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(b. Ansfelden, September 4, 1824; d. Vienna, October 11, 1896)
 

Austrian composer. As the first Romantic composer to take up what Deryck Cooke called the “metaphysical challenge” of Beethoven’s Ninth, Bruckner renewed the symphony as an expression of transcendent emotion and a confession of personal faith. He received early instruction on the violin and organ from his father, a village schoolmaster and church organist; after his father’s death in 1837 he entered the school at the Augustinian monastery of St. Florian as a chorister, studying organ, piano violin, and theory. In 1845 he returned to St. Florian as an assistant teacher; he remained there for the next ten years, playing the organ and piano, studying the music of Bach, and composing a Requiem and a Missa solemnis, his first significant works.
 

Feeling that he needed further instruction in theory, he went to Vienna in 1855 to study with Simon Sechter (1788-1867); later that year he auditioned for, and easily won, the job of cathedral organist in Linz, where he remained for 13 years. He continued his study with Sechter by correspondence until 1861, at which point he took an examination at the Vienna Conservatory so that he would be qualified to teach harmony and counterpoint. After hearing him improvise at the organ, Johann Herbeck (1831-77), one of the examiners, exclaimed: “He should have examined us!” In 1862, he sought instruction in orchestration and symphonic form from Otto Kitzler (1834-1915), conductor at the municipal theater in Linz. As part of his work with Kitzler he studied the music of Richard Wagner for the first time; inspired by its revolutionary and sublime effects, he set off in pursuit of symphonic grandeur. He quickly found his own voice, already apparent in his Symphony No. 1 in C minor (1865-66) and the Masses in E minor (1866) andF minor (1867-68).

In 1868, at the age of 44, Bruckner went to Vienna to succeed Sechter as professor of theory at the conservatory; he would reside in the Austrian capital for the rest of his life. Despite notable triumphs, including the premieres of his Symphonies Nos. 4 and 7 (in 1881 and 1884 respectively), Bruckner’s doubts about his abilities fed his habit of revising his work: Hermann Levi’s unfavorable opinion of his monumental Symphony No. 8, which he completed in 1887, caused him to spend three years revising. He then set about revising several of his earlier works, including Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, and 3. He began work on his Symphony No. 9 in 1891, completing the first three movements by 1894 but leaving the finale unfinished at the time of his death.
 

Bruckner was a devout Catholic whose innermost thoughts and feelings centered on his religious beliefs—faith in God and in the mysteries of the Church permeated his life and his work as a musician. He was also one of music’s greatest late bloomers: All of his mature works date from after his 40th year. On the outside, he appeared to be a humble musician from the provinces whose awkwardness and self-doubt led many to dismiss him as a country bumpkin. On the inside, he was a powerful, visionary musical thinker whose symphonies were among the supreme accomplishments of the late 19th century. The expansive formal structures he erected, especially in Symphonies Nos. 5, 7, 8, and 9, together with the innovative rhythmic, motivic, and harmonic procedures he devised to achieve narrative continuity across vast spans of time, contributed powerfully to the advancement of symphonic language and opened the door to some of the greatest works of the 20th century, not least the symphonies of Mahler and Sibelius. With his Symphony No. 7, Bruckner succeeded in combining visionary expression with a broad yet cogent development of his material. The radiant opening subject of its first movement is one of the most beautiful ideas he would ever conceive. The mystical tranquillity and paroxysmal ecstasy he expressed in the slow movement of this symphony, and with even greater fervor in the slow movement of No.8, remain unique in the symphonic canon, as does the desolate, mysterious beauty of the Ninth.