What is Anton Bruckner?
[[File:AntonBruckner.jpeg|250px|right|Anton Bruckner]] '''Anton Bruckner''' (born '''Ansfelden''', [[Austria]], [[4 September]] [[1824]]; died [[Vienna]], [[11 October]] [[1896]]) was an Austrian composer. He is especially famous for his nine [[symphony|symphonies]]. They are all very long and are written in a late [[Romantic music|Romantic]] style for a large [[orchestra]]. He was also an [[pipe organ|organist]] and [[teacher]]. == Life == Bruckner’s father was an organist and schoolmaster in a small [[village]] in Austria. By the age of four Bruckner was showing musical [[talent]]. He played [[hymn]] tunes on a tiny [[violin]] and then found the [[chord]]s to go with them on the family [[spinet]]. When he was ten he sometimes played the village organ for [[church service|services]]. After his father’s death in [[1837]] he became a choirboy at the monastery school of St Florian where, in 1848, he became the organist of the [[abbey]] church. He started composing at this time and wrote a ''[[Requiem]] in d minor''. He liked the music of [[Franz Schubert|Schubert]] and [[Mendelssohn]] and they [[influence]]d the way he composed. Although he was happy at St Florian his friends told him he ought to look for a better job. They made him apply for the job of organist at the [[cathedral]] of [[Linz]] which he got easily. Meanwhile, he was trying to learn more about [[harmony]] and took a course with a famous teacher Simon Sechter. He then took a course in [[orchestration]] with the teacher Otto Kitzler. He became very interested in the music of Romantic composers like [[Franz Liszt|Liszt]], [[Hector Berlioz|Berlioz]] and especially [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]]. In [[1864]] he wrote a ''[[Mass (music)|Mass]]'' in d minor for [[Choir|chorus]] and orchestra which clearly showed Wagner’s influence. In [[1866]] he finished the first of his nine symphonies. He also wrote some very beautiful [[motet]]s which are among the best music of the [[19th century]] written for the [[Roman Catholic]] church. In [[1866]] he spent three