Dokumente und Studien

Membership of the Hofmusikkapelle was a notable distinction which had a decisive influence on a musician's social status. Bruckner applied for membership for many years before Hofkapellmeister Herbeck used his influence in his favour. The relevant documents, collected here in one book for the first time, show, inter alia, that the most disturbing aspect of Bruckner's fate was not any lack of understanding or malice on the part of his contemporaries; on the contrary, Bruckner's desire to be liked and to elicit acts of kindness from others tragically led him to adopt modes of behaviour which were successful in the short term, but ultimately caused his fellows to keep him at arm's length.

Manfred Wagner
Bruckner in Wien
Ein Beitrag zur Apperzeption und Rezeption des oberösterreichischen Komponisten in der Hauptstadt der k. k. Monarchie.

[ On the perception and reception of the Upper Austrian composer in the capital of the Habsburg monarchy. ]

Bruckner's social position in Vienna as seen by his contemporaries and in the light of a systematic analysis of material from the press.

Johannes-Leopold Mayer
Musik als gesellschaftliches Ärgernis - oder: Anton Bruckner, der Anti-Bürger
Das Phänomen Bruckner als historisches Problem.

[ Music as a social scandal. Or: Anton Bruckner the anti-citizen. The phenomenon Bruckner as a historical problem. ]

With his highly individual music, Bruckner adopted a stance opposed to that of liberal-democratic society, but at the same time resisted the attempts of the Christian-Social groupings to lure him into their fold.
 

Elisabeth Maier
Anton Bruckners Arbeitswelt
 

[ Anton Bruckner's working world ]

Documentary evidence refutes the legend of a passive Bruckner, blown to Vienna as it were on the winds of chance; on the contrary, Vienna was for Bruckner a conscious goal, a city where he sought security in permanent employment. He was reticent on this subject towards his leisure-time companions, whose speculations in this regard led to numerous misrepresentations.
 

Leopold M. Kantner
Die Frömmigkeit Anton Bruckners

[ Anton Bruckner's piety ]

Contemporary piety is compared with with Bruckner's own, with influences being traced and examined. Bruckner is shown to have been a deep believer, fervent in prayer, pathologically scrupulous, and having few attractive personality traits; the religious Bruckner, devout but by no means saintly, is quite definitely at odds with the Bruckner we know from his music.

Leopold von Zenetti played an important role as Bruckner's teacher during his time in Kronstorf (1843-45). This book gives not only a detailed in-context presentation of Zenetti's life and work but also an equally detailed account of Bruckner's early creative life. The chapter headings speak for themselves: 'The Classical inheritance', 'Extended horizons', and 'Desire for perfection'.

In addition to titles directly concerned with Bruckner, this bibliography also includes entries for sections in general music history publications dealing with Bruckner and/or his work.

Part II see Vol 12 (MV 112)

Hans Kreczi, for many years responsible for cultural administration in Linz, gives the first account of Hitler's plan to combine the Augustinian Stift Sankt Florian, the Bruckner-Orchester and the Bruckner-Chor to form the Musikwerk des Großdeutschen Rundfunks ('music project of Greater German Radio'), which was intended to occupy an important position in the National-Socialist re-ordering of post-war Europe.

Taking as his starting-point the first performance of the Seventh Symphony in Leipzig – a highly important event for Bruckner's international reputation – the author makes a convincing case for the significance of Leipzig in the reception of Bruckner's work. The abundance of choice illustrations makes this ample documentation a doubly attractive book with an appeal to both mind and eye.

Extensive basic research and a number of happy coincidences bore fruit in this comprehensive documentation with a quantity of pictorial material new to Bruckner researchers. The wide range of 186 chronologically ordered and precisely described illustrations include photographs, painting, watercolours, drawings, caricatures, etchings, lithographs, woodcuts and engravings, ex libris plates, postcards, medallions, plaquettes and memorial plaques. The black-and-white pictures are reproduced in sepia tones, with colour pictures being collected in a section of their own.

Over 200 illustrations, mainly little-known depictions of the composer, with detailed commentaries and index.

Over 300 illustrations, with detailed commentaries and a complete index for all three volumes.

To what exent has the standard image of Bruckner been manipulated by anecdote? In what sense does anecdotal evidence have documentational value in its own (albeit limited) right?

In over 300 reminiscences and anecdotes, the authors present Bruckner as seen by his contemporaries and later commentators, with the various contributions being ordered in thematic groups (way of life, religion, women, authority, his professional world). This juxtaposition of sources raises a number of basic questions and points up, for instance, the need for an analysis of the stereotype of Bruckner as 'God's musician'.

