Antioch on the Orontes (; ; ''Antiok''; ; Arabic:انطاکیه, ''Antakya''; also Great Antioch or Syrian Antioch) was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.

Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the Near East and was a cradle of Gentile Christianity. It was one of the four cities of the Syrian tetrapolis. Its residents are known as ''Antiochenes''. Once a great metropolis of a half million people, it declined to insignificance during the Middle Ages because of repeated earthquakes, the slaughter of its inhabitants by a Mameluk army in 1268, and a change in trade routes, following the Mongol conquests, which then no longer passed through Antioch from the far east.

Geography

Two routes from the Mediterranean, lying through the Orontes gorge and the Beilan Pass, converge in the plain of the Antioch Lake (''Balük Geut'' or ''El Bahr'') and are met there by # the road from the Amanian Gate (Baghche Pass) and western Commagene, which descends the valley of the Karasu River to the Afrin River, # the roads from eastern Commagene and the Euphratean crossings at Samosata (Samsat) and Apamea Zeugma (Birejik), which descend the valleys of the Afrin and the Quweiq rivers, and # the road from the Euphratean ford at Thapsacus, which skirts the fringe of the Syrian steppe. A single route proceeds south in the Orontes valley.

History

Prehistory

The settlement of Meroe pre-dated Antioch. A shrine of Anat, called by the Greeks the "Persian Artemis," was located here. This site was included in the eastern suburbs of Antioch. There was a village on the spur of Mount Silpius named or Iopolis. This name was always adduced as evidence by Antiochenes (''e.g.'' Libanius) anxious to affiliate themselves to the Attic Ionians--an eagerness which is illustrated by the Athenian types used on the city's coins. Io may have been a small early colony of trading Greeks (''Javan''). John Malalas mentions also an archaic village, Bottia, in the plain by the river.

Foundation by Seleucus I

Alexander the Great is said to have camped on the site of Antioch, and dedicated an altar to Zeus Bottiaeus, it lay in the northwest of the future city. This account is found only in the writings of Libanius, a 4th century orator from Antioch, and may be legend intended to enhance Antioch's status. But the story is not unlikely in itself.

After Alexander's death in 323 BC, his generals divided up the territory he had conquered. Seleucus I Nicator won the territory of Syria, and he proceeded to found four "sister cities" in northwestern Syria, one of which was Antioch. Like the other three, Antioch was named by Seleucus for a member of his family. He is reputed to have built sixteen Antiochs.

Seleucus founded Antioch on a site chosen through ritual means. An eagle, the bird of Zeus, had been given a piece of sacrificial meat and the city was founded on the site to which the eagle carried the offering. He did this in the twelfth year of his reign. Antioch soon rose above Seleucia Pieria to become the Syrian capital.

Hellenistic age

The original city of Seleucus was laid out in imitation of the grid plan of Alexandria by the architect Xenarius. Libanius describes the first building and arrangement of this city (i. p. 300. 17). The citadel was on Mt. Silpius and the city lay mainly on the low ground to the north, fringing the river. Two great colonnaded streets intersected in the centre. Shortly afterwards a second quarter was laid out, probably on the east and by Antiochus I, which, from an expression of Strabo, appears to have been the native, as contrasted with the Greek, town. It was enclosed by a wall of its own. In the Orontes, north of the city, lay a large island, and on this Seleucus II Callinicus began a third walled "city," which was finished by Antiochus III. A fourth and last quarter was added by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164 BC); and thenceforth Antioch was known as ''Tetrapolis''. From west to east the whole was about 6 km in diameter and little less from north to south, this area including many large gardens.

The new city was populated by a mix of local settlers that Athenians brought from the nearby city of Antigonia, Macedonians, and Jews (who were given full status from the beginning). The total free population of Antioch at its foundation has been estimated at between 17,000 and 25,000, not including slaves and native settlers. During the late Hellenistic period and Early Roman period, Antioch population reached its peak of over 500,000 inhabitants (estimates vary from 400,000 to 600,000) and was the third largest city in the world after Rome and Alexandria. By the 4th century, Antioch's declining population was about 200,000 according to Chrysostom, a figure which again does not include slaves.

