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 Anton Bruckner symphonies have been a part of my life since the late 80’s. I was introduced to them by friend and long-time Bruckner devotee Peter Wilberg - with whom I went on Bruckner pilgrimage to St. Florian and Linz in 1997. The walks in the valleys and woods around St. Florian while listening to recordings of movements of his symphonies are unforgettable. The symphonies in particular have captivated and permeated me during all these years and for me they are one of the greatest gifts mankind has received –a mirror to every conceivable state of being.

As a token of my deep gratitude I drew this charcoal portrait of Anton Bruckner which I would now like to share.

High quality fine art prints of this portrait are available for sale. 
(Giclee prints on 310g/sqm paper, size 11"x17"/29.8cm x 42.2cm)

Price: £49.50 incl postage and packaging

  

A Musically Miraculous and Magical Portrait of Anton Bruckner

- an account by Peter Wilberg

I cannot count the number of evenings that Karin Heinitz and I have sat together listening to Bruckner, sometimes for hours on end –often not just to a particular performance of a single symphony but also to several different performances of it or of a single movement within it – each performance allowing it to be hear and felt in a totally different way.

Listening to Bruckner’s symphonies with Karin Heinitz’s unique portrait in view however, I became aware of how, in contrast to every other visual image or portraits of this great and wonderful man that I have seen, hers constitutes something musically miraculous and musically mysterious in itself - and that in an almost magical way.

The miracle, the mystery and the magic of Karin's portrait lie in the way in which her noble depiction of Bruckner’s demeanour and countenance - both overall and in its every subtle feature such as the cast of his gaze  - is capable of literally transfiguring in the course of one’s listening to Bruckner's music.  

Beholding this portrait whilst listening to a Bruckner symphony is quite literally a sight to be seen, taking on as it does a quite different radiance during every phase or phrase of a symphony – and that in a way that is in perfect resonance with every musical phrase or chord one is hearing and feeling and every turn or alteration, however radical, of the silent or ‘fundamental mood’ or Grundstimmung underlying each and every great performance of a Bruckner symphony, however different.  

Karin's portrait is no mere visual representation of Bruckner the ‘composer’ but can become, for the beholder, an ever-changing embodiment of Bruckner’s music itself. Looking at it while listening, it reveals itself quite literally as a living image of that music – capable of revealing as many faces and aspects of the man as there are to be heard and felt in every phrase and turn of his music. Not least, if looked at while listening to very different Bruckner performances, it reminds us that there is no mere finite set of nine Bruckner symphonies, but (as with the music of every great symphonic composer) there are as many symphonies of Bruckner as there are ways of performing them, listening to them and moods out of which one listens. Karin’s portrait however, has the capacity not just to mirror but thereby also to amplify every possible way of feeling Bruckner’s music out of a specific mood or through a specific performance. If it does not appear to do so, that says less about the portrait than about the performance or interpretation itself and what it lacks in terms of a fundamental mood. In this sense, Karin’s portrait has also become a sort of visual litmus test of the quality and depth of every performance of Bruckner’s music I or we have listened to – and there have been many. 

 

My Relationship to Anton Bruckner - by Peter Wilberg

It was in my first, somewhat lonely year at Oxford University in 1970 that, whilst browsing in a music store, that I came across a vinyl LP of a Bruckner symphony – in this case the 7^th, conducted by Eduard van Beinum in 1947 with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. Not having even heard of Anton Bruckner at that time I only came to know and appreciate in retrospect what deep impulse moved me to purchase this recording of a composer as yet wholly unknown to me. And his music being so new to me, it took many listenings before I learnt how to listen to this one symphony - and then to all the others.  

In this process I came to learn out of what extraordinary and unique depths, breadths and heights of soul all of Bruckner’s symphonies arise - enabling us to resonate with and journey with him through and within our own souls.  I learnt also through this process that every truly great performance of Bruckner (and that however much the mood of each Bruckner symphony may seem to radicaly transform within it) must be permeated from beginning to end by a singular and silent tone of feeling set by the conductor - a ‘fundamental mood’ or Grundstimmung.

To say that Bruckner became my ‘favourite’ symphonist would be to trivialise my relationship to him. He became far more than that – no mere composer but a lifelong teacher of the deepest philosophical mysteries of life and of the divine - and the single most enduring and powerful source of inner healing at times of deep crisis or conflict in my life, able to not only echo and affirm an unparalleled range of chords, tones and textures of feeling - harmonious or dissonant but also to tonally transmute them into a fullness of wordless yet life-giving meaning - immanent and transcendent, human and divine.  

Thus it is that I can honestly say without any exaggeration - and not merely as a Bruckner ‘fan’ - that had the sole purpose of this life been simply to discover and experience in all its richness the work of this great and wonderful man, this alone would have sufficed to make that life worthwhile.

We know of Bruckner’s religious devoutness, his human sufferings - and also of his humbleness as a human being. To me these are not disconnected with the sheer power of his music. For in my view it is as if it was through his profound religious humility and awe that he became a channel for a still-unsurpassed musical expression of the grandeur of God himself.