Anton Bruckner summary

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Anton Bruckner, (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).

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