• Composer Anton Bruckner, 1824
• Composer Bedřich Smetana, 1824
• Composer and Pianist Carl Heinrich Carsten Reinecke, 1824

 

Anton Bruckner (4 September 1824 – 11 October 1896) was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro - German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, strongly polyphonic character, and considerable length. Bruckner's compositions helped to define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their dissonances, unprepared modulations and roving harmonies.

Unlike other musical radicals, such as Richard Wagner or Hugo Wolf who fit the enfant terrible mould, Bruckner showed extreme humility before other musicians, Wagner in particular. This apparent dichotomy between Bruckner the man and Bruckner the composer hampers efforts to describe his life in a way that gives a straightforward context for his music.

His works, the symphonies in particular, had detractors, most notably the influential Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick, and other supporters of Johannes Brahms, who pointed to their large size, use of repetition, and Bruckner's propensity to revise many of his works, often with the assistance of colleagues, and his apparent indecision about which versions he preferred. On the other hand, Bruckner was greatly admired by subsequent composers, including his friend Gustav Mahler, who described him as "half simpleton, half God".

Anton Bruckner was born in Ansfelden (then a village, now a suburb of Linz) on 4 September 1824. The ancestors of Bruckner's family were farmers and craftsmen; their history has been tracked back to the 16th century. They lived near a bridge south of Sindelburg, which led to them being called "Pruckhner an der Pruckhen". Bruckner's grandfather had gained the schoolmaster position in Ansfelden in 1776; this position was inherited by Bruckner's father, Anton Bruckner senior in 1823. It was a meagerly paid but respected position in the rural environment. Music belonged to the school curriculum, and Bruckner's father was his first music teacher. Bruckner learned to play the organ early as a child. He entered school when he was six, proved to be a hard working student, and was promoted to upper class early. While studying, Bruckner also helped his father in teaching the other children. After Bruckner received his confirmation in 1833, Bruckner's father decided to send him to another school in Hörsching. The schoolmaster, Johann Baptist Weiß, was a music enthusiast and respected organist. Here, Bruckner completed his school education and learned to play the organ excellently. He also wrote his first composition, Vier Präludien in Es-Dur für Orgel for the organ. However, biographers do not regard the work as exceptional; in his youth, Bruckner was gifted, but not a genius. When his father became ill, Anton returned to Ansfelden to help him in his work.
Bruckner's father died in 1837, when Bruckner was 13 years old. The teacher's position and house were given to a successor, and Bruckner was sent to the Augustinian monastery in St. Florian to become a choirboy. In addition to choir practice, his education included violin and organ lessons. Bruckner was in awe of the monastery's great organ, which was built during the late baroque era and improved in 1837, and he sometimes played it during church services. Later, the organ was to be called the "Bruckner Organ". Despite his musical abilities, Bruckner's mother decided that her son's future profession remained a teacher, and in 1840 Bruckner was sent to a teacher seminar in Linz. After completing the seminar with an excellent grade, he was sent as a teacher's assistant to a school in Windhaag. The living standards and pay were horrible, and Bruckner was constantly humiliated by his superior, teacher Franz Fuchs. Despite the difficult situation, Bruckner never complained or rebelled; a belief of inferiority was to remain one of Bruckner's main personal characteristics during his whole life. Prelate Michael Arneth noticed Bruckner's bad situation in Windhaag and awarded him a teacher's assistant position in St. Florian, sending him to Kronstorf an der Enns for two years. The time in Kronstorf was a much happier one for Bruckner. Compared to the few works he wrote in Windhaag, the Kronstorf compositions from 1843 - 1845 show a significantly improved artistic ability, and finally the beginnings of what could be called "the Bruckner style".

After the Kronstorf period, Bruckner returned to St Florian in 1845, where, for the next 10 years, he would work as a teacher and an organist. In May 1845, Bruckner passed an examination, which allowed him to begin work as an assistant teacher in one of the village schools of St. Florian. He continued to improve his education by taking further courses, passing an examination giving him the permission to also teach in higher education institutes, receiving the grade "very good" in all disciplines. In 1848 he was appointed an organist in St. Florian and in 1851 this was made a regular position. In St Florian, most of the repertoire consisted of the music of Michael Haydn, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Franz Joseph Aumann. In 1855, he took up a counterpoint course with Simon Sechter. In 1861 he studied further with Otto Kitzler, who introduced him to the music of Richard Wagner, which Bruckner studied extensively from 1863 onwards. Bruckner continued his studies to the age of 40. Broad fame and acceptance did not come until he was over 60. A devout Catholic who loved to drink beer, Bruckner was out of step with his contemporaries. In 1861 he had already made the acquaintance of Franz Liszt who, like Bruckner, had a strong, Catholic religious faith and who first and foremost was a harmonic innovator, initiating the new German school together with Wagner. Soon after Bruckner had ended his studies under Sechter and Kitzler, he wrote his first mature work, the Mass in D Minor.

In 1868, after Sechter had died, Bruckner hesitantly accepted Sechter's post as a teacher of music theory at the Vienna Conservatory, during which time he concentrated most of his energy on writing symphonies. These symphonies, however, were poorly received, at times considered "wild" and "nonsensical". He later accepted a post at the Vienna University in 1875, where he tried to make music theory a part of the curriculum. Overall, he was unhappy in Vienna, which was musically dominated by the critic Eduard Hanslick. At the time there was a feud between advocates of the music of Wagner and Brahms; by aligning himself with Wagner, Bruckner made an unintentional enemy out of Hanslick. However, he was not without supporters; Deutsche Zeitung's music critic Theodor Helm, and famous conductors such as Arthur Nikisch and Franz Schalk constantly tried to bring his music to the public, and for this purpose proposed 'improvements' for making Bruckner's music more acceptable to the public. While Bruckner allowed these changes, he also made sure in his will to bequeath his original scores to the Vienna National Library, confident of their musical validity.

In addition to his symphonies, Bruckner wrote masses, motets and other sacred choral works, and a few chamber works, including a string quintet. Unlike his romantic symphonies, some of Bruckner's choral works are often conservative and contrapuntal in style; however, the Te Deum, Helgoland, Psalm 150 and at least one Mass demonstrate innovative and radical uses of chromaticism.

Biographers generally characterize Bruckner as a "simple" provincial man, and many biographers have complained that there is huge discrepancy between Bruckner's life and his work. For example, Karl Grebe said: "his life doesn't tell anything about his work, and his work doesn't tell anything about his life, that's the uncomfortable fact any biography must start from. "Numerous anecdotes abound as to Bruckner's dogged pursuit of his chosen craft and his humble acceptance of the fame that eventually came his way. Once, after a rehearsal of his Fourth Symphony, the well meaning Bruckner tipped the conductor Hans Richter: "When the symphony was over," Richter related, "Bruckner came to me, his face beaming with enthusiasm and joy. I felt him press a coin into my hand. 'Take this' he said, 'and drink a glass of beer to my health.'" Richter, of course, accepted the coin, a Maria Theresa thaler, and wore it on his watch chain ever after.

Bruckner was a renowned organist in his day, impressing audiences in France in 1869, and England in 1871, giving six recitals on a new Henry Willis organ at Royal Albert Hall in London and five more at the Crystal Palace. Though he wrote no major works for the organ, his improvisation sessions sometimes yielded ideas for the symphonies. Indeed, the orchestration in his symphonies often involves abrupt switches and call - and - response between multiple groups of instruments, much like switching manuals on an organ. He taught organ performance at the Conservatory; among his students were Hans Rott and Franz Schmidt. Gustav Mahler, who called Bruckner his "forerunner", attended the conservatory at this time.

Bruckner was a lifelong bachelor who made numerous unsuccessful marriage proposals to teenage girls. One such was the daughter of a friend, called Louise; in his grief he is believed to have written the cantata "Entsagen" (Renunciation). His affection for teenage girls led to an accusation of impropriety where he taught music, and while he was exonerated, he decided to concentrate on teaching boys afterwards. His calendar for 1874 details the names of girls who appealed to him, and the list of such girls in all his diaries was very long. In 1880 he fell for a 17 year old peasant girl in the cast of the Oberammergau Passion Play. His interest in young girls seems to have been motivated by his fear of sin; he believed that (unlike older women) he could be certain that he was marrying a virgin. His unsuccessful proposals to teenagers continued when he was past his 70th birthday; one prospect came near to marrying him, but broke off the engagement when she refused to convert to Catholicism.

In July 1886, the Emperor decorated him with the Order of Franz Joseph.

Bruckner died in Vienna in 1896 at the age of 72. He is buried in the crypt of St. Florian monastery church, right below his favorite organ. He had always had a morbid fascination with death and dead bodies, and left explicit instructions to embalm his corpse.

The Anton Bruckner Private University for Music, Drama, and Dance, an institution of higher education in Linz, close to his native Ansfelden, was named after him in 1932 ("Bruckner Conservatory Linz" until 2004). The Bruckner Orchester Linz was also named in his honor.

