Anton Bruckner und Simon Sechter

The literature on Anton Bruckner has always stressed the putative incongruity between his thinking as a music theorist and his compositional output. In this article, the author tries to review and re-evaluate the extent and limits of the impact of theory on Bruckner’s musical style. The focus is on the two classical disciplines that Bruckner had studied under Simon Sechter and subsequently taught himself: harmony and counterpoint. While the descending fifths sequence represents the original model at the heart of Sechter’s system, other sequential models can be justified only to a limited extent on the basis of his fundamental bass theory. In many cases, Bruckner’s use of such models indicates that he was aware of this problem while composing. Both Sechter’s teaching method and Bruckner’s harmony are characterised by two sets of contrasts: between triad-based and seventh chord-based harmony on the one hand and between diatonicism and chromaticism on the other. That Bruckner regarded chromaticism as an artificial modification of a basic underlying diatonic material is demonstrated by the fact that it is possible to trace many of the chromatic progressions in his symphonies back to diatonic frameworks. Bruckner’s lessons in counterpoint with Sechter also helped to shape features of the composer’s style such as the frequent inversion and imitation of motifs, the technique of voiceswapping, the combination of multiple motifs and the use of double counterpoint.