Author : Jos Hermans
From simple village teacher in Windhaag to internationally canonized creator of symphonic cathedrals, Anton Bruckner's rise, privately as well as professionally, did not happen without problems. His eccentric way of dressing and even his eccentric manners gave many people the impression of a maverick. Gustav Mahler called him a "simpleton - half genius, half imbecile." He became the organist of the monumental Chrismann organ in the church of Stift Sankt Florian. That period makes him one of the best organists of his time. He is 40 when he dares to step up to the status of a professional musician.
More than anything else, he suffers from the constant rejections of young women. The latter can be taken literally. From age 27 to 68, Bruckner fell in love head over heels countless times, without exception with young girls aged 14 to 19. Some of them he made serious marriage proposals. His disappointments in love were at least as often as vilifications of his work the cause of his growing sense of loneliness, the wear and tear of his nervous powers, breakdowns of his health, overexertions, melancholy moods and finally mental decay up to religious delusions.
Bruckner and Wagner
Early on, he becomes a Wagner fan. Wagner's expanded harmonic spectrum immediately attracted him. In Linz, he heard symphonies and operas for the first time. The Linz premiere of Tannhäuser on Feb. 12, 1863, is a revelation to him and ignites in his innermost being the decisive creative impulse. In 1865, he travels twice to Munich on the occasion of the primal performance of Tristan und Isolde. There he becomes acquainted with Wagner. On April 4, 1868, with special permission from Wagner, he conducts the very first public performance of the finale of Die Meistersinger at the Redoutensaal in Linz.
On September 13 and 14, 1873, he calls on Bayreuth to present his third symphony which he wants to dedicate to Wagner. Wagner accepts but has poured Bruckner so much Weihenstephan in the evening that the next day he cannot remember which of his three symphonies Wagner accepted his Widmung for. Subsequently, Bruckner attends the Festival in 1876. After his last visit to Wagner on the occasion of the premiere of Parsifal (1882), he works "in high spirits" on the first three movements of the Seventh Symphony. Indeed, he lives in the happy conviction that the "Master of all Masters" will fulfill his promise to perform all his symphonies in Bayreuth. According to Curt von Westerhagen, during the Parsifal summer of 1882, Wagner is supposed to have said, "There is only one person I know who can match Beethoven, and that is Bruckner...." The following Wagner quote is also fondly quoted by Brucknerians: "We are now the first two. I in the dramatic art, you in the symphony."
Are these apocryphal quotes? According to Egon Voss, they are. Bruckner does not appear as a respected symphonist in either Wagner's letters or Cosima's diary entries. Nor are there any known recommendations from Wagner to music publishers for the printing of Bruckner's symphonies, a push he desperately needed. Nevertheless, we know from Wagner's correspondence with Emil Heckel that Wagner rated Bruckner very highly as a symphonist, and Wagner's promise is also confirmed by Heckel. Are these letters unknown to Voss? So why Bruckner does not appear annually on the Bayreuther Festival poster is a complete mystery to me. I would be curious to hear what Bruckner's semi-religious monumentality would sound like in the Festivalhaus conceived for Parsifal. It is an idea that will be considered in the Third Reich but, to my knowledge, was never implemented.
Wagner's influence manifests itself not only in quotations and references, in orchestration and instrumentation, in the modulation of orchestral sound to create waves of intensity, in the integration of fanfares and of recitative-arioso elements (in the opening movements), in abrupt contrasts, but above all in the employment of a dynamic principle of form that is the formal basis of dramatic music. Therein lies the modernity of Bruckner's work not understood by many of his contemporaries. Brahms put it this way : "One can do no greater injustice to Wagner than to bring his music into the concert hall, it was made only for the theater and belongs there only."
Bruckner and Hanslick
In 1886 Bruckner receives the Franz Joseph order. When he goes to an audience to thank the emperor for it, the emperor asks him : "What can I do for you, dear Bruckner?" Bruckner must then have said, "Can't Your Majesty forbid Hanslick of the Freie Presse from writing nasty things about me ?" Was Bruckner a tad paranoid? Judge for yourself.