Sometimes Bruckner's works are referred to by WAB numbers, from the Werkverzeichnis Anton Bruckner, a catalogue of Bruckner's works edited by Renate Grasberger.

The revision issue has generated controversy. A common explanation for the multiple versions is that Bruckner was willing to revise his work on the basis of harsh, uninformed criticism from his colleagues. "The result of such advice was to awaken immediately all the insecurity in the non - musical part of Bruckner's personality," musicologist Deryck Cooke writes. "Lacking all self - assurance in such matters, he felt obliged to bow to the opinions of his friends, 'the experts,' to permit ... revisions and even to help make them in some cases." This explanation was widely accepted when it was championed by Bruckner scholar Robert Haas, who was the chief editor of the first critical editions of Bruckner's works published by the International Bruckner Society; it continues to be found in the majority of program notes and biographical sketches concerning Bruckner. Haas' work was endorsed by the Nazis and so fell out of favor after the war as the Allies enforced denazification. Haas' rival Leopold Nowak was appointed to produce a whole new critical edition of Bruckner's works. He and others such as Benjamin Korstvedt and conductor Leon Botstein argued that Haas' explanation is at best idle speculation, at worst a shady justification of Haas' own editorial decisions. Also, it has been pointed out that Bruckner often started work on a symphony just days after finishing the one before. As Cooke writes, "In spite of continued opposition and criticism, and many well meaning exhortations to caution from his friends, he looked neither to right nor left, but simply got down to work on the next symphony." The matter of Bruckner's authentic texts and the reasons for his changes to them remains politicized and uncomfortable.

Bruckner's symphonies are all in four movements (though he was unable to complete the finale of the Ninth), starting with a modified sonata allegro form, a slow movement in ABA’B’A’’ form (except in the First and the Sixth), a scherzo in 3/4 time, and a modified sonata allegro form finale. (In the Eighth, Ninth, and the first version of the Second, the slow movements and scherzo are reversed. The revised version of the Fourth features a scherzo - the "Hunt" scherzo - in which the outer sections are in 2/4 meter, not the customary 3/4.) They are scored for a fairly standard orchestra of woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two or three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani and strings. The later symphonies increase this complement, but not by much. Notable is the use of Wagner tubas in his last three symphonies. With the exception of Symphony No. 4, none of Bruckner's symphonies has subtitles, and most of the nicknames were not thought up by the composer. Bruckner's works are trademarked with powerful codas and grand finales, as well as the frequent use of unison passages and orchestral tutti. His style of orchestral writing was criticized by his Viennese contemporaries, but by the middle of the 20th century musicologists recognized that Bruckner's orchestration was modeled after the sound of his primary instrument, the pipe organ.

Nicholas Temperley writes in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980) that Bruckner

alone succeeded in creating a new school of symphonic writing.... Some have classified him as a conservative, some as a radical. Really he was neither, or alternatively was a fusion of both.... [H]is music, though Wagnerian in its orchestration and its in its huge rising and falling periods, patently has its roots in older styles. Bruckner took Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as his starting point.... The introduction to the first movement, beginning mysteriously and climbing slowly with fragments of the first theme to the gigantic full statement of that theme, was taken over by Bruckner; so was the awe inspiring coda of the first movement. The scherzo and slow movement, with their alternation of melodies, are models for Bruckner's spacious middle movements, while the finale with a grand culminating hymn is a feature of almost every Bruckner symphony.

Bruckner is the first composer since Schubert about whom it is possible to make such generalizations. His symphonies deliberately followed a pattern, each one building on the achievements of its predecessors.... His melodic and harmonic style changed little, and it had as much of Schubert in it as of Wagner.... His technique in the development and transformation of themes, learnt from Beethoven, Liszt and Wagner, was unsurpassed, and he was almost the equal of Brahms in the art of melodic variation.

Cooke adds, also in the New Grove,

Despite its general debt to Beethoven and Wagner, the "Bruckner Symphony" is a unique conception, not only because of the individuality of its spirit and its materials, but even more because of the absolute originality of its formal processes. At first, these processes seemed so strange and unprecedented that they were taken as evidence of sheer incompetence.... Now it is recognized that Bruckner's unorthodox structural methods were inevitable.... Bruckner created a new and monumental type of symphonic organism, which abjured the tense, dynamic continuity of Beethoven, and the broad, fluid continuity of Wagner, in order to express something profoundly different from either composer, something elemental and metaphysical.

In a concert review, Bernard Holland described parts of the first movements of Bruckner's sixth and seventh symphonies as follows: "There is the same slow, broad introduction, the drawn out climaxes that grow, pull back and then grow some more – a sort of musical coitus interruptus."

In the 2001 Second Edition of the New Grove, Mark Evan Bonds called the Bruckner symphonies "monumental in scope and design, combining lyricism with an inherently polyphonic design.... Bruckner favored an approach to large scale form that relied more on large scale thematic and harmonic juxtaposition. Over the course of his output, one senses an ever increasing interest in cyclic integration that culminates in his masterpiece, the Symphony No. 8 in C minor, a work whose final page integrates the main themes of all four movements simultaneously."

Otto Kitzler, Bruckner's last composition teacher, set him three final tasks as the climax of his studies: a choral work (Psalm 112), an overture (the Overture in G minor), and a symphony. The last, completed in 1863, was then Bruckner's Study Symphony in F minor. Bruckner later rejected this work, but he did not destroy it. While it certainly reminds one of earlier composers such as Robert Schumann, it undeniably also bears the hallmarks of the later Bruckner style. Kitzler simply commented that the work was "not very inspired". It was first performed in 1924 and not published until 1973 and is occasionally listed as Symphony No. 00.

Bruckner's Symphony No. 1 in C minor (sometimes called by Bruckner "das kecke Beserl", roughly translated as "the saucy maid") was completed in 1866, but the original text of this symphony was not reconstructed until 1998. Instead, it is commonly known in two versions, the so-called Linz Version which is based mainly on rhythmical revisions made in 1877, and the completely revised Vienna Version of 1891, which begins to reveal his mature style, e.g. Symphony No. 8.

Next was the so-called Symphony No. 0 in D minor of 1869, a work which was so harshly criticized that Bruckner retracted it completely, and it was not performed at all during his lifetime, hence his choice for the number of the symphony.

His next attempt was a sketch of the first movement to a Symphony in B-flat major, but he did no further work on it afterwards.

The Symphony No. 2 in C minor of 1872 was revised in 1873, 1876, 1877 and 1892. It is sometimes called the Symphony of Pauses for its dramatic use of whole orchestra rests, which accentuate the form of the piece. In the Carragan edition of the 1872 version, the Scherzo is placed second and the Adagio third. It is in the same key as No. 1.

Bruckner presented his Symphony No. 3 in D minor, written in 1873, to Wagner along with the Second, asking which of them he might dedicate to him. Wagner chose the Third, and Bruckner sent him a fair copy soon after, which is why the original version of the Wagner Symphony is preserved so well despite revisions in 1874, 1876, 1877 and 1888–9. One factor that helped Wagner choose which symphony to accept the dedication of was that the Third contains quotations from Wagner's music dramas, such as Die Walküre and Lohengrin. These quotations were taken out in the revised versions.

Bruckner's first great success was his Symphony No. 4 in E flat major, more commonly known as the Romantic Symphony, the only epithet applied to a symphony by the composer himself. The 1874 version has been seldom played and success came only after major revisions in 1878, including a completely new scherzo and finale, and again in 1880–1, once again with a completely rewritten finale. This version was premiered in 1881 (under the conductor Hans Richter). Bruckner made more minor revisions of this symphony in 1886–8.

Bruckner's Symphony No. 5 in B flat major crowns his most productive era of symphony writing, finished at the beginning of 1876. Until recently we knew only the thoroughly revised version of 1878. In 2008 the original concepts of this symphony were edited and performed by Akira Naito with the Tokyo New City Orchestra. Many consider this symphony to be Bruckner's lifetime masterpiece in the area of counterpoint. For example, the Finale is a combined fugue and sonata form movement: the first theme (characterized by the downward leap of an octave) appears in the exposition as a four part fugue in the strings and the concluding theme of the exposition is presented first as a chorale in the brass, then as a four part fugue in the development, and culminating in a double fugue with the first theme at the recapitulation; additionally, the coda combines not only these two themes but also the main theme of the first movement. Bruckner never heard it played by an orchestra.

Symphony No. 6 in A major, written in 1879 – 1881, is an oft neglected work; whereas the Bruckner rhythm (two quarters plus a quarter triplet or vice versa) is an important part of his previous symphonies, it pervades this work, particularly in the first movement, making it particularly difficult to perform.

Symphony No. 7 in E major was the most beloved of Bruckner's symphonies with audiences of the time, and is still popular. It was written 1881 – 1883 and revised in 1885. During the time that Bruckner began work on this symphony, he was aware that Wagner's death was imminent, and so the Adagio is slow mournful music for Wagner, and for the first time in Bruckner's oeuvre, the Wagner tuba is included in the orchestra.

