Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner (4 September 1824 – 11 October 1896) was an Austrian composer known primarily for his symphonies, masses, and motets. His symphonies are often considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length. They have gained detractors (especially in English-speaking countries) owing to their large size, repetition, and the fact that Bruckner, sometimes with the assistance of his colleagues, produced several versions of many of his works, of which the composer often seemed indecisive which he preferred.

Bruckner's biography is unusual for a composer, and commentators have struggled to settle on a straightforward account of his life and music. Many anecdotes portray Bruckner as a country bumpkin, with conservative manners and mores that were strikingly out of step with those of cosmopolitan Vienna. On the other hand, Bruckner's music helped to define musical radicalism at the time, owing to its dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving harmonies. Unlike other radicals, such as Wagner or Hugo Wolf who fit the enfant terrible mold, Bruckner showed extreme humility before other musicians, Wagner in particular. Many musicians and writers have struggled to accommodate these different facets of Bruckner, often with different pictures emerging according to their different levels of sympathy to Bruckner's music. It is only relatively recently that Bruckner has become fully respected in his own right, neither the musical "drunkard" portrayed by the conservative Hanslick nor as the "half-baked" genius that many of his allies believed him to be.