Josef Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) was an Austrian
composer, organist, and music theorist best known for
his symphonies, masses, Te Deum 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.
Although Br...(+)
Josef Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) was an Austrian
composer, organist, and music theorist best known for
his symphonies, masses, Te Deum 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.
Although Bruckner wrote a great deal of sacred choral
music (including not only his grandly conceived Mass
No. 3, but also his more intimate Mass No. 2 and his
astringent motets, which fuse Renaissance and
nineteenth century techniques), he is best known for
his symphonies: two unnumbered apprentice works, eight
completed mature symphonies, and the first three
movements of a Ninth (The finale has been reconstructed
by several hands, but most performances include just
the movements Bruckner completed). The symphonies,
influenced to some extent by Wagner and identified with
his school by the Viennese public, are monumental:
expansive in scale, rigorous (if sometimes gigantist)
in formal design, and often elaborate in their
contrapuntal writing. Their sonorities are stately and
organ-like; the Viennese critic Graf wrote that
Bruckner "pondered over chords and chord associations
as a medieval architect contemplated the original forms
of a Gothic cathedral." Despite occasional folk
influences in the scherzos, his symphonies are
uniformly high-minded, even religious, in spirit.
Together, they form the weightiest body of symphonies
between Schubert (whom he greatly admired) and Mahler.
This is Bruckner's second, and most popular, of three
settings of the Latin Ave Maria, each in the key of F
major. It was written for a May 12, 1861, celebration
to commemorate the founding of a local choral group,
the Liedertafel Frohsinn, of which Bruckner was then
director. One of a number of works he composed just
after finishing counterpoint studies with Simon
Sechter, it is generally regarded as the piece in which
Bruckner first realized his mature style of vocal
composition. Scored for a seven-part, a cappella
chorus, the women's voices sing the first lines, never
moving far from the F major triad. The men's voices
take up the next lines in similar fashion, modulating
until all join in A major block chords at the name of
Jesus, repeating the name three times in a crescendo.
The choir then breaks into imitative counterpoint to
return to the home key and finish the prayer. The
composition ends with a plagal cadence, the traditional
chords of the "Amen" usually found in Protestant hymns.
The whole work has a homophonic, yet rich and warm
sound that reflects the coming together of Bruckner's
understanding of older compositional forms and styles,
his Romantic sensibility of expression, and his
personal beliefs.
Source: Allmusic
(https://www.allmusic.com/composition/ave-maria-ii-mote
t-for-chorus-in-f-major-wab-6-mc0002355796).
Although originally written for Chorus (SAT) & Strings,
I created this Interpretation of the Ave Maria in F
Major (WAB 6) for Winds (Flute, Oboe & Bassoon) &
Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).