Bruckner began composition of his Symphony No. 8 in C minor in 1884. In 1887 Bruckner sent the work to Hermann Levi, the conductor who had led his Seventh to great success. Levi, who had said Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony was the greatest symphony written after Beethoven, believed that the Eighth was a confusing jumble. Devastated by Levi's assessment, Bruckner revised the work, sometimes with the aid of Franz Schalk, and completed this new version in 1890. Cooke writes that "Bruckner not only recomposed [the Eighth]... but greatly improved it in a number of ways.... This is the one symphony that Bruckner did not fully achieve in his first definite version, to which there can be no question of going back."

The final accomplishment of Bruckner's life was to be his Symphony No. 9 in D minor which he started in August 1887, and which he dedicated "To God the Beloved." The first three movements were completed by the end of 1894, the Adagio alone taking 18 months to complete. Work was delayed by the composer's poor health and by his compulsion to revise his early symphonies, and by the time of his death in 1896 he had not finished the last movement. The first three movements remained unperformed until their premiere in Vienna (in Ferdinand Löwe's version) on 11 February 1903.

Bruckner suggested using his Te Deum as a Finale, which would complete the homage to Beethoven's Ninth symphony (also in D minor). The problem was that the Te Deum is in C major, while the Ninth Symphony is in D minor, and, although Bruckner began sketching a transition from the Adagio key of E major to the triumphant key of C major, he did not pursue the idea. There have been several attempts to complete these sketches and prepare them for performance, as well as completions of his later sketches for an instrumental Finale, but only the first three movements of the symphony are usually performed.

Bruckner was a devoutly religious man, and composed numerous sacred works. He wrote a Te Deum, settings of five Psalms (including Psalm 150 in the 1890s), about forty motets (among them settings of Christus factus est pro nobis and Ave Maria), and at least seven Masses. His Requiem in D minor of 1849 is the earliest work Bruckner himself considered worthy of preservation. It shows the clear influence of Mozart's Requiem (also in D minor) and similar works of Michael Haydn. His early Masses were usually short Austrian Landmessen for use in local churches and did not always set all the numbers of the ordinary. The three Masses Bruckner wrote in the 1860s and revised later on in his life are more often performed. The Masses numbered 1 in D minor and 3 in F minor are for solo singers, chorus and orchestra, while No. 2 in E minor is for chorus and a small group of wind instruments, and was written in an attempt to meet the Cecilians halfway. The Cecilians wanted to rid church music of instruments entirely. No. 3 was clearly meant for concert, rather than liturgical performance, and it is the only one of his Masses in which he set the first line of the Gloria, "Gloria in excelsis Deo", and of the Credo, "Credo in unum Deum", to music. (In concert performances of the other Masses, these lines are intoned by a tenor soloist in the way a priest would, with a line of plainsong).

As a young man Bruckner sang in men's choirs and wrote music for them. This music is rarely performed. Biographer Derek Watson characterizes the pieces for men's choir as being "of little concern to the non - German listener". Of thirty such pieces, the cantate Helgoland of 1893, is the only secular vocal work Bruckner thought worthy enough to bequeath to the Vienna National Library.

The Overture in G minor of 1862 (revised in 1863) is occasionally included in recordings of the symphonies, and it is one of the works Bruckner wrote during his apprentice with Otto Kitzler. At that time he also wrote, as orchestration exercises, a March in D minor and three short orchestral pieces. These works already show hints of Bruckner's emerging style.

A String Quartet in C minor Bruckner composed in 1862 was discovered decades after Bruckner's death. The later String Quintet in F Major of 1879, contemporaneous with the Fifth and Sixth symphonies, has been frequently performed.

There is an orchestral Symphonic Prelude that is attributed to Bruckner and also to Mahler and Bruckner's pupil Krzyzanowski. It was discovered in the Vienna National Library in 1974 in a piano duet transcription and later orchestrated by Albrecht Gürsching, who did not know the original orchestral score (published by Doblinger, Vienna). According to BJ Cohrs it is probably the work of Bruckner himself.

Bruckner's Two Aequale of 1847 for three trombones is a solemn, brief work. Bruckner also wrote Lancer - Quadrille (c. 1850) and a few other small works for piano, as well as a few organ works.

Among his most unusual and evocative compositions is the choral Abendzauber (1878) for tenor, yodelers and four alpine horns. This work was never performed in Bruckner's lifetime.

Bruckner never wrote an opera, and as much as he was a fan of Wagner's music dramas, he was uninterested in drama. In 1893 he thought about writing an opera called Astra based on a novel by Gertrud Bollé - Hellmund. Although he attended performances of Wagner's operas, he was much more interested in the music than the plot. After seeing Wagner's Götterdämmerung, he asked: "Tell me, why did they burn the woman at the end?" Nor did Bruckner ever write an oratorio.

The Bruckner Problem is a term that refers to the difficulties and complications resulting from the numerous contrasting versions and editions that exist for most of the symphonies of Anton Bruckner. The term gained currency following the publication (in 1969) of an article dealing with the subject, "The Bruckner Problem Simplified," by musicologist Deryck Cooke, which brought the issue to the attention of English speaking musicians.

The editions of Bruckner's works published during and slightly after Bruckner's lifetime tended to "incorporate orchestral retouching, alterations in phrasing, articulation, and dynamics, and added tempo and expression markings," and on occasion were cut. These changes were made by Bruckner's friends and associates, and it is not always possible to tell whether the emendations had Bruckner's direct authorization. These were the versions that were used for nearly all performances until the 1930s. Cooke judges all these publications as "spurious" because they "did not represent Bruckner's own intentions," while Korstvedt classifies them into three categories:

• Not authentic: versions that "contain extensive modifications and additions made without Bruckner's approval, participation, or knowledge".
• Authentic: "authentic versions prepared, supervised, and authorized by Bruckner. They do contain some elements that did not originate from the composer, but especially in the light of his publication of them, this is not enough reason to reject them."
• Grey area: publications that "differ in some ways from the readings of Bruckner's last manuscript scores and certain contain some external editorial emendations ... yet they were published with Bruckner's apparent approval." "More study is needed" into these texts.

Korstvedt argues that it was not uncommon for differences to exist between the autograph manuscripts and the first publications of musical works in the late nineteenth century, and that while the discrepancies in Bruckner's case are "unusually pronounced" they are not "essentially aberrant." He points to the example of Verdi's Falstaff, whose musical text contains substantial contributions from the leader of the orchestra of La Scala which were apparently welcomed by the composer.

Robert Haas produced an edition of Bruckner's original scores during the 1930s that was endorsed by the Third Reich. The Nazis appropriated Bruckner for ideological reasons and the matter of his original scores became uncomfortable after the war. While the Allies enforced denazification, Haas' work was frowned upon and his rival Leopold Nowak was appointed to produce a whole new edition from scratch. Nowak claimed that in the case of Symphonies No. 2 and No. 8, Haas mixed and matched passages from an early version and a later version to create "hybrid" scores. However, when the manuscripts became available in microfilm, it was found that the passages that Haas had allegedly mixed in from earlier manuscripts were actually crossed out in the manuscript that Haas worked with; Bruckner wrote a letter to the conductor Felix Weingartner, in which he mentioned the cut passages and hoped that they will prove "valid for posterity, and for a circle of friends and connoisseurs".

In the case of the Third Symphony, Cooke identified and compared the following six scores:

1. 1873 original version (then still unpublished);
2. 1874 first revision (then still unpublished);
3. 1877 second revision, published in 1878 as the first edition;
4. 1877 Fritz Oeser edition of the same (published by the International Bruckner Society in 1950);
5. 1889 another revision (Cooke called this a Bruckner - Schalk revision), edited by Theodor Raettig, published 1890;
6. 1889 the same, edited by Leopold Nowak as part of the Complete Edition.

Cooke considered the 1873 and 1874 versions to be "pure pedantry" and that "the first two scores were mere discarded attempts, which have never been published or performed [at that time]". Therefore he concluded that there was only a choice between the 1877 version and the discredited (in his opinion) 1889 Bruckner - Schalk revision.

Cooke's position on the first versions has been severely criticized by later musicologists, most notably Julian Horton, saying that "his dismissal of the first version of the Third [Symphony] ... on the grounds that they were not performing versions is untenable. The fact that this score was not performed before it was revised does not render it illegitimate".

Because of the long duration and vast orchestral canvas of much of his music, Bruckner's popularity has greatly benefited from the introduction of long playing media and from improvements in recording technology.

Decades after his death, the Nazis strongly approved of Bruckner's music because it was considered by them to be an expression of the zeitgeist of the German volk, and Hitler even consecrated a bust of Bruckner in a widely photographed ceremony in 1937 at Regensburg's Walhalla temple. Bruckner's music was among the most popular in Nazi Germany and the Adagio from his Seventh Symphony was broadcast by the German radio (Deutscher Reichsrundfunk) upon announcing the news of Hitler's death on 1 May 1945. However, this did not hurt Bruckner's standing in the postwar media, and several movies and TV productions in Europe and the United States have used excerpts from his music ever since the 1950s, as they already did in the 1930s. Nor did the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra ever ban Bruckner's music as they have Wagner's, even recording with Zubin Mehta the Eighth Symphony.