In a letter to Anton Vergeiner from May 1884, he describes his relationship to the venomous Viennese critic Hanslick, the man who, according to Otto Glastra van Loon, is reported to have once said, "Whom I want to destroy, I destroy!" : "Hanslick was, except for Herbeck, my highest and greatest supporter. What he wrote about me until 1874 (when I was promoted to the university as lecturer) will hardly ever happen again; even as composer and conductor he treated me with great distinction. And please do not in any way criticize Hanslick on my account, for his wrath is terrible, and he is capable of destroying me. You cannot fight him. One can approach him only in supplication. I myself can’t even do that, since he always has himself denied to me..."
As in the case of Wagner, Hanslick initially seems to have shown some sympathy for Bruckner. That changes radically when Bruckner, in a long letter dated April 18, 1974, applies to the Ministry of Culture for a permanent appointment (with salary and pension rights) as a lecturer in music theory at the University of Vienna. Hanslick who sits on the board of the university is asked for his opinion. Up to four times Hanslick gives a negative opinion. Eventually Bruckner is given the post of unpaid lecturer. On Oct. 1, 1876, he writes to the Berlin reviewer Wilhelm Tappert: “Because of my activity at the university as an unpaid lecturer for harmony and counterpoint, Dr. Hanslick has become my bitter enemy.“ Letters of Rudolf Weinwurm’s make it quite clear that Hanslick did not shy away from using dishonest means to prevent Bruckner’s being hired by the university.
Brahms too disgraced himself by his judgment of Bruckner. From the appointment affair on, Bruckner will feel persecuted by Brahms, by Hanslick and all the critics who took their side. That his work is being performed so rarely he attributes to the campaign waged against him in the Viennese press. He is convinced that Brahms biographer Max Kalbeck ("Presse") and music critic Gustav Dömpke ("Allgemeine Zeitung") are forced by Hanslick to write negatively about him, and that some conductors, such as Hans Richter, who appreciate him, refuse to perform his work for fear of Hanslick. A letter from Rudolf Krzyzanowski in May 1884 reads :"Here in Vienna nothing has been performed except the String Quintet by the Academic Choral Society. Hans Richter does not perform anything either here or there! He blows Hanslick’s horn!” A letter to Josef Sittart dated March 24, 1886 reads : “But now your Highness must know that Hanslick (Neue Freie Presse) has been my enemy ever since 1874, because I accepted the lectureship at the University and he did not want to have any music theory there; so the old Presse and the Allgemeine have to write hostilely about me, too. That’s already three – same with Extrablatt and Sonntagsblatt – makes five hostiles.”
Constantin Floros summarizes the anti-Bruckner campaign as follows : “Today one can only be shocked and amazed to read the critiques of Bruckner’s oeuvre that Hanslick, Kalbeck and Dömpke penned, and that not only because they do not take him seriously as a composer but above all because they go out of their way to make him look ridiculous. They take it upon themselves to judge and condemn not only the music but the man. Their tone is almost uniformly arrogant, spiteful and sneering, designed only to entertain their readers at his expense. While Kalbeck once called Bruckner a “Romeling,”25 Dömpke spoke of the “abnormalities of a sexagenarian” and went so far in tastelessness as to say that “Bruckner composes like a drunkard.” No critic today would dare to write in similar terms about a contemporary composer. The Bruckner pupil Friedrich Klose surely hit the nail on the head when he remarked that there was method to this kind of “reportage”: the aim was to prevent Bruckner from being performed at all.”
The decisive turn in the reception of Bruckner's music comes from outside Vienna, and it comes with the Seventh Symphony. Its premiere on December 30, 1884 in Leipzig under the direction of Arthur Nikisch is not an immediate success. Audiences and professionals remain unmoved by it but the Leipziger Nachrichten still manages to write that Bruckner had raised himself like a giant above the contemporary Pygmies. The first Viennese performance becomes a scandal; Hanslick calls it a "symphonic python" and launches in committee the qualification "the ferocious dream of an orchestral musician overwrought by twenty Tristan rehearsals."
