In January, 1856, having been persuaded to take part in an open competition for the vacant post of organist at the Cathedral in Linz, he easily carried off the honors, astonishing all by his incredible powers of improvisation on given themes.
During the first few of the twelve years he served as organist in Linz, Bruckner made practically no efforts at original composition, burying himself heart and soul in the contrapuntal problems heaped upon him by the pedantic Sechter. During the periods of Advent and Lent, the Cathedral organ being silent, Bishop Rudigier, who greatly admired Bruckner's genius, permitted him to go to Vienna to pursue (in person) the studies which throughout the year had to be left to the uncertain benefits of a correspondence course.
One may get some inkling of the stupendous physical and mental labor involved in "studying," as Bruckner interpreted the term, if one believes the evidence advanced by eye-witnesses, who assert that the piles of written musical exercises in the "student's" room reached from the floor to the keyboard of his piano. "For those who think this incredible there is the written word of the unimpeachable Sechter himself to the following effect. Upon receiving from Bruckner in a single installment seventeen bookfuls of written exercises, he warned him against "too great an intellectual strain," and lest his admonition be taken in ill part by the student, the teacher added the comforting, indubitable assurance: "I believe I never had a more serious pupil than you."
Eloquent of Bruckner's Herculean labors in the realm of musical grammar and rhetoric during those years is the list of examinations to which he insisted upon subjecting himself (after typical Bruckneresque preparation). After two years of work, on July 10, 1858, he passed Sechter's test in Harmony and Thorough-bass. Of the text-book he studied (now a treasured museum possession) not a single leaf remained attached to the binding. Then on August 12, 1859, he passed Elementary Counterpoint; April 3, 1860, Advanced Counterpoint; March 26, 1861, Canon and Fugue. Thereupon he remarked, "I feel like a dog which has just broken out of his chains."
Now came the crowning trial of all, one without which he could not be sure of himself. He begged for permission to submit his fund of accomplishments to the judgment of the highest musical tribunal in Europe, a commission consisting of Vienna's five recognized Solons of musical law (today all turned to names or less than names). The request was granted and Bruckner accorded the grace of choosing the scene of "combat."
Such final tests of "maturity," not uncommon in Vienna, were usually of a somewhat stereotyped nature, but in the case of this extraordinary candidate the occasion assumed an epic cast.
Bruckner had chosen for the scene of his grand trial the interior of the Piaristen-Kirche. Had Wagner been present, he might have been reminded of the examination of Walter by the Meistersinger, which he was even then planning. The customary short theme was written down by one judge and submitted to the others for approval; but one of these maliciously doubled it in length, at once changing a mere test of scholarship to a challenge of mastery.
The slip– of paper was then passed down to the expectant candidate seated at the organ. For some moments he regarded it earnestly, while the judges, misinterpreting the cause of delay, smiled knowingly.
Suddenly, however, Bruckner began, first playing a mere introduction composed of fragments of the given theme, gradually leading to the required fugue itself. Then was heard a fugue—not such a fugue as might be expected from an academic graduate, but a living contrapuntal Philippic, which pealed forth ever more majestic to strike the astonished ears of the foxy judicial quintet with the authoritative splendor of a lion's voice bursting forth from the jungle.
"He should examine us!" exclaimed one judge enthusiastically. "If I knew a tenth of what he knows, I'd be happy!"
Then, being asked to improvise freely on the organ, Bruckner exhibited so fine a fantasy that the same judge cried: "And we're asked to test him? Why, he knows more than all of us together!"
This man's name was Herbeck, and he was from that moment Bruckner's greatest musical friend. Unfortunately he died too soon to be of much help to the struggling composer.
Of great advantage to Bruckner during his Linzian years was the opportunity afforded him for the first time to try his hand at "worldly" music, for church-music had monopolized his attention ever since his earliest boyhood.
The choral society "Frohsinn" chose him as director in 1860. Through this association, on May 12, 1861, Bruckner made his first concert appearance as composer with an "Ave Maria" for seven voices.
He struck up a friendship with the young conductor at the theatre and was appalled at the realization that all his earnest years of academic study were mere child's play beside the practical musical craftsmanship of this brilliant young exponent of the "modern" school. Eagerly he have himself into the care of this new teacher. Otto Kitzier. From the regaling analysis of Beethoven's sonatas, Kitzier led his enthusiastic disciple to the study of instrumentation, introducing him to the beauties of the Tannhaeuser score. Here Bruckner was given his first glimpse of a new world of music, the very existence of which he had scarcely suspected. In 1863, finally convinced that he was ready to face the musical world alone, he took leave of Kitzier and the last of his long years of preparation.
Those years are perhaps unique in the annals of mortal genius, at least in those of Western civilization. The naive modesty of a great artist already within sight of middle age burying himself more desperately than any schoolboy in the mass of antiquated musical dogma prescribed by a "Dr. Syntax" would be at once labeled in these psychoanalytic days as a sample of the workings of an inferiority complex. But Bruckner's had been a church-life, his language a church idiom, and in the light of this, is it illogical to claim that his particular preparation had to differ from that of other symphonists as the architecture of a cathedral differs from that of a palace or villa?
In short, without those drab years of study mistakenly termed "belated," the tremendous symphonic formal concepts of Bruckner might never have been realized.
Of significance in the contemplation of his spiritual affinity to Wagner is the fact that an Overture in G-minor (composed by Bruckner in 1863) closes with the still unknown "Feuerzauber," not that either master plagiarized the other, but that the caprice of nature which set two such gigantic figures side by side in the same generation must not be ignored. It is truly a cause for human gratitude that sublime accident granted the one the faculty it denied the other. Epic as is the expression of both these Titans, Wagner's helplessness in the field of the symphony is as notorious as Bruckner's in that of the music drama. The future will simply have to regard the two composers as kindred in spirit, but supplementary in achievement.