Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Anton Bruckner, the Bruckner Problem, Hans-Hubert Schönzeler, International Bruckner Society, Bruckner Rhythm, Bruckner Orchestra Linz, Anton Bruckner Private University for Music, Drama, and Dance, Brucknerhaus. Excerpt: Anton Bruckner (4 September 1824 11 October 1896) was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The former are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length. Bruckner's compositions helped to define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving harmonies. Unlike other radicals, such as Wagner or Hugo Wolf who fit the enfant terrible mould, Bruckner showed 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, had detractors, most notably the influential Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick, and other supporters of Brahms, who pointed 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 preferred. Biography Anton Bruckner was born in Ansfelden on September 4, 1824. His father, a schoolmaster and organist, was his first music teacher. He died when Anton was 13 years old. Bruckner worked for a few years as a teacher's assistant, fiddling at village dances at night to supplement his income. He studied at the Augustinian monastery in St. Florian, becoming an organist there in 1851, where most of the repertoire consisted of
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