Bruckner's symphonic works, much maligned in Vienna in his lifetime, now have an important place in the tradition and musical repertoire of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

The life of Bruckner was portrayed in Jan Schmidt - Garre's 1995 film Bruckner's Decision, which focuses on his recovery in the Austrian spa. Ken Russell's TV movie The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner, starring Peter Mackriel, also fictionalizes Bruckner's real life stay at a sanatorium because of obsessive compulsive disorder (or 'numeromania' as it was then described).

In addition, "Visconti used the music of Bruckner for his Senso (1953), its plot concerned with the Austrian invasion of Italy in the 1860s." The score by Carl Davis for Ben - Hur takes "inspiration from Bruckner to achieve reverence in biblical scenes."

Bruno Walter, who acted as an "ambassador" for Bruckner in the United States, made celebrated recordings of symphonies 4, 7 and 9 late in his career and wrote an essay on "Bruckner and Mahler". Otto Klemperer made one of the first two recordings of Bruckner (the Adagio of the Eighth Symphony from 1924). Wilhelm Furtwängler made his conducting debut with the Ninth Symphony in 1906 and conducted Bruckner constantly throughout his career.

Hans Knappertsbusch was unusual in continuing to perform the first published editions of Bruckner's symphonies even after the critical editions became available. Eugen Jochum recorded Bruckner's numbered symphonies many times, as did Herbert von Karajan. Günter Wand, in addition to audio recordings, also made video recordings of his Bruckner concerts. Georg Tintner received acclaim late in life for his complete cycle of recordings on the Naxos label.

The Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache did not conduct all of Bruckner's symphonies, but those that he did conduct resulted in readings of great breadth, possibly the longest accounts of the works on record. This is especially true in the case of the Eighth Symphony, which lasts over 100 minutes. Although he never made commercial recordings of Bruckner, several recordings of concert performances were released after his death.

Eliahu Inbal recorded an early cycle which featured some previously unrecorded versions. For instance, Inbal was the first conductor to record the first version of Bruckner's Third, Fourth, and the completed finale to the Ninth. Daniel Barenboim recorded two complete cycles of Bruckner's symphonies, one with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the other with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Sir Georg Solti also recorded a complete cycle with the Chicago Symphony. Bernard Haitink recorded all of Bruckner's numbered symphonies with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and re-recorded several symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic and Berlin Philharmonic. Carlo Maria Giulini made a specialty of Bruckner's late symphonies. Giuseppe Sinopoli was in the process of recording all Bruckner's symphonies at the time of his death.

More recently Riccardo Chailly, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Christian Thielemann, Mariss Jansons, Benjamin Zander and Simone Young have recorded several Bruckner symphonies. Leon Botstein is the most recent conductor to record inauthentic versions of Bruckner's symphonies (e.g., the 1894 Schalk version of the Fifth).

Bedřich Smetana (2 March 1824  – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his opera The Bartered Bride, for the symphonic cycle Má vlast ("My Fatherland") which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native land, and for his First String Quartet From My Life.

Smetana was naturally gifted as a pianist, and gave his first public performance at the age of six. After his conventional schooling, he studied music under Josef Proksch in Prague. His first nationalistic music was written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated. After failing to establish his career in Prague, he left for Sweden, where he set up as a teacher and choirmaster in Gothenburg, and began to write large scale orchestral works. During this period of his life Smetana was twice married; of six daughters, three died in infancy.

In the early 1860s, a more liberal political climate in Bohemia encouraged Smetana to return permanently to Prague. He threw himself into the musical life of the city, primarily as a champion of the new genre of Czech opera. In 1866 his first two operas, The Brandenburgers in Bohemia and The Bartered Bride, were premiered at Prague's new Provisional Theatre, the latter achieving great popularity. In that same year, Smetana became the theater's principal conductor, but the years of his conductorship were marked by controversy. Factions within the city's musical establishment considered his identification with the progressive ideas of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner inimical to the development of a distinctively Czech opera style. This opposition interfered with his creative work, and may have hastened the health breakdown which precipitated his resignation from the theater in 1874.

By the end of 1874, Smetana had become completely deaf but, freed from his theater duties and the related controversies, he began a period of sustained composition that continued for almost the rest of his life. His contributions to Czech music were increasingly recognised and honored, but a mental collapse early in 1884 led to his incarceration in an asylum, and his subsequent death. Smetana's reputation as the founding father of Czech music has endured in his native country, where advocates have raised his status above that of his contemporaries and successors. However, relatively few of Smetana's works are in the international repertory, and most foreign commentators tend to regard Antonín Dvořák as a more significant Czech composer.

Bedřich Smetana was born as Friedrich Smetana on 2 March 1824, in Litomyšl, east of Prague near the traditional border between Bohemia and Moravia, then provinces of the Habsburg Empire. He was the third child, and first son, of František Smetana and his third wife Barbora Lynková. František had fathered eight children in two earlier marriages, five daughters surviving infancy; he and Barbora had ten more children, of whom seven reached adulthood. At this time, under Habsburg rule, German was the official language of Bohemia. František knew Czech, but for business and social reasons rarely used it, and his children were ignorant of it until much later in their lives.

The Smetana family came from the Hradec Králové region of Bohemia. František had initially learned the trade of a brewer, and had acquired moderate wealth during the Napoleonic Wars by supplying clothing and provisions to the French Army. He subsequently managed several breweries before coming to Litomyšl in 1823 as brewer to Count Waldstein, whose Renaissance castle dominates the town.

The elder Smetana, although uneducated, had a natural gift for music and was a competent violinist who played in a string quartet. Bedřich was introduced to music by his father and in October 1830, at the age of six, gave his first public performance. At a concert held in Litomyšl's Philosophical Academy he played a piano arrangement of Auber's overture to La muette de Portici, to a rapturous reception. In 1831 the family moved to Jindřichův Hradec in the south of Bohemia – the region where, a generation later, Gustav Mahler grew up. Here, Smetana attended the local elementary school and later the gymnasium. He also studied violin and piano, discovering the works of Mozart and Beethoven, and began composing simple pieces of which one, a dance (Kvapiček, or "Little Galop"), survives in sketch form.

In 1835, František retired to a farm in the south - eastern region of Bohemia. There being no suitable local school, Smetana was sent to the gymnasium at Jihlava, where he was homesick and unable to study. He then transferred to the Premonstratensian school at Německý Brod, where he was happier and made good progress. Among the friends he made here was the future Czech revolutionary poet Karel Havlíček, whose departure for Prague in 1838 may have influenced Smetana's own desire to experience life in the capital. The following year, with František's approval, he enrolled at Prague's Academic Grammar School under Josef Jungmann, a distinguished poet and linguist who was a leading figure in the movement for Czech national revival.

Smetana arrived in Prague in the autumn of 1839. Finding Jungmann's school uncongenial (he was mocked by his classmates for his country manners), Smetana soon began missing classes. He attended concerts, visited the opera, listened to military bands and joined an amateur string quartet for whom he composed simple pieces. After Liszt gave a series of piano recitals in the city, Smetana became convinced that he would find satisfaction only in a musical career. He confided to his journal that he wanted "to become a Mozart in composition and a Liszt in technique". However, the Prague idyll ended when František discovered his son's truancy, and removed him from the city. František at this time saw music as a diverting pastime, not as a career choice. Smetana was placed temporarily with his uncle in Nové Město, where he enjoyed a brief romance with his cousin Louisa. He commemorated their passion in Louisa's Polka, Smetana's earliest complete composition that has survived.

An older cousin, Josef Smetana, a teacher at the Premonstratensian School in Plzeň (Pilsen), then offered to supervise the boy's remaining schooling, and in the summer of 1840 Smetana departed for Plzeň. He remained there until he completed his schooling in 1843. His skills as a pianist were in great demand at the town's many soirées, and he enjoyed a hectic social life. This included a number of romances, the most important of which was with Kateřina Kolářová, whom he had known briefly in his early childhood. Smetana was entirely captivated with her, writing in his journal: "When I am not with her I am sitting on hot coals and have no peace". He composed several pieces for her, among which are two Quadrilles, a song duet, and an incomplete piano study for the left hand. He also composed his first orchestral piece, a B-flat minuet.

By the time Smetana completed his schooling, his father's fortunes had declined. Although František now agreed that his son should follow a musical career, he could not provide financial support. In August 1843 Smetana departed for Prague with twenty gulden, and no immediate prospects. Lacking any formal musical training, he needed a teacher, and was introduced by Kateřina Kolářová's mother to Josef Proksch, head of the Prague Music Institute – where Kateřina was now studying. Proksch used the most modern teaching methods, drawing on Beethoven, Chopin, Berlioz and the Leipzig circle of Liszt. In January 1844 Proksch agreed to take Smetana as a pupil, and at the same time the young musician's financial difficulties were eased when he secured an appointment as music teacher to the family of a nobleman, Count Thun.