About 6 km west and beyond the suburb Heraclea lay the paradise of Daphne, a park of woods and waters, in the midst of which rose a great temple to the Pythian Apollo, also founded by Seleucus I and enriched with a cult-statue of the god, as Musagetes, by Bryaxis. A companion sanctuary of Hecate was constructed underground by Diocletian. The beauty and the lax morals of Daphne were celebrated all over the western world; and indeed Antioch as a whole shared in both these titles to fame. Its amenities awoke both the enthusiasm and the scorn of many writers of antiquity.

Antioch became the capital and court-city of the western Seleucid empire under Antiochus I, its counterpart in the east being Seleucia on the Tigris; but its paramount importance dates from the battle of Ancyra (240 BC), which shifted the Seleucid centre of gravity from Asia Minor, and led indirectly to the rise of Pergamum.

The Seleucids reigned from Antioch. We know little of it in the Hellenistic period, apart from Syria, all our information coming from authors of the late Roman time. Among its great Greek buildings we hear only of the theatre, of which substructures still remain on the flank of Silpius, and of the royal palace, probably situated on the island. It enjoyed a reputation for letters and the arts (Cicero ''pro Archia'', 3); but the only names of distinction in these pursuits during the Seleucid period, that have come down to us, are Apollophanes, the Stoic, and one Phoebus, a writer on dreams. The mass of the population seems to have been only superficially Hellenic, and to have spoken Aramaic in non-official life. The nicknames which they gave to their later kings were Aramaic; and, except Apollo and Daphne, the great divinities of north Syria seem to have remained essentially native, such as the "Persian Artemis" of Meroe and Atargatis of Hierapolis Bambyce.

The epithet, "Golden," suggests that the external appearance of Antioch was impressive, but the city needed constant restoration owing to the seismic disturbances to which the district has always been subjected. The first great earthquake in recorded history was related by the native chronicler John Malalas. It occurred in 148 BC and did immense damage.

Local politics were turbulent. In the many dissensions of the Seleucid house the population took sides, and frequently rose in rebellion, for example against Alexander Balas in 147 BC, and Demetrius II in 129 BC. The latter, enlisting a body of Jews, punished his capital with fire and sword. In the last struggles of the Seleucid house, Antioch turned against its feeble rulers, invited Tigranes of Armenia to occupy the city in 83 BC, tried to unseat Antiochus XIII in 65 BC, and petitioned Rome against his restoration in the following year. Its wish prevailed, and it passed with Syria to the Roman Republic in 64 BC, but remained a ''civitas libera''.

Roman period

The Roman emperors favoured the city from the first, seeing it as a more suitable capital for the eastern part of the empire than Alexandria could be, because of the isolated position of Egypt. To a certain extent they tried to make it an eastern Rome. Julius Caesar visited it in 47 BC, and confirmed its freedom. A great temple to Jupiter Capitolinus rose on Silpius, probably at the insistence of Octavian, whose cause the city had espoused. A forum of Roman type was laid out. Tiberius built two long colonnades on the south towards Silpius. Agrippa and Tiberius enlarged the theatre, and Trajan finished their work. Antoninus Pius paved the great east to west artery with granite. A circus, other colonnades and great numbers of baths were built, and new aqueducts to supply them bore the names of Caesars, the finest being the work of Hadrian. The Roman client, King Herod (most likely the great builder Herod the Great), erected a long ''stoa'' on the east, and Agrippa (c.63 BC – 12 BC) encouraged the growth of a new suburb south of this.

At Antioch Germanicus died in 19 AD, and his body was burnt in the forum.

An earthquake that shook Antioch in AD 37 caused the emperor Caligula to send two senators to report on the condition of the city. Another quake followed in the next reign.

Titus set up the Cherubim, captured from the Jewish temple, over one of the gates.

In 115, during Trajan's travel there during his war against Parthia, the whole site was convulsed by an earthquake. The landscape altered, and the emperor himself was forced to take shelter in the circus for several days. He and his successor restored the city.

Commodus had Olympic games celebrated at Antioch.

Edward Gibbon wrote:

Fashion was the only law, pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendour of dress and furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch. The arts of luxury were honoured, the serious and manly virtues were the subject of ridicule, and the contempt for female modesty and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the capital of the East.

In 256, the town was suddenly raided by the Persians, who slew many in the theatre.

