Josef Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896) was an Austrian composer and organist best known for his symphonies and sacred music, which includes Masses, Te Deum and motets. The symphonies are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, strongly polyphonic character, and considerable length. His compositions helped to define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving harmonies.

Unlike other musical radicals such as Richard Wagner and Hugo Wolf, Bruckner showed respect, even humility, before other famous musicians, Wagner in particular. This apparent dichotomy between Bruckner the man and Bruckner the composer hampers efforts to describe his life in a way that gives a straightforward context for his music. Hans von Bülow described him as "half genius, half simpleton". Bruckner was critical of his own work and often reworked his compositions. There are several versions of many of his works.

His works, the symphonies in particular, had detractors, most notably the influential Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick and other supporters of Johannes Brahms, who pointed to their large size and use of repetition, as well as to Bruckner's propensity for revising many of his works, often with the assistance of colleagues, and his apparent indecision about which versions he preferred. On the other hand, Bruckner was greatly admired by subsequent composers, including his friend Gustav Mahler.

The Kitzler Study Book (Kitzler-Studienbuch) is an autograph workbook of Anton Bruckner which he wrote taking tuition with the conductor and cellist Otto Kitzler in Linz. Bruckner tried to complete his knowledge in musical form and instrumentation with Kitzler after the end of his studies with Simon Sechter. The workbook is composed of 163 pages of different sizes in landscape format (326 numbered pages) in chronological order, some of them dated, from Heilige Nacht anno 1861 (Holy Night, 1861) on p. 30, to 10 July 1863 on p. 325. The workbook contains autograph sketches, comments, complete and partial compositions, which are displaying a rigorous tuition in musical formatting and instrumentation.

The first entries (pp. 1-18) are exercises in musical form: cadences and periods. They are followed (pp. 18-57) by lieder in two and three parts, and (pp. 58-218) by pieces for piano and string quartet: waltz, polka, mazurka, études, theme and variations, rondos, sonata form, etc., and the String Quartet in C minor and its additional Rondo.

The Kitzler Study Book is fascinating because of its insight on the history of the musical apprenticeship in the nineteenth century, as well as the historical and theoretical significance of the terminology and the extent of the conserved exercises. Last but not least, this manuscript is essential for the research on Bruckner's mode of operation.

Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzler_Study_Book).

Although originally created for Solo Piano, I created this Interpretation of the Waltz for Piano in E-Flat Major (WAB 224 No. 1 Pg. 25) for Flute & Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).