For the next three years, besides teaching piano to the Thun children, Smetana studied theory and composition under Proksch. The works he composed in these years include songs, dances, bagatelles, impromptus and the G minor Piano Sonata. In 1846 Smetana attended concerts given in Prague by Berlioz, and in all likelihood met the French master at a reception arranged by Proksch. At the home of Count Thun he met Robert and Clara Schumann, and showed them his G minor sonata, but failed to win their approval for this work – they detected too much of Berlioz in it. Meanwhile his friendship with Kateřina blossomed. In June 1847, on resigning his position in the Thun household, Smetana recommended her as his replacement. He then set out on a tour of Western Bohemia, hoping to establish a reputation as a concert pianist.

Smetana's concert tour to Western Bohemia was poorly supported, so he abandoned it and returned to Prague, where he made a living from private pupils and occasional appearances as an accompanist in chamber concerts. He also began work on his first major orchestral work, the Overture in D major.

For a brief period in 1848, Smetana was a revolutionary. In the climate of political change and upheaval that swept through Europe in that year, a pro - democracy movement in Prague led by Smetana's old friend Karel Havlíček was urging an end to Habsburg absolutist rule and for more political autonomy. A Citizens' Army ("Svornost") was formed to defend the city against possible attack. Smetana wrote a series of patriotic works, including two marches dedicated respectively to the Czech National Guard and the Students' Legion of the University of Prague, and The Song of Freedom to words by Ján Kollár. In June 1848, as the Habsburg armies moved to suppress rebellious tendencies, Prague came under attack from the Austrian forces led by the Prince of Windisch - Grätz. As a member of Svornost, Smetana helped to man the barricades on the Charles Bridge. The nascent uprising was quickly crushed, but Smetana avoided the imprisonment or exile received by leaders such as Havlíček. During his brief spell with Svornost, he met the writer and leading radical, Karel Sabina, who would later provide libretti for Smetana's first two operas.

Early in 1848, Smetana wrote to Franz Liszt, whom he had not yet met, asking him to accept the dedication of a new piano work, Six Characteristic Pieces, and recommend it to a publisher. He also requested a loan of 400 gulden, to enable him to open a music school. Liszt replied cordially, accepting the dedication and promising to help find a publisher, but he offered no financial assistance. This encouragement was the beginning of a friendship that was of great value to Smetana in his subsequent career. Despite Liszt's lack of financial support, Smetana was able to start a Piano Institute in late August 1848, with twelve students. After a period of struggle the Institute began to flourish and became briefly fashionable, particularly among supporters of Czech nationalism in whose eyes Smetana was developing a reputation. Proksch wrote of Smetana's support for his people's cause, and said that he "could well become the transformer of my ideas in the Czech language." In 1849 the Institute was relocated to the home of Kateřina's parents, and began to attract distinguished visitors; Liszt came regularly, and the former emperor Ferdinand, who had settled in Prague, attended the school's matinée concerts. Smetana's performances in these concerts became a recognised feature of Prague's musical life. In this time of relative financial stability Smetana married Kateřina, on 27 August 1849. Four daughters were born to the couple between 1851 and 1855.

In 1850, notwithstanding his revolutionary sentiments, Smetana accepted the post of Court Pianist in Ferdinand's establishment in Prague Castle. He continued teaching in the Piano Institute, and devoted himself increasingly to composition. His works, mainly for the piano, included the three part Wedding Scenes, some of the music of which was later used in The Bartered Bride. He also wrote numerous short experimental pieces collected under the name Album Leaves, and a series of polkas. During 1853 – 54 he worked on a major orchestral piece, the Triumphal Symphony, composed to commemorate the wedding of Emperor Franz Joseph. The symphony was rejected by the Imperial Court, possibly on the grounds that the brief musical references to the Austrian national anthem were not sufficiently prominent. Undeterred, Smetana hired an orchestra at his own expense to perform the symphony at the Konvikt Hall in Prague on 26 February 1855. The work was coolly received, and the concert was a financial failure.

In the years between 1854 and 1856 Smetana suffered a series of personal blows. In July 1854 his second daughter, Gabriela, died of tuberculosis. A year later his eldest daughter Bedřiška, who at the age of four was showing signs of musical precocity, died of scarlet fever. Smetana wrote his Piano Trio in G minor as a tribute to her memory; it was performed in Prague on 3 December 1855 and, according to the composer, was received "harshly" by the critics, although Liszt praised it. Smetana's sorrows continued; just after Bedřiška's death a fourth daughter, Kateřina, had been born but she, too, died in June 1856. By this time Smetana's wife Kateřina had also been diagnosed with tuberculosis.

In July 1856, Smetana received news of the death in exile of his revolutionary friend Karel Havlíček. The political climate in Prague was a further source of gloom; hopes of a more enlightened government and social reform following Franz Joseph's accession in 1848 had faded as Austrian absolutism reasserted itself under Baron Alexander von Bach. Despite the good name of the Piano Institute, Smetana's status as a concert pianist was generally considered to be below that of contemporaries such as Alexander Dreyschock. Critics acknowledged Smetana's "delicate, crystalline touch", closer in style to Chopin than Liszt, but believed that his physical frailty was a serious drawback to his concert playing ambitions. His main performance success during this period was his playing of Mozart's D minor Piano Concerto at a concert celebrating the centenary of Mozart's birth, in January 1856. His disenchantment with Prague was growing and, perhaps influenced by Dreyschock's accounts of opportunities to be found in Sweden, Smetana decided to seek success there. On 11 October 1856, after writing to his parents that "Prague did not wish to acknowledge me, so I left it", he departed for Gothenburg.

Smetana initially went to Gothenburg without Kateřina. Writing to Liszt, he said that the people there were musically unsophisticated, but he saw this as an opportunity "for an impact I could never have achieved in Prague." Within a few weeks of his arrival he had given his first recital, opened a music school which was rapidly overwhelmed by applications, and become conductor of the Gothenburg Society for Classical Choral Music. In a few months Smetana had achieved both professional and social recognition in the city, although he found little time for composition; two intended orchestral works, provisionally entitled Frithjof and The Viking's Voyage, were sketched but abandoned.

In summer 1857, Smetana came home to Prague and found Kateřina in failing health. In June, Smetana's father František died. That autumn Smetana returned to Gothenburg, with Kateřina and their surviving daughter Žofie, but before doing so he visited Liszt in Weimar. The occasion was the Karl August Goethe - Schiller Jubilee celebrations; Smetana attended performances of Liszt's Faust Symphony and the symphonic poem Die Ideale, which invigorated and inspired him. Liszt was Smetana's principal teacher throughout the latter's creative life, and at this time was crucially able to revive his spirits and rescue him from the relative artistic isolation of Gothenburg.

Back in Sweden, Smetana found among his new pupils a young housewife, Fröjda Benecke, who briefly became his muse and his mistress. In her honor Smetana transcribed two songs from Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin cycle, and transformed one of his own early piano pieces into a polka entitled Vision at the Ball. He also began composing on a more expansive scale. In 1858 he completed the symphonic poem Richard III, his first major orchestral composition since the Triumphal Symphony. He followed this with Wallenstein's Camp, inspired by Friedrich Schiller's Wallenstein drama trilogy, and began a third symphonic poem Hakon Jarl, based on the tragic drama by Danish poet Adam Oehlenschläger. Smetana also wrote a two large scale piano works: Macbeth and the Witches, and an Étude in C in the style of Liszt.

Kateřina's health gradually worsened and in the spring of 1859 failed completely. Homeward bound, she died at Dresden on 19 April 1859. Smetana wrote that she had died "gently, without our knowing anything until the quiet drew my attention to her." After placing Žofie with Kateřina's mother, Smetana spent time with Liszt in Weimar, where he was introduced to the music of the comic opera Der Barbier von Bagdad, by Liszt's pupil Peter Cornelius. This work would influence Smetana's own later career as an opera composer. Later that year he stayed with his younger brother Karel, and fell in love with Karel's sister - in - law Barbora (Bettina) Ferdinandiová, sixteen years his junior. He proposed marriage, and having secured her promise returned to Gothenburg for the 1859 – 60 winter. The marriage took place the following year, on 10 July 1860, after which Smetana and his new wife returned to Sweden for a final season. This culminated in April 1861 with a piano performance in Stockholm, attended by the Swedish royal family. The couple's first daughter, Zdeňka, was born in September 1861.