The great triumph takes place on March 10, 1885, when the Seventh receives full credit from the enthusiastic Wagner conductor Hermann Levi in Munich: unabated, it makes an overwhelming impression on public and press. After Munich, the Seventh then begins its triumphal tour of the metropoles of the world. News of the Munich success also reaches Vienna, and not without effect. Hans Richter, whose tenure with the Vienna Philharmonic is sometimes called the "golden era," finally shows enough backbone to perform the Seventh. Bruckner's fear of Hanslick, meanwhile, has become so extreme that he refuses Richter's permission. In a letter to Levi dated September 7, 1885, he gives the reason : “Herr Richter told me yesterday he wants to perform the Te Deum, – he won’t get the seventh! Hanslick!!! – I told Herr Richter, if he ever wants to perform a symphony, let it be one of the ones that Hanslick has already ruined anyway; let him demolish that even more.” On Oct. 13, Bruckner asks the Committee of the Vienna Philharmonic to refrain from a performance of the Seventh for the time being because of the sad situation that the local music-critical establishment would get in the way of his recent success in Germany. Constantin Floros calls this letter one of the most distressing documents in music history.
Bruckner finally yields to the pressure from Richter and the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Seventh is performed on March 21, 1886. It turns out to be a surprisingly great success. Or as Bruckner reports to his "artistic father" Herman Levi on March 25 : “No balking and begging helped: on the 21st the 7th Symphony was performed by the Philharmonics. Richter took great pains. The reception was an indescribable jubilation. Already after the first movement, 5 or 6 frenzied calls for the composer, and so it continued, after the Finale endless tumultuous enthusiasm and curtain calls, laurel wreath from the Wagner Society and festive banquet.” And in a postscript he adds: “The five hostile papers will at Hanslick’s request take perfect care of the success’s annihilation.”
He was again absolutely right in his apprehension: the reviews by Hanslick, Kalbeck and Dömpke were again devastating. Hanslick writes in the Neue Freie Presse of March 30, 1886: “Bruckner has become army command and the ‘second Beethoven’, an article of faith with the Wagner sect. I confess openly that I could hardly do justice to Bruckner’s symphony, it seems so unnatural, pretentious, morbid and pernicious to me.”
Bruckner's fear of Hanslick is justified because the Neue Freie Presse is the leading daily newspaper in Vienna. Although Bruckner can take comfort from the fact that other Viennese music critics such as Theodor Helm, Ludwig Speidel, Gustav Schönaich recognize his genius, their positive assessments appear in smaller newspapers (Morgenpost, Vaterland, Deutsche Zeitung, Fremdenblatt, Tagblatt et al.) that can hardly compete with the Neue Freie Presse in terms of circulation. From Johann Strauss he receives the following telegram: "I am completely shaken up, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life."
On April 15, 1886, on the occasion of a concert by choral society Frohsinn, Bruckner made a remarkable speech in which he publicly affirmed Wagner's promise to perform his symphonies : “It is true that I lived through difficult years, it is true that even in Vienna, our imperial capital, natives generally have to take a backseat; it is also true that ill-will and everything one does not want conspired there to make my life miserable. Luckily there were only three such elements that opposed me by name. That also was the reason why nothing was performed for such a long time and I had to float in the dark for so long. It was in the year 1882 at the first performance of Parsifal, that our blessed, unforgettable maestro Wagner took me by the hand and said: ’Depend on it, I shall perform your works, I myself.’ Well, now that the dear maestro has been called away, it seems as though he had, in the goodness of his heart, appointed guardians for me: my first guardian was Herr Nikisch in Leipzig, the second one the conductor Hermann Levi in Munich. With every bit of energy, they have done everything possible to perform my works, and the success was quite extraordinary, as is not often the case. Well, that has given me enormous strength. I have had already two guardians by now. Then Herr Hans Richter appeared in Vienna as my third, and then also a Kapellmeister in Karlsruhe [the reference is to Felix Mottl].”
Aanvankelijk lijkt de triomfantelijke uitvoering van de Zevende geen positieve kentering in te zetten. Op 16 juni 1886 vertelt hij aan de Hamburgse recensent Wilhelm Zinne: “Over Hanslick en helaas ook Brahms heb ik zulke kwetsende verhalen gehoord dat ik liever niets zeg, maar mijn hart is vol verdriet...” En verder : “Hanslick dicteert aan twee andere critici om mij te laten vallen; ze proberen zelfs Hans Richter, die enthousiast over mij is, tegen mij op te zetten, omdat hij Richter's angst voor de pers kent.” Enkele maanden later, op 16 november 1886 schrijft hij aan Hermann Levi: “De dingen zijn terug zoals ze waren in Wenen. (Ook Schönaich zou weer van me af zijn.) Zonder Hanslick is Wenen verloren!"