Late Antiquity

Christianity

Antioch was a chief center of early Christianity. The city had a large population of Jewish origin in a quarter called the Kerateion, and so attracted the earliest missionaries. Evangelized, among others, by Peter himself, according to the tradition upon which the Antiochene patriarchate still rests its claim for primacy, and certainly later by Barnabas and Paul during Paul's first missionary journey. Its converts were the first to be called ''Christians.'' This is not to be confused with Antioch in Pisidia, to which the early missionaries later travelled.

The population was estimated by Chrysostom at about 100,000 people at the time of Theodosius I. Between 252 and 300, ten assemblies of the church were held at Antioch and it became the seat of one of the four original patriarchates, along with Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Rome (see Pentarchy). Today Antioch remains the seat of a patriarchate of the Oriental Orthodox churches. One of the canonical Eastern Orthodox churches is still called the Antiochian Orthodox Church, although it moved its headquarters from Antioch to Damascus, Syria, several centuries ago (see list of Patriarchs of Antioch), and its prime bishop retains the title "Patriarch of Antioch," somewhat analogous to the manner in which several Popes, heads of the Roman Catholic Church remained "Bishop of Rome" even while residing in Avignon, France in the 14th century.

The age of Julian

When the emperor Julian visited in 362 on a detour to Persia, he had high hopes for Antioch, regarding it as a rival to the imperial capital of Constantinople. Antioch had a mixed pagan and Christian population, which Ammianus Marcellinus implies lived quite harmoniously together. However Julian's visit began ominously as it coincided with a lament for Adonis, the doomed lover of Aphrodite. Thus, Ammianus wrote, the emperor and his soldiers entered the city not to the sound of cheers but to wailing and screaming.

Not long after, the Christian population railed at Julian for his favour to Jewish and pagan rites, and, outraged by the closing of its great church of Constantine, burned down the temple of Apollo in Daphne. Another version of the story had it that the chief priest of the temple accidentally set the temple alight because he had fallen asleep after lighting a candle. In any case Julian had the man tortured for negligence (for either allowing the Christians to burn the temple or for burning it himself), confiscated Christian property and berated the pagan Antiochenes for their impiety.

Julian found much else about which to criticize the Antiochenes. Julian had wanted the empire's cities to be more self-managing, as they had been some 200 years before. However Antioch's city councilmen showed themselves unwilling to shore up Antioch's food shortage with their own resources, so dependent were they on the emperor. Ammianus wrote that the councilmen shirked their duties by bribing unwitting men in the marketplace to do the job for them.

The city's impiety to the old religion was clear to Julian when he attended the city's annual feast of Apollo. To his surprise and dismay the only Antiochene present was an old priest clutching a chicken.

The Antiochenes in turn hated Julian for worsening the food shortage with the burden of his billeted troops, wrote Ammianus. The soldiers were often to be found gorged on sacrificial meat, making a drunken nuisance of themselves on the streets while Antioch's hungry citizens looked on in disgust. The Christian Antiochenes and Julian's pagan Gallic soldiers also never quite saw eye to eye.

Even Julian's piety was distasteful to the Antiochenes retaining the old faith. Julian's brand of paganism was very much unique to himself, with little support outside the most educated Neoplatonist circles. The irony of Julian's enthusiasm for large scale animal sacrifice could not have escaped the hungry Antiochenes. Julian gained no admiration for his personal involvement in the sacrifices, only the nickname ''axeman'', wrote Ammianus.

The emperor's high-handed, severe methods and his rigid administration prompted Antiochene lampoons about, among other things, Julian's unfashionably pointed beard.

Valens and after

Julian's successor, Valens, who endowed Antioch with a new forum, including a statue of Valentinian on a central column, reopened the great church of Constantine, which stood till the Persian sack in 538, by Chosroes.

In 387, there was a great sedition caused by a new tax levied by order of Theodosius I, and the city was punished by the loss of its metropolitan status.

Antioch and its port, Seleucia Pieria, were severely damaged by the great earthquake of 526. Seleucia Pieria, which was already fighting a losing battle against continual silting, never recovered. Justinian I renamed Antioch Theopolis ("City of God") and restored many of its public buildings, but the destructive work was completed by the Persian king, Khosrau I, twelve years later. Antioch lost as many as 300,000 people. Justinian I made an effort to revive it, and Procopius describes his repairing of the walls; but its glory was past.

