Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)
- Missa Solemnis B-Moll (1854) [wab29]
Performers: Cilla Grossmeyer (soprano); Mira Zakai (1942-2019, alto);
Wilfried Jochens (tenor); Assen Vassilev (bass); Monteverdi Choir Hamburg;
Israel Chamber Orchestra; Jürgen Jürgens (1925-1994, conductor)
Further info: Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) - Te Deum (1881)
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Austrian composer. He was the son of a village schoolmaster and organist
in Upper Austria. He showed talent on the violin and spinet by the age
of four, and by age 10 he was deputizing at the church organ. In 1835-36
he studied in Hörsching with his godfather, J.B. Weiss, a minor
composer. After his father’s death in 1837, Bruckner entered the
monastery-school of St. Florian as a choir boy. He trained in Linz as an
assistant schoolteacher in 1840-41, and after holding appointments in
Windhaag and Kronstorf, he returned to St. Florian as a fully qualified
elementary teacher in 1845. Bruckner taught at St. Florian for about a
decade, and in 1848 he became the principal organist of its abbey
church. In the meantime his compositional skills steadily advanced, and
the St. Florian period saw a fine Requiem in d (1849) and the Missa
solemnis (1854), for Mayer's inaugural mass as prior, celebrated on 14
September 1854. The church music repertory, compared with the amateur
establishments of his early childhood, was vast and featured Austrian
classical and pre-classical composers including Michael Haydn, the St
Florian composer Franz Seraph Aumann (1728-1797, whose music Bruckner
admired), Albrechtsberger, Joseph Haydn and Mozart. In 1856 he was
reluctantly persuaded by his friends to apply for the post of cathedral
organist at Linz, which he won easily. In 1861 Bruckner concluded his
arduous studies with Sechter with magnificent testimonials, and he also
astonished his judges at an organ examination in Vienna. His style in
works such as the seven-part Ave Maria (1861) displays new freedom,
depth, and assurance. He now embarked on a study of form and
orchestration with Otto Kitzler, and during this time he discovered the
music of Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz, and above all Richard Wagner.
After two earlier essays in the orchestral form, Bruckner completed his
Symphony No.1 in c in 1866. That same year he finished the Mass in e,
which, along with the Mass in f (1868), completed his triptych of great
festive masses. They rank among the highest achievements of Roman
Catholic church music. Late in 1866 Bruckner suffered a severe nervous
collapse, from which he recovered after three months in a sanatorium,
though intense depressions would later trouble him. In 1868 he succeeded
his late teacher Sechter in a professorship at the Vienna Conservatory.
There he taught harmony and counterpoint and endeared himself to pupils
for his memorable and engaging academic style. The story of the last 25
years of Bruckner’s life is essentially that of his symphonies: the
creation of new concepts of form, time-span, and unity, and his struggle
to achieve success in the face of fierce critical opposition. Bruckner
was a fervent admirer of Wagner, and he was erroneously branded as a
disciple of that composer; his career suffered from his unwitting
involvement in the fierce battle then raging between the adherents of
Wagner and Brahms. Bruckner received a long-sought appointment as a
lecturer at the University of Vienna in 1875 over the opposition of
Hanslick, who was dean of the university’s music faculty. In 1878 he was
elected a member of the Hofkapelle, where he had been an unpaid
organist for years. By the early 1890s Bruckner had become a famous and
honoured figure, and he was awarded an honorary doctorate of philosophy
from the University of Vienna in 1891. His last choral-orchestral works
were Psalm 150 (1892) and Helgoland (1893). Three movements of his
Symphony No.9 in d were ready by 1894, but he was unable to complete the
finale before his death. He was buried at St. Florian.
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