Bruckner, Anton (än`tōn br

k`nər), 1824–96, Austrian composer. He was appointed organist at the Linz cathedral in 1856 before becoming court organist in Vienna in 1868, where he later taught at the conservatory and university. He established a reputation as a virtuoso organist on trips to France in 1869 and to England in 1871, but as a composer he gained recognition slowly. Although he was influenced by the chromatic harmony and orchestral grandeur of Wagner's music, his work is marked by contrapuntal complexity and extended melodies, in the formal tradition of Beethoven and Schubert. His outstanding works are the Masses in D Minor (1864), in E Minor (1869), and F Minor (1872); a Te Deum (1886); and nine symphonies, of which the Fourth or Romantic (1881), the Eighth, or Apocalyptic (composed 1884–87), and the Ninth (composed 1891–96) are best known. He also wrote motets, cantatas, chamber music, piano and organ pieces, and pieces for male chorus.

Bibliography

See studies by H. F. Redlich (1955), E. Doernberg (1960, repr. 1968), and R. Simpson (Am. ed. 1968).

Bruckner, (Josef) Anton

(born Sept. 4, 1824, Ansfelden, Austria—died Oct. 11, 1896, Vienna) Austrian composer. Son of a rural schoolmaster who died in Anton's youth, he was taken into a monastery as a choirboy and there learned to play the organ. Greatly gifted, he became organist at Linz Cathedral in 1855; throughout his composing career, his orchestrations would be compared to organ sonorities. In 1865 he heard Tristan und Isolde in Munich and thereafter idolized Richard Wagner, though his own works remained indebted to Ludwig van Beethoven. In 1868 he was appointed professor at the Vienna Conservatory and settled in Vienna for the rest of his life. He was 60 before he achieved fame with his Symphony No. 7 in E Major (1884). He was socially awkward and eccentric, and he remained a deeply devout Christian to his death. His reputation rests on his nine mature symphonies (1866–96), his three masses, and his Te Deum (1884).