Antioch gave its name to a certain school of Christian thought, distinguished by literal interpretation of the Scriptures and insistence on the human limitations of Jesus. Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia were the leaders of this school. The principal local saint was Simeon Stylites, who lived an extremely ascetic life atop a pillar for 40 years some 65 km east of Antioch. His body was brought to the city and buried in a building erected under the emperor Leo.

Arab period

In 637, during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, Antioch was conquered by the Arabs in the caliphate of al-Rashidun during the Battle of Iron Bridge. The city became known in Arabic as أنطاكيّة (Antākiyyah). Since the Umayyad dynasty was unable to penetrate the Anatolian plateau, Antioch found itself on the frontline of the conflicts between two hostile empires during the next 350 years, so that the city went into a precipitous decline.

In 969, the city was recovered for the Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas by Michael Bourtzes and Peter the Eunuch. It soon became the seat of a ''doux'', who commanded the forces of the local themes and was the most important officer on the Empire's eastern border, held by such men as Nikephoros Ouranos. In 1078, Armenians seized power until the Seljuk Turks captured Antioch in 1084, but held it only fourteen years before the Crusaders arrived.

Crusader era

The Crusaders' Siege of Antioch conquered the city in 1098. At this time, the bulk of far eastern trade travelled through Egypt, but in the second half of the 12th century Nur ed-Din and later Saladin brought order to Moslem Syria, opening up long distance trade routes, including to Antioch and on to its new port, St Symeon, which had replaced Seleucia Pieria. However, the Mongol conquests of the 13th century altered the main trade routes from the far east, as they encouraged merchants to take the overland route through Mongol territory to the Black Sea, reducing the prosperity of Antioch.

In 1100, the nephew of Bohemond I of Antioch, Tancred became the regent of Antioch after Bohemond I of Antioch was taken prisoner for three years (1100–03) by Gazi Gümüshtigin of the Danishmends at the Battle of Melitene. Tancred expanded the territory of Antioch by conquering Byzantine Cilicia, Tarsus, and Adana in 1101 and founding the principality, Byzantine Latakia, in 1103. In 1107 Bohemond enraged by an earlier defeat when he, allianced with Edessa, attacked Aleppo, and Baldwin of Bourcq and Joscelin of Courtenay (Bourcq's most powerful vassal) were briefly captured, as well as the Byzantines recapturing of Cilicia and the harbour and lower town of Lattakieh, he renamed Tancred as the regent of Antioch and sailed for Europe with the intent of gaining support for an attack against the Greeks.

In 1107-8 Bohemond led a 'crusade' against Byzantium, with the Latins crossing the Adriatic in October 1107 and laying siege to the city of Durazzo (in modern Albania), which is often regarded as the western gate of the Greek empire. Bohemond was outwitted by Alexius, who deployed his forces to cut the invaders' supply lines whilst avoiding direct confrontation. The Latins whom were weakened by hunger and unable to break Durazzo's defences capitulated in September 1108 and Bohemond was forced to accede to a peace accord, the Treaty of Devol, by the terms of this agreement Bohemond was to hold Antioch for the remainder of his life as the emperor's subject, and the Greek patriarch was to be restored to power in the city. However Tancred refused to honour the Treaty of Devol in which Bohemond swore an oath, and it is not until 1158 that it truly became a vassal state of the Byzantine Empire. Six months after the Treaty of Devol Bohemond died, and Tancred remained regent of Antioch until his death during a typhoid epidemic in 1112.

After the death of Tancred, the principality passed to Roger of Salerno, who helped rebuild Antioch after an earthquake destroyed its foundations in 1114. With the defeat of Roger's crusading army and his death at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis in 1119 the role of regent was assumed by Baldwin II of Jerusalem, lasting until 1126, with the exception from 1123 to 1124 when he was briefly captured by the Artuqids and held captive alongside Joscelin of Courtenay. In 1126 Bohemond II arrived from Apulia in order to gain regency over Antioch. In February of 1130 Bohemond was lured into an ambush by Leo I, Prince of Armenia who allied with the Danishmend Gazi Gümüshtigin, and was killed in the subsequent battle, his head was then embalmed, placed in a silver box, and sent as a gift to the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad.

