt. 2021
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Party mit mir selbst
Indiepop - Released by Worst Case Band Records on 15 dec. 2023
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bruckner: Symphonie No.4, "Romantique"
Philharmonia Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi
Klassiek - Released by Signum Records on 7 mei 2012
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Infinite Bruckner
Klassiek - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 11 jul. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bruckner: The Great Symphonies Nos. 4, 5, 7, 8 & 9
Symfonische muziek - Released by Urania on 7 mei 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Autumnal Bruckner
Klassiek - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 10 okt. 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
66 Must-Have Symphony Highlights (Various Artists)
Klassiek - Released by Cobra Entertainment LLC on 12 feb. 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo