The composer

Described by the conductor Hans von Bülow as ‘half genius, half simpleton’, the oft-maligned, desperately self-doubting Anton Bruckner is remembered today almost entirely for his symphonies and his sacred choral works.

The Austrian’s nine numbered symphonies – he also wrote two un-numbered symphonies, in D minor and F minor – range from 1865, when he was in his early 40s, to 1896, when he left his Ninth incomplete at his death. Nearly all of them were subject to significant subsequent revisions by their rarely satisfied composer.