Antioch was again ruled by a regency, firstly being Baldwin II, after his daughter and Bohemond II's wife, Alice of Antioch attempted to block Baldwin from entering Antioch, but failed when Antiochene nobles such as Fulk of Jerusalem (Alice's brother-in-law) opened up the gates for representatives of Baldwin II. Alice was then expelled from Antioch. With the death of Balwin in 1131, Alice briefly took control of Antioch and allied herself with Pons of Tripoli and Joscelin II of Edessa in an attempt to prevent Fulk, King Of Jersualem from marching north in 1132, however this attemptp failed and Fulk and Pons fought a brief battle before peace was made and Alice was exiled again. In 1133 the king chose Raymond of Poitiers as a groom for Constance of Antioch, daughter of Bohemund II of Antioch and Alice, princess of Jerusalem. The marriage took place in 1136 between the 21-year-old Raymond and the 9-year-old Constance.

Immediately after assuming control, Raymond was involved in conflicts with the Byzantine Emperor John II Comnenus who had come south to recover Cilicia from Leo of Armenia, and to reassert his rights over Antioch. The engagement lasted until 1137 when emperor John II arrived with an army before the walls of Antioch. Though the basileus did not enter the city, his banner was raised atop the citadel and Raymond was compelled to do homage. Raymond agreed to the king that if he was capable of capturing Aleppo, Shaizar, and Homs, he would exchange Antioch for them. John went on to attack Aleppo with the aid of Antioch and Edessa, and failed to capture it, with the Franks withdrawing their support when he moved on to capture Shaizar. John returned to Antioch ahead of his army and entered Antioch, only to be forced to leave when Hoscelin II of Edessa rallied the citizens to oust him. In 1142 John then returned but Raymond refused to submit and John was forced to return to Cilicia again due to the coming winter, to plan an attack the following season. However the king died on April 8, 1443.

The Second Crusade

The following year after the death of John II Comnenus, Imad ad-Din Zengi lay Siege to Edessa, the crusader capital, and with the death of Imad ad-Din Zengi in 1146, he was succeeded by his son, Nur ad-Din Zangi. Zangi attacked Antioch in both 1147 and 1148 and succeeded during the second venture in occupying most of the territory east of the Orontes including Artah, Kafar Latha, Basarfut, and Balat, but failing to capture Antioch itself. With the Second Crusades army previously nearly entirely defeated by the Turks and by sickness, Louis VII of France arrived in Antioch on March 19, 1948 after being delayed by storms. Louis was welcomed by the uncle of his spouse Eleanor of Aquitaine, Raymond of Poitiers. Louis refused to help Antioch defend against the Turks and to lead an expedition against Aleppo, and instead decided to finish his pilgrimage to Jerusalem rather than focus on the military aspect of the Crusades. With Louis quickly leaving Antioch again and the Crusades returning home in 1149, Zangi launched an offensive against the territories which were dominated by the Castle of Harim, situated on the eastern bank of the Orontes, after which Zangi besieged the castle of Inag. Raymond of Poitiers quickly came to the aid of the citadel, were he was defeated and killed at the Battle of Inab, Raymond's head was then cut off and sent to Zangi, who sent it to the caliph in Baghdad. However, Zangi did not attack Antioch itself and was content with capturing all of Antiochene territory that lay east of the Orontes.

After the Second Crusade

With Raymond dead and Bohemond III only five years of age, the principality came under the control of Raymond's widow Constance, however real control lay with Aimery of Limoges. In 1152 Baldwin III of Jerusalem came of age, but from 1150 he had proposed three different but respectable suitors for Constance's hand in marriage, of which she all rejected. In 1153 however, she chose Raynald of Châtillon and married him in secret without consulting her first cousin and liege lord, Baldwin III, and neither Baldwin nor Aimery of Limoges approved of her choice. In 1156 Raynald claimed that the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus had reneged on his promises to pay Raynald a sum of money, and vowed to attack the island of Cyprus in revenge. However Aimery refused to finance Raynald's expedition, so in turn Raynalf had the Patriarch seized, beaten, stripped naked, covered in honey, and had him left in the burning sun on top of the citadel to be attacked by insects. When the Patriarch was released, he collapsed in exhausten and agreed to finance Raynald's expedition. In the meantime, Reynald had allied himself with the Armenian prince, Thoros II, Prince of Armenia. In 1156 Raynald's forces attacked Cyprus, ravaging the island over a three week period, rapine, slaughtering, and plundering its citizens. After which, Manuel I Comnenus raised an army and began their march towards Syria, as a result Reynald threw himself to the mercy of the emperor who insisted on the installation of a Greek Patriarch and the surrender of the citadel in Antioch. The following spring, Manuel made a triumphal entry into the city and established himself as the unquestioned suzerain of Antioch. In 1160 Reynald was captured by Muslims during a plundering raid against the Syrian and Armenian peasants of the neighbourhood of Marash. He was held captive for sixteen years, and as the steppfather of the Empress Maria, he was ransomed by Manuel for 120,000 gold dinars in 1176. (Worth approx. £15,819,706.00 / USD$25.8414898 as of October 2010). With Raynald disposed of for a long time, the patriarch Aimery became the new regent, chosen by Baldwin III. To further consolidate his own claim over Antioch, Manuel chose Maria of Antioch as his bride, daughter of Constance of Antioch and Raymond of Poitiers. But the government of Antioch remained in crisis up until 1163, when Constance asked the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia to help maintain her rule, as a result the citizens of Antioch exiled her and installed her son Bohemond III and now brother-in-law to the emperor, as regent.

