Perspectives on Anton Bruckner

Crawford Howie, Crawford Howie, Crawford Howie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351554435
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

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.

Part One
Theoretical Perspective and Compositional Practice

1 A composer learns his craft: lessons in form and orchestration, 1861–3^*

Paul Hawkshaw

For Anton Bruckner, completion of his counterpoint studies with Simon Sechter in March 1861 signalled the end of an extended compositional hiatus. A fruitful though brief creative period followed, which saw the completion of two great motets – Ave Maria (WAB 6) and Afferentur Regi (WAB 1), the Festkantate (WAB 16) for the new Linz Cathedral and a handful of smaller works.¹ By 25 April 1862, when Bruckner completed the cantata, he had already immersed himself again in study, this time investigating form and orchestration with the conductor/cellist, Otto Kitzler.² Most of the surviving exercises which Bruckner wrote for Kitzler are preserved in one volume – the so-called Kitzler Studienbuch.³ Its 326 pages are full of autograph sketches, annotations, and exercises, as well as complete and incomplete compositions which testify to an extremely rigorous and extensive training in both form and orchestration. The Kitzler Studienbuch is fascinating for its insights into the history of musical pedagogy in the nineteenth century as well as for the historical and theoretical implications of the terminology and format of its exercises. As a document of musical analysis in the middle of the nineteenth century it is invaluable.

Due to its inaccessibility the Studienbuch has achieved little notoriety in the musical world. Leopold Nowak drew attention to its existence when he published the C minor String Quartet (WAB 111), one of the exercises in the miscellany. He later transcribed the F minor 'Student' Symphony (WAB 99) sketches located in the final pages of the miscellany.⁴ Otherwise, with the exception of the March in D Minor (WAB 96), Three Orchestral Pieces (WAB 97), and a Piano Sonata movement in G Minor, none of the exercises has been published.⁵ After a brief overview of the contents of the miscellany, this chapter will illustrate some of the structural issues of concern to Bruckner and apply his analytical terminology to examples from the Sonata movement, String Quartet, F minor Symphony and another Kitzler composition, the Overture in G Minor (WAB 98). Possible contemporary theoretical sources for the exercises and formal concepts they represent will be identified. I will conclude with a few thoughts on the significance of the miscellany in the context of the composer's biography and our understanding of his music and working procedures. There is a wealth of knowledge to be obtained from the Kitzler Studienbuch.

The miscellany consists of 163 folios in various sizes in oblong format. They contain numerous autograph dates between Christmas 1861 and 10 July 1863 and are arranged in chronological order. Bruckner was responsible for the order because he numbered the pages himself and included occasional cross-references. Table 1.1 contains a list of the contents. The first column indicates the foliation; the second lists the autograph dates; the third identifies the object of study; and the fourth provides a brief description of the material on the pages in question. Throughout the miscellany, the exercises are in a wide variety of keys and metres and employ numerous textures from chorales through different broken-chord and arpeggiated figurations. The vast majority are in two-stave keyboard or four-stave string quartet score. Many are melody/bass skeletons with occasional chords and contrapuntal voices filled in or indicated by figured bass. Bruckner sometimes omitted accidentals and committed textbook errors in voice-leading –parallel fifths, for example – which would make an elementary harmony teacher cringe. These are probably a consequence of the speed with which he proceeded (as evidenced by the dates throughout) as well as an indication that both teacher and pupil were preoccupied with formal issues, not with details of counterpoint and voice-leading which the composer had already more than mastered with Simon Sechter.

The studies began with cadences and modulations to nearly-related keys (verwandte Tonarten). At first Bruckner was concerned with cadences and modulations within a single period (Periode). Here the standard format was to write out an eight-measure period followed by three or four alternative cadences or modulations for that period (Ex. 1.1).⁶ On fol. 8r. he began to experiment with writing consecutive periods using the same material with different cadences and/or modulatory structures. In Ex. 1.2 he wrote his opening period cadencing in the dominant and followed it with a second eight-measure period. The term Periode refers to the groups of eight measures; his term for each four-measure subdivision is Glied which will be translated for the remainder of this article as 'phrase'. In his terminology the last four measures of the second period in Ex. 1.2.

