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On January 16 and 17, the Jacksonville Symphony will open the new year with one of the most majestic works in the orchestral repertoire: Anton Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony. Vast in scale and spiritual in scope, this symphony is less a piece of music than an immersive journey—one that invites listeners to step inside a world of mystery, faith and transcendence. To fully experience its power, it helps to understand the remarkable life and inner world of its creator.
Bruckner grew up in rural Austria in the mid-nineteenth century, far from the cosmopolitan world of Vienna. When he was thirteen, his father died, and he was sent to the monastery of St Florian, where he sang in the choir, encountered great church music, and learned the organ — an instrument at which he excelled. As a young man, he went on to study strict harmony and counterpoint by correspondence with the famed Viennese theorist Simon Sechter, who had briefly taught Schubert, attaining a level of mastery Sechter had never seen before.
Yet despite this formidable training, he was never fully taken seriously in Vienna. His provincial manners, ill-cut trousers and habit of falling in love with unsuitable young women — often his students — made him an object of ridicule. His deep humility and religious devotion did not help either, and when original symphonies were misunderstood, he allowed others to persuade him to revise and cut them, often weakening his original vision.
To understand Bruckner’s music, we must grasp the sincerity of his faith. He builds not cathedrals of stone, but of sound — vast structures rooted in a longing for the infinite. Listening to Bruckner is less an act of entertainment than a spiritual journey, moving patiently from the earthly toward the transcendent. His symphonies grow slowly and monumentally, like nature itself. There is a striking tension in his work as well: personal humility set against a cosmic musical vision. Ancient traditions sit beside moments of startling originality—one moment evoking a Renaissance motet, the next something almost futuristic. Again and again, the individual seems dwarfed by something far greater. Themes rise from silence and return to it, suggesting the insignificance of human endeavor before the vastness of the divine. His art embodies surrender: to accept the limits of the self, to find meaning within mystery.
Perhaps the greatest challenge in approaching Bruckner is accepting his sense of time. His music asks us to slow down and experience duration differently. Bruckner unfolds at a pace that seems to gesture toward eternity, with repetition and long silences. These moments are not delays, but part of a slow, purposeful becoming — where each climax is not an ending, but another turn in an endless cycle, reflecting the philosophical view that spiritual insight is not seized in a single moment but approached over time.
The Eighth Symphony was composed during a time of deep personal turmoil. Though Bruckner had finally received some recognition by the mid-1880s, he faced fierce opposition from influential critics aligned with Johannes Brahms, who rejected his Wagnerian influences and expansive forms. When conductor Hermann Levi responded negatively to the symphony’s original 1887 version, Bruckner was devastated. He undertook a painstaking revision, resulting in the 1890 version that we will perform in January — an edition marked by clarity and profound emotional depth.
Across its four movements, the symphony unfolds with a sense of inevitability. The opening movement emerges from mystery, its famous tremolo strings gradually building toward overwhelming climaxes that feel like a spiritual struggle made sound. The Scherzo is both titanic and dance-like, driven by relentless energy yet softened by moments of lyrical grace.
At the heart of the symphony lies the Adagio, often considered the emotional heart of the symphony; it’s one of Bruckner’s most deeply moving slow movements. It starts with solemn nobility, rising over and toward luminous peaks that feel suspended outside of time. Here, Bruckner offers not only awe, but tenderness — a sense of unconditional love and acceptance that stands alongside his visions of divine majesty.
The finale gathers themes from across the symphony into a breathtaking culmination. It is music of elemental power, at times terrifying, at times radiant, ultimately resolving into a vision of overwhelming unity.
It’s easy to mock Bruckner’s sincerity, with his repetitions and his weird mixture of simplicity and profundity, especially if we lack the patience to give his music the time it needs to be understood. But for those who are willing to try, the Eighth Symphony provides access to a realm untouched by any other music I know. I hope you can experience this extraordinary journey with us on January 16 and 17, and step together into a space that asks life’s biggest questions—and, perhaps, offers a few answers in return.
Courtney Lewis is music director of the Jacksonville Symphony.
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