One year later, Nur ad-Din Zangi captured Bohemond III when he defeated a joint Antiochene-Tripolitan army. Bohemond III was soon released, however Harem, Syria which Reynald had recaptured in 1158, was lost again and the frontier of Antioch was permanently placed west of the Orontes. Byzantine influence remained in Antioch and in 1165, Bohemond III married a niece of the emperor, Maria of Antioch, and installed a Greek patriarch in the city, Athanasius II, Patriarch of Antioch, who remained in his position until he died in an earthquake five years later.

The Third Crusade

On October 29, 1187, Pope Gregory VIII issued the papal bull Audita tremendi, his call for the Third Crusade. Frederick I Barbarossa, Richard I of England, and Philip II of France answered this the summons. With Richard and Philip deciding to take a sea route, Frederick lacked the necessary ships and took a land route were he pushed on through Anatolia, defeating the Turks in the Battle of Inconium, however upon reaching Christian territory in Lesser Armenia (Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia) the emperor drowned in the river Saleph. The emperor was buried at Antioch and the Germans became an insignificant contingent during the crusade. Throughout the Third Crusade Antioch remained neutral, however with the end of the Third Crusade (1192), they were included in the Treaty of Ramla between Richard and Saladin.

Battles for Sovereignty

With no heir after the death of Raymond III, Count of Tripoli in the Battle of Hattin he left his godson, Raymond IV, Count of Tripoli, the eldest son of Bohemond III. However Bohemond installed his younger, the future prince Bohemond IV of Antioch, as count of Tripoli. Shortly after the end of the Third Crusade, Raymond IV, Count of Tripoli married Alice of Armenia, the niece of Leo II, or Leo I, King of Armenia, and a vassal to Antioch. Alice bore Raymond IV a son in 1199, Raymond-Roupen, after which Raymond IV died in the coming months. In 1194 Leo II tricked Bohemond III making him believe that the new born prince had been captured by the Roupenians. Leo made a failed attempt at capturing Antioch believing the city would be weakened with the absence of Bohemond. Henry II, Count of Champagne nephew to both Richard I and Philip II, travelled to Lesser Armenia and managed to persuade Leo that in exchange for Antioch, renouncing its overlordship to Lesser Armenia and to release Bohemond, who in 1201 died. With the death of Bohemond III there followed a 15 year struggle for power of Antioch, between Tripoli and Lesser Armenia. According to the rules of primogeniture Leo's gret nephew Raymond-Roupen was the rightful heir of Antioch, and Leo's position was supported by the pope. However on the other hand, the city commune of Antioch supported Bohemond IV of Antioch, on the grounds that he was the closest blood relative to the last ruling prince, Bohemond III. In 1207 Bohemond IV installed a Greek patriarch in Antioch, despite the East-West Schism, under the help of Aleppo, Bohemond IV drove Leo out of Antioch.

