Locus Iste

Anton Joseph Bruckner

 

Locus iste a Deo factus est. 

Inestimabile sacramentum irreprehensibilis est. 

 

This place was made by God. 

A priceless mystery, it is beyond reproach.  

 

 

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Josef Anton Bruckner (4 September 1824 – 11 October 1896)
Was an Austrian composer, organist, and music theorist best known for his symphonies, masses, Te Deum and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, strongly polyphonic character, and considerable length. Bruckner's compositions helped to define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving harmonies.
- Bruckner suffered from numeromania, a condition that saw him count the leaves on trees and the windows in buildings. Ken Russell made a film about it for the South Bank Show, entitled ‘The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner’.
- He wrote eleven symphonies, ten of which he completed. Confusingly, No. 8 is the last one he finished, as he relegated two works to No. 0 and No. 00. No. 9 is incomplete, but among his greatest works.
- Knowing which edition to perform is a constant headache for conductors, as Bruckner revised every one of his symphonies up until his death.
- Bruckner was a fine organist and one of the greatest improvisers. Sadly or organists, he wrote nothing of note for the instrument.
- Bruckner only started composing seriously from the age of 37, a couple of years older then Mozart was when he died.
- At his request, Bruckner was buried under the organ at St Florian, where he served from the age of 24 for seven years. - Bruckner never married, despite proposing to several women. It’s thought he went to the grave a chaste man.
- Each of Bruckner’s symphonies is huge in scope and ambition – Brahms called them symphonic ‘boa constrictors’.
- Bruckner’s music has suffered from associations with Hitler, whose favourite Symphony was No. 7. It was played on German radio following his death in 1945. - A nervous breakdown struck Bruckner in 1866, for which he spent three months in a sanatorium.