Bruckner and the Consequences

Anton Bruckner composed many works expressing patriotism and German nationalist sentiments. He set texts which nowadays seem unappetising in their militancy and chauvinistic pathos. Hugo Wolf and Richard Strauss behaved similarly, as did many others. It was no accident that this music was written for male-voice choral societies, as these were fruitful breeding-grounds for a nationalism which could have had disastrous consequences. When men became soldiers and songs developed into deeds, Jewish composers expressed their Utopias of peace on earth and their resistance Gegen den Krieg (against war) in settings for mixed choirs – and thus for all men and women.

© Brucknerhaus Linz