This 1997 book presents musicological and theoretical research on the life and music of Anton Bruckner.

This book, first published in 2001, presents a portrait of Jean Sibelius as composer and man, a figure of national and international significance, patriot, husband and father. Three introductory articles explore Sibelius's reception in Finland, performance practice and recording history, and Sibelius's aesthetic position with regard to modernity. The second group of essays examines issues of ideology, sexuality and mythology, and their relationship to musical structure and compositional genesis. Studies of the Second, Fourth, Sixth, and Seventh Symphonies are presented in the concluding section. Collectively, these articles address historical, theoretical and analytical issues in Sibelius's most important works. The analyses are supported by investigations of Sibelius's compositional process as documented by the manuscripts and sketches primarily in the Sibelius Collection of the Helsinki University Library. Exploring Sibelius's innovative approach to tonality, form and texture, the book delineates his unique brand of modernism, which has proven highly influential in the late twentieth century.

Few works in the nineteenth-century repertoire have aroused such extremes of hostility and admiration, or have generated so many scholarly problems, as Anton Bruckner's symphonies. In this 2004 book, Julian Horton seeks fresh ways of understanding the symphonies and the problems they have accrued by treating them as the focus for a variety of inter-disciplinary debates and methodological controversies. He isolates problematic areas in the works' analysis and reception, and approaches them from a range of analytical, historical, philosophical, literary, critical and psychoanalytical viewpoints. The symphonies are thus explored in the context of a number of crucial and sometimes provocative themes, including the political circumstances of the works' production, Bruckner and post-war musical analysis, issues of musical influence, the problem of editions, Bruckner and psychobiography, and the composer's controversial relationship to the Nazis.

Popular anecdotes represent Bruckner as a visionary simpleton, his life dominated by music and religion, but this bizarre figure is also widely held to have produced some the most original music written in the second half of the 19th century. The reminiscences collected here offer insights into a complicated and sometimes tormented mind. While some are content to dismiss him as a gifted country bumpkin, others describe a lively intellect, a compulsive student, and a meticulous musical theorist.

"The studies published here were chosen to demonstrate Bruckner's wide-ranging scientific interest in climate variability, his extensive empirical research and theoretical analysis of climate change, his assessment of contemporary analyses and thinking about anthropogenic climate change (such as the widespread concern about desiccation), and how he approached the questions of the transfer of scientific knowledge into society."--BOOK JACKET.

A century after his death Anton Bruckner still remains one of the most complex and enigmatic creative personalities of the nineteenth century. A leading avant-garde figure of his generation, he was an accomplished performer and teacher in addition to being a great composer; few people in the history of western music can boast his level of achievement in all these areas combined. This book, a collection of essays written by an international group of scholars, offers diverse theoretical and musicological perspectives on Bruckner the composer-teacher-performer. Facets of his formidable theoretical training and his application of it as part of the compositional process are explored. A variety of analytical methodologies is used to examine the Second through to the Ninth Symphonies, the heart of the composer?s mature repertoire. Finally, aspects of Bruckner?s career as a teacher and performer, his complex personality, his influence and dissemination of his music are considered.

This Companion provides an overview of the composer Anton Bruckner (1824–1896). Sixteen chapters by leading scholars investigate aspects of his life and works and consider the manner in which critical appreciation has changed in the twentieth century. The first section deals with Bruckner's Austrian background, investigating the historical circumstances in which he worked, his upbringing in Upper Austria, and his career in Vienna. A number of misunderstandings are dealt with in the light of recent research. The remainder of the book covers Bruckner's career as church musician and symphonist, with a chapter on the neglected secular vocal music. Religious, aesthetic, formal, harmonic, and instrumental aspects are considered, while one chapter confronts the problem of the editions of the symphonies. Two concluding chapters discuss the symphonies in performance, and the history of Bruckner-reception with particular reference to German Nationalism, the Third Reich and the appropriation of Bruckner by the Nazis.