Anton Bruckner, who had been cathedral organist in Linz since Christmas 1855, had already been a student of the Viennese music theorist Simon Sechter since...

Anton Bruckner, who had been cathedral organist in Linz since Christmas 1855, had already been a student of the Viennese music theorist Simon Sechter since he took up this post. Despite these intense and extensive studies, he then took private lessons with the Linz theater conductor Otto Kitzler. Kitzler encouraged him from the beginning to write complete pieces and no longer to carry out mere exercises. This resulted in the “Kitzler-Studienbuch” in 1862, which, in addition to piano pieces, also contains quartet sketches and songs for voice and piano. On this recording on a restored Bösendorfer fortepiano owned by Bruckner, Christoph Eggner presents countless Waltzes, Minuets, Polkas, Marches, but also Etudes, individual movements such as an Andante or a Rondo as well as four Fantasies. These small pieces correspond to the taste of his time, and the fact that Bruckner was already thinking in terms of orchestral sound is shown by the instrumentation notes and executions that follow these piano pieces – thus already in these beautiful pieces is the seed for all the admirable creations of the awakening symphonic composer Anton Bruckner.