Gregorian Sources in the Context of Anton Bruckner’s Musical Style. Small Church Vocal-Choral Works

Anton Bruckner is a composer, in the world-view of whom the religion takes a very important place, which explains his considerable interest in writing compositions in church genres. In his ecclesiastical compositions the traces of medieval chant are repeatedly found. This paper is dedicated to Gregorian sources in the context of the style of Anton Bruckner. It deals with different methods of treatment of primary sources in Bruckner’s small church choirs. Also the problem of correlation of Bruckner’s musical language and Gregorian chant is considered. We are trying to understand how the mediaeval source affects the composer’s work.

Two ways of the composer’s treatment of Gregorian chant were found: quoting and varying of primary sources. Gregorian material creates certain degree of musical-stylistic antithesis regarding the author’s material. Such cases are often found in Bruckner’s early choirs, where there is no stylistic unity between the original source and the composer’s music (these choirs were written on the basis of simple comparison). However, in late choirs Bruckner comes to natural dialogue between the two musical styles — mediaeval and romantic, and within the boundaries of small choral opuses the unity of so crucially contrasting systems is achieved.