Table 1.1 Contents of the Kitzler Studienbuch

Foliation	Autograph dates	Subject of the exercise 1	Description
		Cadences and Modulations	Piano and string quartet scores
1r.–8r., l. 8		within one 8-measure period	(Ex. 1.1)
8r., l. 9– 9v., l. 4		within two 8-measure periods	(Ex. 1.2)
9v., l. 5– 15v., l. 6	Christmas 1861 [10r.]	2-and 3-section Song Forms regular periods	Song and piano scores Waltz, Polka, Galop, Mazurka, Minuet 8-and 16-measure periods (Ex. 1.3)
	1 Jan. 1862 [13r.]
	2 Jan. 1862 [13v.]
15v., l. 7– 21v.	6 Jan. 1862 [16r.]	irregular periods trio forms	Piano scores
			Minuet and Trio, March and Trio
			Periods of 8–6–8, 6–4–6, 12–8–12 etc. measures
			Song in trio form
			16 measure periods (Ex. 1.4)
22r.–29r.		expanded periods	Song and piano scores (Ex. 1.5)
29v.–39r., l. 4		Scherzo and Trio	Strinq quartet scores
38r.–40v.		Etude	Piano scores
41r.–52v.		Variations	Piano and string quartet scores
53r.–68v.		Rondo	Piano scores
69r.–70r.	6 Jun. 1862 Fri. before Pentecost [70r.]	Sonata form 9 thematic sketches	Piano scores (Ex. 1.6)
70v.–72v.		5 first groups with bridge sections	Piano sonatas
73r.–75r.		5 second groups [with closing sections]	for each of the previous 5 first groups with bridge sections
75v.–78v.		2 developments with recapitulations	for two of the previous expositions
79r.–82v.	29 Jun. 1862 [79r.]	Sonata Movement in G minor	complete movement
		String Quartet in C Minor (WAB 111)	Autograph score
83r.–89r.		1st movement	Sonata form
89v.–92v.	28 Jul. 1862 9:00pm [92v.]	Andante	Small Rondo form
93r.–93v.		Scherzo	Two-section song form
94r.		Trio	Two-section song form
94v.–98v.	Linz 7 Aug. 1862 [98v.]	Rondo	Middle Rondo form
99r.–103v.	15 Aug. 1862 7:30pm [103v.]	Rondo [alternate]	Large Rondo form
104r.–107r., l. 3	22 Aug. 1862 Kirnberger Wald [107r.]	'Der Trompeter an der Katzbach'	Song for bass and piano

107r., l. 4– 109v., l. 4	25 Aug. 1862 5:00pm [109v.]	Fantasies in small forms	Four piano pieces successive periods
109v., l. 5– 114v.	26 Aug. 1862 [109v.]	Instrumentation Woodwinds, Contrabass, Piano	Arrangements of the fourth Fantasy
	26 Aug. 1862 8:00pm [112r.]
113r.–114r.	2 Sept. 1862 [113v.]	Five pieces	Piano pieces to be orchestrated two-and three-section song form
115r.–117r.		Brass	Chorales and fanfares
117v.–125v.		Orchestration of Beethoven's Pathétique Sonata	Orchestral score (exposition only)
126r.–133r.	Linz 12 Oct. 1862 [132r.]	Orchestral Compositions March in D minor (WAB 96)	Orchestral score and sketches March in three-section song form; Trio in two-section song form
133v.–143v.	10 Nov. 1862 [139r.]	Three Pieces (WAB 97)	Orchestral score and sketches – three-section song form
	Linz 16 Nov. 1862 after 6:00pm [143v.]
144r.–151r.	18 Nov. 1862 [144r.]	Overture in G minor (WAB 98)	Sketches
	27 Nov....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction
• Part One Theoretical Perspective and Compositional Practice
• Part Two Symphonist: Analytical Considerations
• Part Three Man, Musician and Reception
• Index