Meanwhile, the defeat of Franz Joseph's army at Solferino in 1859 had weakened the Habsburg Empire, and led to the fall from power of von Bach. This had gradually brought a more enlightened atmosphere to Prague, and by 1861 Smetana was seeing prospects of a better future for Czech nationalism and culture. Before deciding his own future, in September Smetana set out on a concert tour of Holland and Germany. He was still hoping to secure a reputation as a pianist, but once again he experienced failure. Back in Prague, he conducted performances of Richard III and Wallenstein's Camp in the Žofín Island concert hall in January 1862, to a muted reception. Critics accused him of adhering too closely to the "New German" school represented primarily by Liszt; Smetana responded that "a prophet is without honor in his own land." In March 1862 he made a last brief visit to Gothenburg, but the city no longer held his interest; it appeared to him a provincial backwater and, whatever the difficulties, he now determined to seek his musical future in Prague: "My home has rooted itself into my heart so much that only there do I find real contentment. It is to this that I will sacrifice myself."

In 1861, it was announced that a Provisional Theatre would be built in Prague, as a home for Czech opera. Smetana saw this as an opportunity to write and stage opera that would reflect Czech national character, similar to the portrayals of Russian life in Mikhail Glinka's operas. He hoped that he might be considered for the theater's conductorship, but the post went to Jan Nepomuk Maýr, apparently because the conservative faction in charge of the project considered Smetana a "dangerous modernist", in thrall to avant garde composers such as Liszt and Wagner. Smetana then turned his attention to an opera competition, organized by Count Jan von Harrach, which offered prizes of 600 gulden each for the best comic and historical operas based on Czech culture. With no useful model on which to base his work — Czech opera as a genre scarcely existed — Smetana had to create his own style. He engaged Karel Sabina, his comrade from the 1848 barricades, as his librettist, and received Sabina's text in February 1862, a story of the 13th century invasion of Bohemia by Otto of Brandenburg. In April 1863 he submitted the score, under the title of The Brandenburgers in Bohemia.

At this stage in his career, Smetana's command of the Czech language was poor. His generation of Czechs was educated in German, and he had difficulty expressing himself in what was supposedly his native tongue. To overcome these linguistic deficiencies he studied Czech grammar, and made a point of writing and speaking in Czech every day. He had become Chorus Master of the nationalistic Hlahol Choral Society soon after his return from Sweden, and as his fluency in the Czech language developed he composed patriotic choruses for the Society; The Three Riders and The Renegade were performed at concerts in early 1863. In March of that year Smetana was elected president of the music section of Umělecká Beseda, a society for Czech artists. By 1864 he was proficient enough in the Czech language to be appointed as music critic to the main Czech language newspaper Národní listy. Meanwhile, Bettina had given birth to another daughter, Božena.

On 23 April 1864, Smetana conducted Berlioz's choral symphony Roméo et Juliette at a concert celebrating the Shakespeare tercentenary, adding to the program his own March for the Shakespearean Festival. That year, Smetana's bid to become Director of the Prague Conservatory failed. He had set high hopes on this appointment: "My friends are trying to persuade me that this post might have been especially created for me," he wrote to a Swedish friend. His hopes were again dashed by his affiliation with the perceived radical Liszt, the appointing committee choosing the conservative patriot Josef Krejčí for the post.

Almost three years passed before Smetana was declared the winner of Harrach's opera competition. Before then, on 5 January 1866, The Brandenburgers had been performed to an enthusiastic reception at the Provisional Theatre — over strong opposition from Maýr, who had refused to rehearse or conduct the piece. The idiom was too advanced for Maýr's liking, and the opera was eventually staged under the composer's own direction. "I was called on stage nine times," Smetana wrote, recording that the house was sold out and that the critics were full of praise. Music historian Rosa Newmarch believes that, although The Brandenburgers has not stood the test of time, it contains all the germs of Smetana's operatic art.

In July 1863, Sabina had delivered the libretto for a second opera, a light comedy entitled The Bartered Bride, which Smetana composed during the next three years. Because of the success of The Brandenburgers, the management of the Provisional Theatre readily agreed to stage the new opera, which was premiered on 30 May 1866 in its original two act version with spoken dialogue. The opera was to go through several revisions and restructures before reaching the definitive three act form that in due course established Smetana's international reputation. The opera's first performance was a failure; it was held on one of the hottest evenings of the year, on the eve of the Austro - Prussian War with Bohemia under imminent threat of invasion by Prussian troops. Unsurprisingly the occasion was poorly attended, and receipts failed to cover costs. When presented at the Provisional Theatre in its final form, in September 1870, it was a tremendous public success.

Back in 1866, as the composer of The Brandenburgers with its overtones of German military aggression, Smetana thought he might be targeted by the invading Prussians, so he absented himself from Prague until hostilities ceased. He returned in September, and almost immediately achieved a long standing ambition – appointment as principal conductor of the Provisional Theatre, at an annual salary of 1,200 gulden. In the absence of a body of suitable Czech opera, Smetana in his first season presented standard works by Weber, Mozart, Donizetti, Rossini and Glinka, with a revival of his own Bartered Bride. The quality of Smetana's production of Glinka's A Life for the Tsar angered Glinka's champion Mily Balakirev, who expressed himself forcefully. This caused prolonged hostility between the two men. On 16 May 1868 Smetana, representing Czech musicians, helped to lay the foundation stone for the future National Theatre; he had written a Festive Overture for the occasion. That same evening Smetana's third opera, Dalibor, was premièred at Prague's New Town Theatre. Although its initial reception was warm its reviews were poor, and Smetana resigned himself to its failure. This opera soon became the basis of a series of attacks on Smetana, followed by a concerted effort to drive him from his position as Provisional Theatre conductor.

Early in his conductorship Smetana had made a powerful enemy in František Pivoda, the Director of the Prague School of Singing. Formerly a supporter of Smetana's, Pivoda was aggrieved when the conductor recruited singing talent from abroad rather than from Pivoda's school. In an increasingly bitter public correspondence, Pivoda claimed that Smetana was using his position to further his own career, at the expense of other composers.

Pivoda then took issue with Dalibor, calling it an example of extreme "Wagnerism" and thus, unsuited as a model for Czech national opera. "Wagnerism" meant the adoption of Wagner's theories of a continuous role for the orchestra and the building of an integrated musical drama, rather than a stringing together of lyrical numbers. The Provisional Theatre's chairman, František Rieger, had first accused Smetana of Wagnerist tendencies after the first performance of The Brandenburgers, and the issue eventually divided Prague's musical society. Music critic Otakar Hostinský believed that Wagner's theories should be the basis of the national opera, and argued that Dalibor was the beginning of the "correct" direction. The opposite camp, led by Pivoda, supported the principles of Italian opera, in which the voice rather than the orchestra was the predominant dramatic device.

Even within the theater itself there was division. Rieger led a campaign to eject Smetana from the conductorship and reappoint Maýr, and in December 1872 a petition signed by 86 subscribers to the theater called for Smetana's resignation. Strong support from vice chairman Antonín Čísek, and an ultimatum from prominent musicians among whom was Antonín Dvořák, ensured Smetana's survival. In January 1873 he was reappointed, with a bigger salary and increased responsibility as Artistic Director.

Smetana gradually brought more operas by emergent Czech composers to the theater, but little of his own work. By 1872 he had completed his monumental fourth opera, Libuše, his most ambitious work to date, but was withholding its premiere for the future opening of the National Theatre. The machinations of Pivoda and his supporters distracted Smetana from composition, and he had further vexation when The Bartered Bride was produced in Saint Petersburg, in January 1871. Although the audience was enthusiastic, press reports were hostile, one describing the work as "no better than that of a gifted fourteen year old boy." Smetana was deeply offended, and blamed his old adversary, Balakirev, for inciting negative feelings against the opera.

In the respite following his reappointment, Smetana concentrated on his fifth opera, The Two Widows, composed between June 1873 and January 1874. After its first performance at the Provisional Theatre on 27 March 1874, Smetana's supporters presented him with a decorative baton. But his opponents continued to attack him, comparing his conductorship unfavorably with the Maýr regime and claiming that under Smetana "Czech opera sickens to death at least once annually." By the summer Smetana was ill; a throat infection was followed by a rash and an apparent blockage to the ears. By mid August, unable to work, he transferred his duties to his deputy, Adolf Čech. A press announcement stated that Smetana had "become ill as a result of nervous strain caused by certain people recently."

In September, Smetana told the theater he would resign his appointment unless his health improved. He had become totally deaf in his right ear, and in October lost all hearing in his left ear also. After his subsequent resignation the theater offered him an annual pension of 1,200 gulden for the continued right to perform his operas, an arrangement which Smetana reluctantly accepted. Money raised in Prague by former students, and by former lover Fröjda Benecke in Gothenburg, amounted to 1,244 gulden. This allowed Smetana to seek medical treatment abroad, but to no avail. In January 1875 Smetana wrote in his journal: "If my disease is incurable, then I should prefer to be liberated from this life." His spirits were further lowered at this time by a deterioration in his relationship with Bettina, mainly over money matters. "I cannot live under the same roof as a person who hates and persecutes me", Smetana informed her. Although divorce was considered, the couple stayed unhappily together.

