Better Know a Composer - Bruckner

Anton Bruckner (Sept. 4, 1824 - Oct. 11, 1896)

      Bruckner was an Austrian composer born in Ansfelden with two generations of teachers on his father's side. Bruckner's father taught music and was Anton Bruckner's first music teacher. He started on the organ as a young child, then entered school when he was six. Three years later Bruckner proved to be a hard working student and his father sent him to Hörsching to study with Johann Baptist Weiß, who was a music enthusiast and a well respect organist. While here Bruckner wrote his first composition Vier Präludien in Es-Dur für Orgel for organ. However this piece is not met with much praise since Bruckner was gifted, but not considered a genius.

    A major point is Bruckner's life is when he was sent as a teacher's assistant in Windhaag, when he was around 16. Here the living situations were horrible, and he was constantly humiliated by his teacher, Franz Fuchs. Surprisingly, Bruckner never complained or rebelled to these insults. This is believed to be where Bruckner's insecurity began. Throughout the rest of his life Bruckner would feel inferior to other "professional" composers.

    Bruckner is best known for his masses, symphonies, and motets. He was a devote Catholic and heavily influenced by his faith. In his symphonies, he almost always uses the four movement layout where the first movement is in an sonata allegro form. The second is a slow movement and the third is a scherzo, except when these two movements are flipped in his eighth symphony and one version of his second. The fourth movement is then another modified sonata allegro.

    When looking at Bruckner's works, they have some odd characteristics to them. The controversy over the revisions is one very important part to consider when looking at his music. Bruckner would constantly edit his works due to harsh, and varied, criticism from his colleagues. This lead to many versions of his works to exist today, and different conductors will tend to favor different revisions. Another interesting note is that while many composers write works that reflect themselves, Bruckner was not one of them. The attitude that is set in his works is completely different from what he was like in real life.

    Overall Bruckner wrote 10 symphonies, starting at Zero and going to his Ninth (which he was not able to complete before dieing of natural causes). He used a common orchestration for his time. Throughout his life he slightly increased the size of the orchestra, while also adding Wagner tubas to his final three symphonies. The symphony No.0 was released in 1869 and was intended to be his second symphony, but when it met such harsh criticism Bruckner retracted it and it was never performed again in his lifetime. Throughout his first seven symphonies Wagner acted as a huge contribution. Bruckner even wrote Adagio in the seventh for Wagner's death and this is the first time Wagner tubas were included in the orchestration. Mahler was another well-known composer who was involved with Brucker. Mahler greatly admired him and even described him as "half simpleton, half God."

    The video below is an excerpt from Bruckner's Fifth Symphony, performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker, under the baton of Bernard Haitink. Brucker's Symphony No.5 crowns his most productive era in composition, after completing the first version in only two years. Until 2008 we only knew of his 1878 revision, but then the original sketches from 1876 were found. Surprisingly, Bruckner never witnessed this piece performed by an orchestra.