In reality, the successful performance of the Seventh has had a significant impact on Vienna. It is becoming increasingly clear that Bruckner is now on the winning side. On November 7, 1891, the University of Vienna appoints him as an honorary doctor and Emperor Franz Joseph gives him a house of his own. On December 18, 1892, Hans Richter is bold enough to take the premiere of the Eighth. It makes an overwhelming impression, except on Hanslick, who will demonstratively leave the hall before the end. He and his colleague Heuberger subsequently pour into their newspapers with impotent fury at the poor composer. That the general public began to see through the background of the polemic against Bruckner is evidenced by Otto Böhler's caricatures from that time. Hugo Wolf, among others, will contribute to the late appreciation of Bruckner as a reviewer of the Wiener Salonblatt.
In 1892, he resigns as a teacher at the conservatory; his nerves have long been out of tune; among other things, he suffers from the mania of wanting to count everything: the leaves of a tree, the dots in a book, etc. The last two years of his life he works on the finale of his ninth symphony. Yet he no longer finds the strength to complete it. From Gertrud Bollé-Hellmund, he receives an invitation to write an opera on a religious theme, a work that would have to be "original, elevated and not lacking the necessary lyrical motifs" and in need of a "genius by the grace of God." Bruckner replies on Sept. 5, 1893, that if after the completion of the Ninth Symphony, which he fears will take him another two years to complete, he is still alive and would still possess the "necessary strength" to do so, he will gladly take on a "dramatic work" : “
In 1892 neemt hij ontslag als leraar aan het konservatorium; zijn zenuwen zijn reeds lang niet in orde, o.a. heeft hij last van de manie, alles te willen tellen: de bladeren van een boom, de punten in een boek enz. De twee laatste jaren van zijn leven werkt hij aan de finale van zijn negende symfonie. Toch vindt hij niet meer de kracht om deze te voltooien. Van Gertrud Bollé-Hellmund ontvangt hij de uitnodiging om een opera te schrijven op een religieus thema, een werk dat “origineel, verheven en de nodige lyrische motieven niet zou missen” en dat een “genie bij de gratie van God" behoeft. Bruckner antwoordt op 5 september 1893, dat als na de voltooiing van de Negende Symfonie, waarvan hij vreest dat deze hem nog twee jaar in beslag zal nemen, hij nog leeft en daarvoor de "noodzakelijke kracht" nog zou bezitten, hij graag een "dramatisch werk" op zich zal nemen: "Would like then to make it one à la Lohengrin, romantic, religious-mysterious and above all free of anything impure!". The last sentence indicates that Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin represents for him just about the quintessence of romanticism but on the morning of his death he is still toiling away at the Ninth.
Despite all the backlash, Bruckner will not die a pauper. His estate is estimated at 20,000 florins including 14,000 in cash. At his express wish, his embalmed corpse is laid to rest in a crypt under the organ of St Florian, flanked by a macabre wall of human skulls.
Bruckner and the Third Reich
Despite the fact that the cultural program of the Nürenberg Reichsparteitage invariably opened with a movement of a Bruckner symphony, Bruckner will be played less during the Third Reich than during the Weimar period. Neither Goebbels nor Hitler were initially real fans. The Führer's composer is Wagner, the party's composer is Beethoven. Yet in June 1937, in a pose of devotion, Adolf Hitler will have his picture taken in front of Bruckner's bust in Valhalla, the neoclassical temple of honor Ludwig I had built in Regensburg. It will be the Munich Philharmonic that will grace the occasion with the adagio from Bruckner's Seventh. The main speech will be delivered by Goebbels, who did not like Bruckner at all. In his diary, he wrote that Bruckner "cannot be counted among the great symphonic composers." Question is why then was this event organized? Was it a cultural foreshadowing of the Anschluss the following year? During the infamous Tag der deutschen Kunst (June 30, 1937), the mass parade to celebrate "healthy" German art , will open with a fanfare of the Third Symphony.
