Fuller Maitland: Anton Bruckner - from Masters of German Music - 1894

J.A. Fuller Maitland This is a rare example of a biographical sketch of Anton Bruckner written in English while the composer was still alive! The book is entitled "Masters of German Music" and was published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1894. While the "masters" are Brahms, Bruch, Rheinberger, Theodor Kirchner, Carl Reinicke, Woldemar Bargeil and Clara(!) Schumann, the "minor masters" are Heinrich von Herzogenberg, Bruckner, Heinrich Hofmann and Felix Draeseke. The author of the book was the London music critic, John Alexander Fuller Maitland (7 April 1856 – 30 March 1936). Fuller Maitland was considered an influential British music critic and scholar from the 1880s to the 1920s. He encouraged the rediscovery of English music of the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly Henry Purcell's music and English virginal music. He also propounded the notion of an English Musical Renaissance in the second half of the 19th century, particularly praising Charles Villiers Stanford and Hubert Parry. However, he was criticized for his failure to acknowledge the talents of the English composers Arthur Sullivan, Edward Elgar and Frederick Delius, and later it was shown that he had falsified the facts in a critique of Sullivan. He was also slow to recognize the worth of contemporary composers from mainland Europe such as Claude Debussy, Richard Strauss and Anton Bruckner