Kreczi gives an account of the development of the Bruckner-Orchester in the wider context of goals pursued in cultural politics; topics dealt with include the rise in musicians' social status, internal power struggles, and above all, the long-drawn-out fight for the realization of the idea of the Brucknerhaus.

An appendix presents detailed data and material on the orchestral concerts from 1949 to 1974 (the year of the opening of the Brucknerhaus), including concert programmes, artists, attendance figures and press notices.

Harry Slapnicka
Oberösterreich zwischen Wiener Kongreß und den Anfängen der politischen Parteien (1815-1870)

[ Upper Austria between the Congress of Vienna and the beginnings of the political parties (1815–1870) ]

Rudolf Zinnhobler
Das Bistum Linz zwischen Spätjosephinismus und Liberalismus
[ The diocese of Linz between late Josephinism and Liberalism ]

Othmar Wessely
Der junge Bruckner und sein Orgelspiel
[ The young Bruckner and his organ-playing ]

Franz Zamazal
Familie Bruckner - Drei Generationen Lehrer. Schulverhältnisse - Ausbildung - Lebenslauf
[ Three generations of Bruckners in teaching: Their situation at school – their training – their lives. ]

The four studies collected in this volume deal with Bruckner's socio-cultural world; written by an historian, a church historian, a musicologist and a specialist for documentary research respectively, they offer the reader a variety of ways of acquiring a deeper familiarity both with the world and times Bruckner lived in, and with the path of the composer's development.

As Anton Bruckner's letters are to a very large extent concerned with the fate of his works, the few genuinely private autograph sources are particularly significant for the insights they allow us into his personality. These are the notebooks he used from his time in Linz until his death, of which twenty-two have survived.

These documents, some privately owned and hitherto inaccessible to scholars, are published here in their entirety for the first time. The first volume contains fulsomely annotated transcriptions of all the pages, and a comprehensive appendix with notes on all the individuals mentioned by Bruckner; the second volume contains reproductions of all the pages with written entries.

This volume follows on directly from the first part of the Bruckner-Bibliographie, published in 1985; together, the two volumes represent an indispensable basic tool for all Bruckner researchers. The items are ordered alphabetically by author; a comprehensive index section facilitates the speedy location of information sought by the user.

Part I see volume 4 (MV 104)

This study is the first detailed account of the composer's lifelong association with the town of Steyr, and takes into consideration a quantity of hitherto unknown written and pictorial material.

From the Contents:

• Tausend Jahre Musik in Steyr
  [ A thousand years of music in Steyr ]
• Bruckners sozialhistorisches und kirchengeschichtliches Umfeld
  [ Bruckner's socio-historical and ecclesiastical world ]
• Bruckner als "Ferienkomponist"
  [ Bruckner as 'holiday-composer' ]
• Wirkungsgeschichte nach 1896
  [ Bruckner's influence after 1896 ]

The period 1855–68 saw Anton Bruckner make a number of critical decisions. He left the monastic and rural world for the secular milieu of the city, he gave up schoolteaching to become a professional musician, and he developed from an organist and composer of church music into a symphonist. In crossing these borders, he was uncompromisingly following the dictates of his inborn creative gift, which was increasingly making composition into his ‘chief life-task’. This book provides the most comprehensive possible documentation of the sources (many hitherto unpublished) relating to this decisive phase in Bruckner’s life, and considers them as evidence for his artistic development. Archival vestiges of complicated bureaucratic procedures, letters, and newspaper articles combine to form a fascinating and moving portrait of a great vocation in the making.

267 poems by 108 authors from over 140 years from occasional poetry and dialect verse to works by Eugen Roth, Josef Weinheber and Charles Bukowski as an important source of reception history with critical commentary and biographical details on the authors.

Dürrnberger’s textbook was a standard reference in musical teacher training. Bruckner himself later used it for teaching his students in Vienna.

Wagner doubtlessly assumed an important position in Brucker’s life; this relationship, however, was in no way reciprocal. Bruckner without Wagner is quite hard to imagine, unlike Wagner without Bruckner. His sojourns in Bayreuth were among the highlights of Bruckner’s year. The present volume illustrates them with a wide variety of documents, at the same time it provides an insight into the festival at this period of its history.

The Augustine Canon Josef Kluger (1865 – 1937), a glowing Wagnerian and, in the 1890s, an intimate of Anton Bruckner’s, became an important transmitter of Bruckner’s legacy. Kluger, as a member of the directorate of the Vienna Konzerthaus also an important force in Viennese musical life, collected newspaper articles and other documents on A. Bruckner, participated in Bruckner festivals, and corresponded with other Bruckner enthusiasts. This volume for the first time makes the documents from Josef Kluger’s estate available to scholarship and places them into the historical context of a time of high tension.