10 Bruckner villages in Upper Austria. A journey through time.

Ansfelden's old schoolhouse is located in the immediate vicinity of the parish church and the magnificent baroque vicarage. It was here that son Josef Anton was born into the Bruckner family of teachers on 4 September 1824. From Bruckner's birthplace, situated on a hill in the middle of Ansfelden, the view sweeps far out into the open landscape of the Upper Austrian foothills of the Alps as far as the Danube and the Mühlviertel. Perhaps an initial foreshadowing of the hitherto unrivalled sound spaces opened up by Bruckner's symphonies.  A museum has been set up in Anton Bruckner's birthplace, which is being equipped with a new permanent exhibition to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth.

In 1837, when Anton Bruckner was less than 13 years old, his father died. Anton is placed in the Augustinian canons' monastery in St Florian. Until 1840, he was a choirboy, an ancestor of today's choirboys, who travelled the world as cultural ambassadors for Upper Austria. Bruckner received his first musical training at the monastery. And he returned here again and again. Firstly from 1845 to 1855 as a teacher and monastery organist. The organ in the abbey basilica with its 7,386 pipes made a lasting impression on Bruckner. On 15 October 1896, Bruckner, who had died a few days earlier, returned to St. Florian for the last time. He was laid to eternal rest in the crypt of the collegiate basilica. Directly beneath his Bruckner organ.

In 1840, after his time as a choirboy in St Florian, Anton Bruckner came to Linz. He trained as a primary school teacher in the so-called ‘Präparandie’, but then left the provincial capital again. In 1855 he took over the duties of cathedral and parish organist. Bruckner had now finally turned from teacher to musician. He directs the choir of the ‘Liedertafel Frohsinn’ and intensively pursues his musical studies with various teachers. And he lays the first foundations for his work as a composer. His first symphony, three large masses and the famous ‘Locus iste’ on the occasion of the consecration of the votive chapel of St Mary's Cathedral, which was currently under construction, were composed in Linz.

In 1841, at the age of 17, the newly qualified teacher Anton Bruckner took up his first position as a school assistant in Windhaag near Freistadt. The freedom to stand on his own two feet was a harsh contrast to the many tasks and duties he was assigned. And which the young Bruckner found depriving and stressful. Nevertheless, he became active as a composer here and created the Windhaag Mass. But things turned out as they had to: Bruckner came into conflict with his superiors and was finally - not voluntarily - transferred to Kronstorf near Steyr.

Shunned in Windhaag, Anton Bruckner was allowed to continue his years as a school assistant in Kronstorf from 1843. His official flat was a single room, barely six square metres in size. Nevertheless, Brucker felt ‘like he was in heaven’ here. The years in Kronstorf are also decisive in that it was here that Bruckner first described himself as a ‘composer’. In fact, he wrote more than ten compositions during his time in Kronstorf. The ‘Brucknerzimmer’, that little bachelor's delight, has been preserved to this day and can be visited as the smallest Bruckner museum in the world.

Due to overwork, Anton Bruckner slipped into a health crisis at the end of the 1860s. In 1867 and 1868, he visited the ‘cold-water sanatorium’ in Bad Kreuzen in the Mühlviertel region twice to have his ailments treated. However, the stays at the spa plunged Bruckner into deep despair. When ‘Bohemian musicians’ played to entertain the spa guests, Bruckner's composure was finally shattered. He fled from the spa centre to the nearby Wolfsschlucht gorge and lost his way in the gorge. After a search operation, he was finally rescued from the gorge with the help of ropes and ladders.

It was a rather strange procession of hikers that laboured up the steep ascent to Altpernstein Castle from Micheldorf in 1879. Anton Bruckner was keen to visit the old walls, but was unable to manage the walk and apparently had to be carried by his companions. The aim of the action was even more curious than the hike itself: Bruckner wanted to volunteer to be locked up in the castle dungeon to experience the feeling of imprisonment. When he returned to freedom from the rock dungeon, he is said to have shouted ‘Resurrexit!’ out loud. ‘He has risen!’

The imperial summer retreat in Bad Ischl was also a welcome opportunity for artists to spend the summer in the Salzkammergut. As court organist from 1863, Anton Bruckner also travelled with the imperial entourage and performed his art on the organ. When the Emperor's youngest daughter, Marie Valerie, walked down the aisle in the Ischl parish church in the summer of 1890, it was none other than Brucker who sat at the organ. And he delighted the wedding guests with one of his legendary improvisations. And, like many guests today, he didn't miss the chance to stop off at Hofzuckerbäcker Zauner before leaving. As his entry in the guest book proves.

Like Franz Schubert before him, Anton Bruckner also found the atmosphere of the town of Steyr immensely inspiring.  Especially during his time in Vienna, he enjoyed coming to the town in summer ‘where I like to spend time every year’. He cultivated numerous friendships in the town. His stays were also extremely fruitful creatively. He wrote large parts of the 8th Symphony in the idyllic town at the confluence of the Enns and Steyr rivers. He completed the score sketch of the Eighth here in the summer of 1885 - with the famous note ‘Hallelujah’. However, he continued to work on this monumental work until 1890 - also in Steyr. Just as he did on his last and ultimately unfinished 9th Symphony.

The Cistercian Abbey of Wilhering, located a few kilometres upstream from Linz directly on the Danube, was also the destination of Anton Bruckner's summer sojourns. The abbey church is a jewel from the Rococo period and is one of the most important buildings of this style in the whole of Austria. Bruckner's passion was, how could it be otherwise, the abbey's organ. However, he is said to have developed a rather strange relationship with an Indian monkey that lived in the palm house of Wilhering Abbey. The animal, whose name has not been passed down, fascinated the composer. And rumour has it that it bounces cheekily from note to note in one of his symphonies.