Welcome to
Bruckner for Guitar
Anton Bruckner is one of major composers whose works practically have not been arranged for guitar yet. Perhaps they should not be played on the guitar? On the other hand, if you can play Dowland, Bach and Chopin on the guitar, why not Bruckner? Also, what will you do if you love Bruckner’s music and the sound of the guitar? Whatever the answer, a very good reason for playing Bruckner’s music on the guitar is that it is simply great music that may be arranged so as to exploit the possibilities of the instrument and preserve for the most part the essence of harmony and voice leading.
I have been working on arrangements of Bruckner works for the guitar since 2015. So far, I have prepared over 30 arrangements, which I am going to present here soon, so you can read about and listen to the pieces and find out how they sound.
Why Bruckner?
Anton Bruckner’s greatness is shown not only in his symphonies, masses and other large-scale works. It is also found in small pieces, short sacred works, motets, secular choral works, works for the organ.
Bruckner’s music is worth exploring and performing because it is a successful synthesis of qualities which are normally hard to reconcile: religious and romantic, archaic and modern, with rich harmony based on elaborate counterpoint and simple and direct themes in highly complex structures. Most of his motets and other works are undisputable masterpieces.
Bringing together the music of Anton Bruckner
and the sound of guitar
Why the guitar?
Guitar arrangements make it possible to experience these valuable pieces in another medium. One advantage of the guitar is the possibility of playing the same pitch, sometimes simultaneously, on several strings, which involves the possibility of assigning – in certain contexts – particular voices to different strings. In numerous places, harmonics may be employed to supply sounds otherwise difficult to produce or to add novel timbres and sonorities.
Furthermore, I claim that these arrangements make great guitar pieces, which can enrich the repertoire in a significant way with high-quality pieces, for concert, education and individual enjoyment. In a way, these arrangements bridge a gap in the guitar repertoire as representative instances of music which is both romantic (without being sentimental) and thoroughly polyphonic, tonal but with extended harmonies. Playing them on the guitar may emphasize certain melodic and harmonic elements which may be heard differently in performances of the original compositions.
So the project aims is to show this remarkable music in a new light and to enlarge the guitar repertoire with new valuable arrangements.
I believe this website may be especially interesting to two groups of music lovers:
- Bruckner lovers who are willing to find out how his music may fare when arranged for guitar (hoping they will recognize the arrangements as real Bruckner music)
- guitar music lovers and guitarists willing to listen and play new exciting and challenging pieces (hoping they will recognize the arrangements as good guitar music).
Why now?
This website was launched around 4 September 2024, the bicentenary of Bruckner's birth.
The website is organised as follows:
Music - here you can listen to recordings grouped in several thematic playlists:
Early sacred music, Secular choral works, Middle motets, Late motets, Miscellaneous works.
About the Music - here each piece is described. This section is also cross-linked with the previous one.
Blog - here I discuss various issues related to Bruckner, guitar and the connection between the two.
- The first post Bruckner for Guitar - a Contradiction in Terms? discusses an apparent tension between the nature of Bruckner's music and the sound of classical guitar.
- The second post Virgin Territory is about arrangements of Bruckner's music for guitar until now.
- The third post Bruckner Problems at a Micro-Scale shows that problems with Bruckner's large-scale works, such as multiple versions, completions and interpretative issues, can be also found in shorter works which I have arranged for guitar.
About me - here I reveal who I am and present some basic personal information about me and my project.
Contact - this section provides a contact form and an invitation to join my mailing list so you can send me messages or be alerted to new features on this website.
