Anton Bruckner
Austrian composer
1824 CE to 1896 CE
Anton Bruckner (4 September 1824 – 11 October 1896) is an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets.
The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, strongly polyphonic character, and considerable length.
Bruckner's compositions help to define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving harmonies.
Unlike other musical radicals, such as Richard Wagner or Hugo Wolf who fits the enfant terrible mold, Bruckner shows extreme humility before other musicians, Wagner in particular.
This apparent dichotomy between Bruckner the man and Bruckner the composer hampers efforts to describe his life in a way that gives a straightforward context for his music.
His works, the symphonies in particular, have detractors, most notably the influential Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick, and other supporters of Johannes Brahms (and detractors of Wagner), who point to their large size, use of repetition, and Bruckner's propensity to revise many of his works, often with the assistance of colleagues, and his apparent indecision about which versions he prefers.
On the other hand, Bruckner is greatly admired by subsequent composers, including his friend Gustav Mahler, who describes him as "half simpleton, half God".
(Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy, by Theodor W. Adorno, University of Chicago Press, 1996, page 66)
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Late Romantic music is characterized by the operatic grandeur of Richard Wagner and ...
...Anton Bruckner.
Music by Romantic composers Johannes Brahms, Modesto Mussorgsky and Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky has a similarly dramatic impact.
Brahms, in his dramatic compositions, continues Beethoven’s symphonic tradition, as do Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler.
Anton Bruckner had begun composition of his Symphony No. 8 in C minor in 1884.
In 1887, Bruckner sends the work to Hermann Levi, the conductor who had led his Seventh to great success.
Levi, who had said Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony was the greatest symphony written after Beethoven, believes that the Eighth is a confusing jumble.
Bruckner's Symphony No. 5 in B flat major crowns his most productive era of symphony-writing, finished at the beginning of 1876.
Many consider this symphony to be Bruckner's lifetime masterpiece in the area of counterpoint.
For example, the Finale is a combined fugue and sonata form movement: the first theme (characterized by the downward leap of an octave) appears in the exposition as a four-part fugue in the strings and the concluding theme of the exposition is presented first as a chorale in the brass, then as a four-part fugue in the development, and culminating in a double fugue with the first theme at the recapitulation; additionally, the coda combines not only these two themes but also the main theme of the first movement.
Bruckner has never heard it played by an orchestra.
Symphony No. 6 in A major, written in 1879–1881, is an oft-neglected work; whereas the Bruckner rhythm (two quarters plus a quarter triplet or vice versa) is an important part of his previous symphonies, it pervades this work, particularly in the first movement, making it particularly difficult to perform.
Symphony No. 7 in E major is the most beloved of Bruckner's symphonies with audiences of the time, and remains popular today.
It was written 1881–1883 and revised in 1885.
During the time that Bruckner began work on this symphony, he was aware that Wagner's death was imminent, and so the Adagio is slow, mournful music for Wagner (the climax of the movement comes at rehearsal letter W), and for the first time in Bruckner's oeuvre, Wagner tubas are included in the orchestra.