Anton Bruckner Composer

Biography

Born in September 1824 in Upper Austria to a schoolteacher and musician father, Anton Bruckner came from a modest rural background. He discovered music through his parents, learned the violin and organ, and received his first musical instruction from his cousin, Johann Baptist Weiss, a schoolmaster and organist in Hörsching. After his father’s death in 1837, he was taken in as a choirboy by Michael Arneth, who oversaw the musical life of the Augustinian monastery of Saint Florian.

Three years later, Bruckner chose to become a teacher and entered the teacher training college in Linz; for nearly fifteen years, he taught while also composing. In 1855, he gradually left teaching behind and was appointed titular organist at Linz Cathedral. He then regularly traveled to Vienna to take private lessons with Simon Sechter. In 1861, Bruckner earned the title of Master of Music, but decided to study further with Otto Kitzler, the director of the Linz theater, to familiarize himself with orchestration. He led an austere life and suffered from loneliness.

In 1868, he was appointed professor of organ, harmony, and counterpoint at the Vienna Conservatory, succeeding Simon Sechter, and became organist at the imperial chapel. While continuing to compose sacred music, he increasingly devoted himself to the symphony. Despite opposition from the Brahmsian circle, he was entrusted with a chair in music theory at the University of Vienna in 1875. Misunderstood and plagued by self-doubt, he long suffered from a lack of recognition and criticism from certain musicians and critics.

It was not until 1881, with his Symphony No. 4, that he achieved his first Viennese triumph, with international acclaim coming in 1884 with his Symphony No. 7. Bruckner’s final years were marked by illness and a sense of isolation, despite official honors. He died in Vienna on October 11, 1896, after a slow decline, and was buried in Saint Florian, beneath the organ with which his name is forever associated.

Immerse in the Paris Opera universe

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