Floros Constantin. Anton Bruckner: The Man and the Work

Translated by Bernhardt-Kabisch Ernest. - New York: Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2011. - 239p.: il.While unappreciated and controversial during most of his life, Anton Bruckner is today regarded as the greatest symphonist between Beethoven and Gustav Mahler - in terms of originality, boldness and monumentality of his music. The image of Bruckner the man, however, is still extreme instance of the tenacious power of prejudice. No less a figure than Gustav Mahler coined the aperçu about Bruckner being «a simpleton - half genius, half imbecile». The author is out to correct that misperception. His thesis in this study is that contrary to what has hitherto been asserted, there is an intimate relation between Bruckner’s sacred music and his symphonies from multiple perspectives: biographical data, sources and influences, the psychology of creation, musical structure, contemporary testimony and reception history. Additional chapters assess important Bruckner recordings and interpreters and the progressiveness of his music
A character portrait
Who was Bruckner?
Authoritarianism and self-assurance
Neurosis
Libido
Emotionality
The "passionate urge to compose"
Securing an income
Persecution mania
Worries about the success of the work
Interest in the exceptional
"Sympathy with death"
Religiosity
Sacred music
Personality and oeuvre
Music as religious confession
A new, dramatic conception of the mass
The credo settings
Religious tone symbolism
Jubilant and devotional music
"Let me not be confounded in eternity" : the Te Deum
Music as song of praise
The symphonies
The fiction of "absolute music"
Originality and modernity
Matters of style
How Bruckner came to the symphony
Autiographic elements in the Second and Third Symphonies
The allegiance to Richard Wagner
The triad of the middle symphonies
The Seventh : a second "Wagner symphony"
Secular and religious
Imaginations : Bruckner's associations in the Eighth
The Ninth : Bruckner's "farewell to life"
Reflections on the Bruckner interpretation : Günter Wand, Eugen Jochum and Sergiu Celibidache
The progressiveAfterwordAppendix
Notes
Biographical Dates
Abbreviations
Works by Anton Bruckners
Selective Bibliography
Author's Papers
Photo
Index of Names