Böck is Bruckner III

After the first of the series Böck is Bruckner, which also appeared as a CD, and was dedicated to the self-image of the composer and the period of his life in Upper Austria, and the second evening, also recorded, which highlighted the eternal footloose bachelor and his relations with the fair sex, we now come to the third of five readings with music. By means of letters and diary entries, and with a variety of spoken roles, the evening deals with Bruckner´s boundless veneration for Richard Wagner, only partly reciprocated, the meetings between the utterly different composers and the regular pilgrmages which Bruckner made to Bayreuth.

Letters and reviews put into focus Bruckner´s relationship with the sharp-tongued and brilliant critic Eduard Hanslick, who had a dominating influence on musical life in Vienna at the time. As head of the Anti-Wagner-Party as well as friend and apologist of Brahms, he wrote dismissively and with incomprehension about Bruckner´s music, in particular about his symphonies, though he had appreciated and supported him as an organist. In 1888 Bruckner wrote with hindsight: „Hanslick[,] until 1875 my greatest benefactor and friend, became my everlasting enemy […].“