ABSTRACT
Anton Bruckner, with 'his great childlike soul', was supposedly a helpless and defenceless figure in an age 'in which there was increasing emphasis on speculative, reflective and material matters'. The difficulties which Bruckner's peers experienced with both him and his music find their most basic explanation in the fact that Bruckner did not fit the popular artistic mould of his time. Many people perceived a crass discrepancy between his bizarrely striking personality and the splendour of his music. For a long time it was disputed whether the romantically embellished tenet of unity in the life and work of great artists also holds true in Bruckner's case. A feeling of responsibility for his work determined the course of his life. The dualism between 'human' and 'cosmic' music plays a part in the history of Bruckner interpretation in so far as many scholars branded Anton Bruckner as a representative of 'cosmic' music.
