Anton Bruckner

Completed just after his recovery from nervous breakdown, this mass gives form to the faith and gratitude he regained after repeated setbacks.

• The Kyrie opens in dark, low tones as the chorus gradually builds, evoking both the penitence and the relief of his recovery from breakdown.
• At the Credo's words 'Et incarnatus est' ('and was made man'), the tempo suddenly slows and a solo voice enters as if in a whisper — a moment many listeners find the most devotional in the piece.
• The Gloria bursts forth in a blaze of brass, standing in dramatic contrast to the darkness of the Kyrie.
• Wagnerian chromatic harmony (a dense use of adjacent half steps) already seeps through the church-music counterpoint, foreshadowing the symphonic language to come.

The symphony for which Wagner personally granted his dedication; its premiere was a disaster, but the work stands as proof of the reverence Bruckner carried for him all his life.

• In the opening, a trumpet theme rises quietly over a shimmering violin tremolo (the rapid repetition of a single note) — a 'dawn'-like beginning Bruckner favored in several of his symphonies.
• The 1873 first edition contained direct quotations from Wagner's Tristan and Die Walküre, but these were removed during revision. Performers still debate which version makes the more persuasive case.
• The scherzo's rough-hewn dance rhythm feels especially vivid set against the solemnity of the outer movements.
• In the finale, brass writing in the style of a chorale (the simple hymn tune a congregation sings together) alternates and clashes with racing string figures — the passage at the heart of the debate over which revision strikes the better balance.

Amid the uncertain early days in Vienna, he completed what would become his most popular symphony.

• The opening horn call rising over string tremolo is said to have been described by Bruckner himself as 'daybreak over a medieval city,' a phrase that gave the symphony its nickname, 'Romantic.'
• The scherzo, which Bruckner himself called the 'hunt' (Jagd), is easy for any listener to follow, with its hunting-horn calls and galloping rhythm.
• In the finale, the return of the opening horn theme in triumphant form gives the satisfying sense that the symphony's entire structure has come full circle.
• The funeral-march-like tread of the low strings in the slow movement has led some scholars to connect it to his early losses, though no direct testimony from Bruckner himself survives.

The symphony that achieved his first unmistakable success, under Nikisch's baton in Leipzig; its slow movement carries a tribute to Wagner.

• In the introduction, the cello spins out the melody alone for nearly two minutes before the full orchestra joins — a story often repeated among performers that Bruckner said he heard this theme in a dream.
• The cymbal and triangle strike at the climax of the slow movement is said to have been added just after Bruckner heard of Wagner's death, though conductors remain divided on whether it truly reflects his intent, and some omit it.
• The dark, rounded timbre of four Wagner tubas envelops the entire slow movement, and it comes through all the more vividly when you recall that the instrument itself was created for Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.
• The final movement, atypically for Bruckner, resolves its themes with relative concision, making it the symphony often recommended as an entry point for first-time listeners.

A sacred masterwork composed alongside the symphonies, which he later suggested himself could stand in for the final movement of the unfinished Ninth.

• The C major fanfare that trumpets and strings burst out together in the introduction reveals unrestrained joy, unlike the searching, questing openings of his other symphonies.
• The passage 'In te, Domine, speravi' ('Lord, I have trusted in you') is woven as a dense fugue — a contrapuntal form in which different voices chase the same melody in staggered, transposed entries, like a round — revealing the decades of contrapuntal discipline he had built up.
• In his lifetime, Bruckner himself suggested that if the unfinished Ninth Symphony were never completed, this Te Deum could be performed in place of its final movement — a suggestion later taken up in a number of actual performances.
• Midway through the piece, a brief soprano solo emerges, creating a quiet moment set against the surrounding, massive chorus.

Completed amid repeated success and honor, this is his most expansive symphony, carrying both his ambition and his faith at once.

• The ominous motif that low strings and horns create in the first movement is said to have been called the 'death clock' (Totenuhr) by Bruckner himself in a letter — a rare instance of him explaining the imagery of his own music.
• The scherzo is rough and vigorous in character — Bruckner himself called its theme 'German Michel' in a letter — yet the harp-accompanied trio section that appears between its statements is unexpectedly delicate.
• The slow movement is his longest adagio, in which two harps and the Wagner tubas blend together to create an especially luminous, radiant sound.
• The passage in the final movement where the themes of all the preceding movements return at once in a massive conclusion is often cited among analysts as his most ambitious design.

His final symphony, dedicated 'to the beloved God' from his failing body in his last years, which he died without ever completing its final movement.

• The introduction of the first movement, quietly presented by horns over a tremolo, is often regarded as the coldest, most chilling among his symphonies.
• The scherzo's rough, relentlessly driving rhythm sounds far more modern and jagged than his earlier scherzos, startling first-time listeners.
• The slow movement — the last music he ever completed — brings back melodic fragments from Symphonies no. 7 · 8 and the Masses, which many hear as a conscious gesture of farewell.
• The final movement breaks off as a pile of sketches, so performances today take different paths: ending with the Adagio, appending the Te Deum as he himself suggested, or attempting a scholarly reconstruction of the finale.