In worsening health, Smetana continued to compose. In June 1876 he, Bettina and their two daughters left Prague for Jabkenice, the home of his eldest daughter Žofie where, in tranquil surroundings, Smetana was able to work undisturbed. Before leaving Prague he had begun a cycle of six symphonic poems, called Má vlast ("My Fatherland"), and had completed the first two, Vyšehrad and Vltava, which had both been performed in Prague during 1875. In Jabkenice Smetana composed four more movements, the complete cycle being first performed on 5 November 1882 under the baton of Adolf Čech. Other major works composed in these years were the E minor String Quartet, From My Life, a series of Czech dances for piano, several choral pieces and three more operas: The Kiss, The Secret and The Devil's Wall, all of which received their first performances between 1876 and 1882.

The long delayed premiere of Smetana's opera Libuše finally arrived when the National Theatre opened on 11 June 1881. He had not initially been given tickets, but at the last minute was asked into the theater director's box. The audience received the work enthusiastically, and Smetana was called to the stage repeatedly. Shortly after this event the new theater was destroyed by fire; despite his infirmities, Smetana helped to raise funds for the rebuilding. The restored theater reopened on 18 November 1883, again with Libuše.

These years saw Smetana's growing recognition as the principal exponent of Czech national music. This status was celebrated by several events during Smetana's final years. On 4 January 1880, a special concert in Prague marked the 50th anniversary of his first public performance; Smetana attended, and played his Piano Trio in G minor from 1855. In May 1882 The Bartered Bride was given its 100th performance, an unprecedented event in the history of Czech opera, and so popular that a repeat "100th performance" was staged. A gala concert and banquet was arranged to honor Smetana's 60th birthday in March 1884, but he was too ill to attend.

In 1879, Smetana had written to a friend, the Czech poet Jan Neruda, revealing fears of the onset of madness. By the winter of 1882 – 83 he was experiencing depression, insomnia, and hallucinations, together with giddiness, cramp and a temporary loss of speech. In 1883 he began writing a new symphonic suite, Prague Carnival, but could get no further than an Introduction and a Polonaise. He started a new opera, Viola, based on the character in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, but wrote only fragments as his mental state gradually deteriorated. In October 1883 his behavior at a private reception in Prague disturbed his friends; by the middle of February 1884 he had ceased to be coherent, and was periodically violent. On 23 April his family, unable to nurse him any longer, removed him to the Kateřinky Lunatic Asylum in Prague, where he died on 12 May 1884.

The hospital registered the cause of death as senile dementia. However, Smetana's family believed that his physical and mental decline was due to syphilis. An analysis of the autopsy report, published by the German neurologist Dr Ernst Levin in 1972, came to the same conclusion. Tests carried out by Prof. Emanuel Vlček in the late 20th century on samples of muscular tissue from Smetana's exhumed body provided further evidence of the disease. However, this research has been challenged by Czech physician Dr Jiří Ramba, who has argued that Vlček's tests do not provide a basis for a reliable conclusion, citing the age and state of the tissues and highlighting reported symptoms of Smetana's that were incompatible with syphilis.

Smetana's funeral took place on 15 May, at the Týn Church in Prague's Old Town. The subsequent procession to the Vyšehrad Cemetery was led by members of the Hlahol, bearing torches, and was followed by a large crowd. The grave later became a place of pilgrimage for musical visitors to Prague. On the funeral evening, a scheduled performance of The Bartered Bride at the National Theatre was allowed to proceed, the stage draped with black cloth as a mark of respect.

Smetana was survived by Bettina, their daughters Zdeňka and Božena, and by Žofie. None of them played any significant role in Smetana's musical life. Bettina lived until 1908; Žofie, who had married Josef Schwarz in 1874, predeceased her stepmother, dying in 1902. The younger daughters eventually married, living out their lives away from the public eye. A permanent memorial to Smetana's life and work is the Smetana Museum in Prague, originally founded in 1926 within the Charles University's Institute for Musicology. In 1936 the museum moved to the former Waterworks building on the banks of the Vltava, and since 1976 has been part of the Czech Museum of Music.

The basic materials from which Smetana fashioned his art, according to Newmarch, were nationalism, realism and romanticism. A particular feature of all his later music is its descriptive character – all his major compositions outside his operas are written to programs, and many are specifically autobiographical. Smetana's champions have recognised the major influences on his work as Liszt, Wagner and Berlioz – the "progressives" – while those same advocates have often played down the significance of "traditionalist" composers such as Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and Meyerbeer.

All but a handful of Smetana's compositions before his departure for Gothenburg had been piano works. Some of these early pieces have been dismissed by music historian Harold Schonberg as "bombastic virtuoso rhetoric derived from Liszt". Under Proksch, however, Smetana acquired more polish, as revealed in works such as the G minor Sonata of 1846 and the E-flat Polka of the same year. The set of Six Characteristic Pieces of 1848 was dedicated to Liszt, who described it as "the most outstanding, finely felt and finely finished pieces that have recently come to my note." In this period Smetana planned a cycle of so-called "album leaves", short pieces in every major and minor key, after the manner of Chopin's Preludes. The project became somewhat disorganised; in the pieces completed, some keys are repeated while others are unrepresented. After Smetana's final return from Gothenburg, when he committed himself primarily to the development of Czech opera, he wrote nothing for the piano for 13 years.

In his last decade Smetana composed three substantial piano cycles. The first, from 1875, was entitled Dreams. It was dedicated to former pupils of Smetana's, who had raised funds to cover medical expenses, and is also a tribute to the composer's models of the 1840s — Schumann, Chopin and Liszt. Smetana's last major piano works were the two Czech Dances cycles of 1877 and 1879. The first of these had the purpose, as Smetana explained to his publisher, of "idealising the polka, as Chopin in his day did with the mazurka." The second cycle is a medley of dances, each given a specific title so that people would know "which dances with real names we Czechs have."

Smetana's early songs are settings of German poems for single voice. Apart from his 1848 Song of Freedom, he did not begin to write pieces for a full choir until after his Gothenburg sojourn, when he composed numerous works for the Hlahol choral society, mostly for unaccompanied male voices. Smetana's choral music is generally nationalistic in character, ranging in scale from the short Ceremonial Chorus written after the death of the composer's revolutionary friend Havlíček, to the setting of Song of the Sea, a substantial work with the character of a choral drama.

Towards the end of his life Smetana returned to simple song writing, with five Evening Songs (1879) to words by the poet Vítězslav Hálek. His final completed work, Our Song (1883), is the last of four settings of texts by Josef Srb - Debrnov. Despite the state of Smetana's health, this is a happy celebration of Czech song and dance. The piece was lost for many years, and only received its first performance after rediscovery in 1924.

Apart from a juvenile fantasia for violin and piano, Smetana composed only four chamber works, yet each had a deep personal significance. The Piano Trio in G minor of 1855 was composed after the death of his daughter Bedřiška; its style is close to that of Robert Schumann, with hints of Liszt, and the overall tone is elegiac. It was 20 years before he returned to the chamber genre with his first String Quartet. This E minor work, subtitled From my life, was autobiographical in character, illustrating the composer's youthful enthusiasm for his art, his friendships and loves and, in a change of mood, the onset of his deafness represented by a long harmonic E in the final movement above ominous string tremolos. His second String Quartet, in D minor, written in 1882 – 83 in defiance of his doctor's orders to refrain from all musical activity, was composed in short snatches, "a swirl of music of a person who has lost his hearing." It represents Smetana's frustrations with his life, but is not wholly gloomy, and includes a bright polka. It was one of his final compositions; between the two quartets he wrote a violin and piano duet From the homeland, a mixture of melancholy and happiness with strong affinity to Czech folk material.

Dissatisfied with his first large scale orchestral work, the D major Overture of 1848, Smetana studied passages from Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Weber and Berlioz before producing his Triumphal Symphony of 1853. Though this is dismissed by Rosa Newmarch as "an epithalamium for a Habsburg Prince", Smetana's biographer Brian Large identifies much in the piece that characterises the composer's more mature works. Despite the symphony's rejection by the Court and the lukewarm reception on its premiere, Smetana did not abandon the work. It was well received in Gothenburg in 1860, and a revised version was performed in Prague in 1882, without the "triumphal" tag, under Adolf Čech. The piece is now sometimes called the Festive Symphony.

Smetana's visit to Liszt at Weimar in the summer of 1857, where he heard the latter's Faust Symphony and Die Ideale, caused a material reorientation of Smetana's orchestral music. These works gave Smetana answers to many compositional problems relating to the structure of orchestral music, and suggested a means for expressing literary subjects by a synthesis between music and text, rather than by simple musical illustration. These insights enabled Smetana to write the three Gothenburg symphonic poems, (Richard III, Wallenstein's Camp and Hakon Jarl), works which transformed Smetana from a composer primarily of salon pieces to a modern neo - Romantic, capable of handling large scale forces and demonstrating the latest musical concepts.