And then, during 1940, Hitler suddenly develops a passion for Bruckner. He even begins to mention him in the same breath as Wagner. Goebbels diary records the following statement for March 13, 1941: "We are driving to St. Florian. To the monastery where Bruckner used to compose. What a beautiful baroque building. We want to remove the priests there and establish a music academy and a home for the Bruckner Society. A wonderful plan... A country boy who conquered the world with his music. How rich is this region in culture, history and artistic strength.... (Hitler) plans to establish a center of culture here. As a counterweight to Vienna, which will gradually have to disappear from the picture. He does not like Vienna... Linz is his darling.... He plans to make changes in St. Florian at his own expense."
For Hitler, Bruckner has a symbolic significance, as a "home town boy" and as a rival to Brahms who was so beloved in Vienna. By 1942, Hitler places him on the level of Beethoven. He equates the Seventh with Beethoven's Ninth. He funds a study center at the monastery of Sankt Florian, he has the organ restored and unfolds ambitious plans for a Bruckner orchestra and a Bruckner festival. Sankt Florian should become a place of pilgrimage along the lines of Bayreuth. Hitler pays for the Haas edition of Bruckner's works out of his own pocket. And he dreams of building a clock tower in Linz whose carillon will play a theme from the Fourth.
Bruckner's music fit the aesthetic desiderata of the Nazis. It can easily be seen as deeply "German" music, untouched by decadent cosmopolitanism. Indeed, the Nazis' taste in art is distinctly conservative. Thus Goebbels writes in an open letter to Furtwängler in the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger of 11 April 1933 : "It is not only the task of art and of the artist to unite; it is also, far beyond that, their task to form, to give shape, to eliminate what is ill and to create a free path for what is healthy. Therefore, as a German politician, I am not able to recognize only the one dividing line . . . between good and bad art. Art must not only be good, it must also appear to be conditioned by the people, or, to put it better, only an art that draws from the full nation itself can be good in the end.”
The most daring aspect of Goebbels' 1937 Regensburg speech is his attempt to detach Bruckner from the influence of Catholicism. Goebbels is trying to bring Bruckner within the party ideology with which the composer's Catholic faith was not comfortable. Instead of the traditional Christian denominations, the Nazis promote the concept of Gottgläubigkeit, a generalized notion of "belief in God" that leans more toward a kind of pre-Christian mysticism. Decisive here is the influence of Wagner, says Goebbels : when Bruckner comes into contact with Wagner's music, his preoccupation with sacred composition disappears and his symphonic ambition is born. With a single gesture, Goebbels relates three key points in Bruckner's artistic development - his Catholic faith, the Wagnerian influence and his turn to symphonic composition - thus embodying the highest ideals of Nazi culture avant la lettre.
Goebbels' arguments are not difficult to refute. Bruckner's contact with Wagner certainly did not prompt his withdrawal from Catholicism, and Wagnerian influence certainly cannot be cited as a motivation for the shift to instrumental composition. Not only does Bruckner continue to write sacred music until the end of his life; there are strong sacred influences in the symphonies themselves. The idea that Bruckner discarded his Catholicism under the influence of Wagner has no basis either in the biography nor in the nature of his compositions.
Yet one product of this musicological appropriation of Bruckner has remained largely undisputed. To the enormous work of Robert Haas and Alfred Orel, which resembled the cleaning of an Augias stable, it is due that after 1930 a complete score edition could emerge of provable originality and authenticity. When the first volumes appeared, their merits were hotly debated in the German music press. This debate, the so-called Bruckner-Streit, occupied pages of the leading journals and was accompanied by both fierce opponents of Haas' methodology and proponents of Haas' text-critical position. Yet by 1937 the Bruckner-Streit fell silent and the Gesamtausgabe succeeded in establishing itself as an authoritative source of Bruckner's works. Most orchestras today own a copy of both the Haas and later Nowak editions.
Unlike Wagner, Bruckner remains generally untouched by the immediate Nazi past. His works have continued to thrive in Austrian and German repertoires without outside opposition, and his music was never boycotted in Israel.