From 1862 Smetana was largely occupied with opera and, apart from a few short pieces, did not return to purely orchestral music before beginning Má vlast in 1872. In his introduction to the Collected Edition Score, František Bartol brackets Má vlast with the opera Libuše as "direct symbols of [the] consummating national struggle". Má vlast is the first of Smetana's mature large scale works that is independent of words, and its musical ideas are bolder than anything he had tried before. To musicologist John Clapham, the cycle presents "a cross section of Czech history and legend and impressions of its scenery, and ... conveys vividly to us Smetana's view of the ethos and greatness of the nation." Despite its nationalistic associations this work has, according to Newmarch, carried Smetana's name further afield than anything he wrote, with the exception of The Bartered Bride Overture. Smetana dedicated Má vlast to the city of Prague; after its first performance in November 1882 it was acclaimed by the Czech musical public as the true representation of Czech national style. Its Vltava (or "The Moldau" in German) movement, depicting the river that runs through Prague towards its junction with the Elbe, is Smetana's best known and most internationally popular orchestral composition.

Smetana had virtually no precursors in Czech opera apart from František Škroup, whose works had rarely lasted beyond one or two performances. In his mission to create a new canon, rather than using traditional folksong Smetana turned to the popular dance music of his youth, especially the polka, to establish his link with the vernacular. He drew on existing European traditions, notably Slavonic and French, but made only scarce use of arias, preferring to base his scores on ensembles and choruses.

Although a follower of Wagner's reforms of the operatic genre, which he believed would be its salvation, Smetana rejected accusations of excessive Wagnerism, claiming that he was sufficiently occupied with "Smetanism, for that is the only honest style!" The predominantly "national" character of the first four operas is tempered by the lyrical romanticism of those written later, particularly the last three, composed in the years of Smetana's deafness. The first of this final trio, The Kiss, written when Smetana was receiving painful medical treatment is described by Newmarch as a work of serene beauty, in which tears and smiles alternate throughout the score. Smetana's librettist for "The Kiss" was the young feminist Eliška Krásnohorská, who also supplied the texts for his final two operas. She dominated the ailing composer, who had no say in the subject matter, the voice types or the balance between solos, duets and ensembles. Nevertheless, critics have noted few signs of a decline in Smetana's powers in these works, while his increasing proficiency in the Czech language meant that his settings of the language are much superior to those of his earlier operas.

Smetana's eight operas created the bedrock of the Czech opera repertory, but of these only The Bartered Bride is performed regularly outside the composer's homeland. After reaching Vienna in 1892, and London in 1895, it rapidly became part of the repertory of every major opera company worldwide. Newmarch argues that The Bartered Bride, while not a "gem of the first order", is nevertheless "a perfectly cut and polished stone of its kind." Its trademark overture, which Newmarch says "lifts us off our feet with its madcap vivacity", was composed in a piano version before Smetana received the draft libretto. Clapham believes that this has few precedents in the entire history of opera. Smetana himself was later inclined to disparage his achievement: "The Bartered Bride was merely child's play, written straight off the reel". In the view of German critic William Ritter, Smetana's creative powers reached their zenith with his third opera, Dalibor.

Even in his own homeland the general public was slow to recognise Smetana. As a young composer and pianist he was well regarded in Prague musical circles, and had the approval of Liszt, Proksch and others, but the public's lack of acknowledgement was a principal factor behind his self imposed exile in Sweden. After his return he was not taken particularly seriously, and was hard put to get audiences for his new works, hence his "prophet without honor" remark after the nearly empty hall and indifferent reception of Richard III and Wallenstein's Camp at Žofín Island in January 1862.

Smetana's first noteworthy public success was his initial opera The Brandenburgers in Bohemia, in 1866 when he was already 42 years old. His second opera, The Bartered Bride, survived the unfortunate mistiming of its opening night and became an enduring popular triumph. The different style of his third opera, Dalibor, closer to that of Wagnerian music drama, was not readily understood by the public and was condemned by critics who believed that Czech opera should be based on folk song. It disappeared from the repertory after only a handful of performances. Thereafter the machinations which accompanied Smetana's tenure as Provisional Theatre conductor restricted his creative output until 1874.

In his final decade, the most fruitful of his compositional career despite his deafness and increasing ill health, Smetana belatedly received national recognition. Of his later operas, The Two Widows and The Secret were warmly received, while The Kiss was greeted by an "overwhelming ovation". The ceremonial opera Libuše was received with thunderous applause for the composer; by this time (1881) the disputes around his music had declined, and the public was ready to honor him as the founder of Czech music. Nevertheless, the first few performances in October 1882 of an evidently under - rehearsed The Devil's Wall were chaotic, and the composer was left feeling "dishonored and dispirited". This disappointment was swiftly mitigated by the acclaim which followed the first performance of the complete Má vlast cycle in November: "Everyone rose to his feet and the same storm of unending applause was repeated after each of the six parts ... At the end of Blaník [the final part] the audience was beside itself and the people could not bring themselves to take leave of the composer."

Smetana's biographers describe him as physically frail and unimpressive in appearance, yet at least in his youth he had a joie - de - vivre which women evidently found attractive. He was also excitable, passionate and strong willed, determined to make his career in music whatever the hardships, over the wishes of his father who wanted him to become a brewer or a civil servant. Throughout his career he stood his ground; when under the severest of criticism for the "Wagnerism" in Dalibor he responded by writing Libuše, even more firmly based on the scale and concept of Wagnerian music drama. His personal life became stressful; his marriage to Bettina was loveless, and effectively broke down altogether in the years of illness and relative poverty towards the end of his life. Little of his relationships with his children is recorded, although it is reported that, on the day that he was transferred to the asylum, Žofie was "crying as though her heart would break".

There is broad agreement among most commentators that Smetana created a canon of Czech opera where none had previously existed, and that he developed a style of music in all his compositions that equated with the emergent Czech national spirit. A modified view is presented by music writer Michael Steen, who questions whether "nationalistic music" can in fact exist: "We should recognise that, whereas music is infinitely expressive, on its own it is not good at describing concrete, earthly objects or concepts." He concludes that much is dependent upon what listeners are conditioned to hear.

According to musicologist John Tyrrell, Smetana's close identification with Czech nationalism, and the tragic circumstances of his last years, have tended to affect the objectivity with which his work has been assessed, particularly in his native land. Tyrrell argues that the almost iconic status awarded to Smetana in his homeland "monumentalized him into a figure where any criticism of his life or work was discouraged" by the Czech authorities, even as late as the last part of the 20th century. As a result, Tyrrell claims, a view of Czech music has been propagated which downplays the contributions of contemporaries and successors such as Dvořák, Janáček, Josef Suk and other lesser known figures. This is at odds with perceptions in the outside world, where Dvořák is far more frequently played and much better known. Harold Schonberg observes that "Smetana was the one who founded Czech music, but Antonín Dvořák ... was the one who popularized it."

Reinecke was born in Altona, Hamburg, Germany; until 1864 the town was under Danish rule. He studied with his father, Johann Peter Rudolph Reinecke, a music teacher. Carl began to compose at the age of seven, and his first public appearance as a pianist was when he was twelve years old.

At the age of 19, he undertook his first concert tour in 1843, through Denmark and Sweden. After a stay in Leipzig, where he studied under Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt, Reinecke went on tour with Königslöw and Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski (later Schumann's biographer), in North Germany and Denmark. In 1846, Reinecke was appointed Court Pianist for Christian VIII in Copenhagen. There he remained until 1848, when he resigned and went to Paris. Overall he wrote four concertos for his instrument (and many cadenzas for others' works, including a large set published as his Opus 87), as well as concertos for violin, cello, harp and flute. In the winter of 1850 - 51, Carl Schurz reports attending weekly “musical evenings” in Paris where Reinecke was in attendance.

In 1851, Reinecke became a professor at the Cologne Conservatory. In ensuing years he was appointed musical director at Barmen, and became the academic, musical director and conductor of the Singakademie at Breslau.

In 1860, Reinecke was appointed director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra concerts in Leipzig, and professor of composition and piano at the Conservatorium. He led the orchestra for more than three decades, until 1895. He conducted premieres such as the full seven movement version of Brahms's A German Requiem (1869). In 1865 the Gewandhaus - Quartett premiered Brahms' piano quintet, and in 1892 his D major string quartet.

Reinecke is best known for his flute sonata "Undine", but he is also remembered as one of the most influential and versatile musicians of his time. He served as a teacher for 35 years, until his retirement in 1902. His students included Edvard Grieg, Basil Harwood, Christian Sinding, Leoš Janáček, Constanta Erbiceanu, Isaac Albéniz, August Max Fiedler, Walter Niemann, Johan Svendsen, Richard Franck, Felix Weingartner, Max Bruch, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, Ernest Hutcheson, Felix Fox and many others.

After retirement from the conservatory, Reinecke devoted his time to composition, resulting in almost three hundred published works. He wrote several operas (none of which are performed today) including König Manfred. During this time, he frequently made concert tours to England and elsewhere. His piano playing belonged to a school in which grace and neatness were characteristic, and at one time he was probably unrivalled as a Mozart player and an accompanist. At the age of 80, he recorded his playing on piano roll for the Welte - Mignon company, making him the earliest born pianist to have his playing preserved in any format. He died at 85 in Leipzig.