Fifth Crusade and Afterwards

In 1213 Pope Innocent III's papal bull Quia maior called for all of Christendom to lead a new (Fifth) crusade. This strengthened the support of sultan Al-Adil I, an Ayyubid-Egyptian general who supported Raymond-Roupen's claims in Antioch. In 1216 Leo installed Raymond-Roupen as prince of Antioch, and ending all military aspect of the struggle between Tripoli and Lesser Armenia, but the citizens again revolted against Raymond-Roupen in c.1219 and Bohemond of Tripoli was recognised as the fourth prince of that name. Bohemond IV and his son Bohemond V remained neutral in the struggles of the Guelphs and Ghibellines to the south which arose when Frederich II married Isabella II, and in 1233 Bohemond IV died. From 1233 onwards Antioch declined and pretty much disappeared in history for 30 years, and in 1254 the altercations of the past between Antioch and Armenia were lay to rest when Bohemond VI of Antioch married the then 17 year old Sibylla of Armenia, and Bohemond VI became a vassal of the Armenian kingdom. Effectively, the Armenian kings ruled Antioch whilst the prince of Antioch resided in Tripoli. The Armenians drew up a treaty with the Mongols, who were now ravaging Muslim lands, and under protection they extended their territory into the lands of the Seljuq dynasty in the north and the Aleppo territory to the south. Antioch was part of this Armeno-Mongol alliance. Bohemond VI managed to retake Lattakieh and reestablished the land bridge between Antioch and Tripoli, while the Mongols insisted he install the Greek patriarch there rather than a Latin one, due to the Mongols attempting to strengthen ties with the Byzantine Empire. This earned Bohemond the enmity of the Latins of Acre, and Bohemond was excommunicated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pope Urban IV., which was later suspended.

The Fall of Antioch

In 1259 the Mongols captured the Syrian city of Damascus, and eventually in 1260, Aleppo. The Mamluk sultan Saif ad-Din Qutuz looked to ally with the Franks, who declined. In September 1260, the Mamluks defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut, shortly after Qutuz was assassinated at Al-Salihiyya, and according to various sources his successor, Baibars was involved in his murder. (Baibars "came to power with [the] regicide [of Qutuz] on his conscience"), and Tschanz. Antioch's ruler, Prince Bohemond VI was then left with no territories except the County of Tripoli. Without any southern fortifications and with Antioch isolated it could not withstand the onslaught of resurgent Muslim forces, and with the fall of the city, the remainder of northern Syria eventually capitulated, and ended the Latin presence in Syria forever. In 1355 it still had a considerable population, but by 1432 there were only about 300 inhabited houses within its walls, mostly occupied by Turcomans.

Archaeology

Few traces of the once great Roman city are visible today aside from the massive fortification walls that snake up the mountains to the east of the modern city, several aqueducts, and the Church of St Peter (St Peter's Cave Church, Cave-Church of St. Peter), said to be a meeting place of an Early Christian community. The majority of the Roman city lies buried beneath deep sediments from the Orontes River, or has been obscured by recent construction.

Between 1932 and 1939, archaeological excavations of Antioch were undertaken under the direction of the "Committee for the Excavation of Antioch and Its Vicinity," which was made up of representatives from the Louvre Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Worcester Art Museum, Princeton University, and later (1936) also the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University and its affiliate Dumbarton Oaks.

The excavation team failed to find the major buildings they hoped to unearth, including Constantine's Great Octagonal Church or the imperial palace. However, a great accomplishment of the expedition was the discovery of high-quality Roman mosaics from villas and baths in Antioch, Daphne and Seleucia. One mosaic includes a border that depicts a walk from Antioch to Daphne, showing many ancient buildings along the way. The mosaics are now displayed in the Hatay Archaeological Museum in Antakya and in the museums of the sponsoring institutions.

A statue in the Vatican and a number of figurines and statuettes perpetuate the type of its great patron goddess and civic symbol, the Tyche (Fortune) of Antioch – a majestic seated figure, crowned with the ramparts of Antioch's walls and holding wheat stalks in her right hand, with the river Orontes as a youth swimming under her feet. According to William Robertson Smith the Tyche of Antioch was originally a young virgin sacrificed at the time of the founding of the city to ensure its continued prosperity and good fortune.

The northern edge of Antakya has been growing rapidly over recent years, and this construction has begun to expose large portions of the ancient city, which are frequently bulldozed and rarely protected by the local museum.

Notable people

Saint Luke, 1st century AD, Christian evangelist and author of the Gospel of St. Luke and Acts of the Apostles

Ignatius of Antioch, Patriarch of Antioch

John Chrysostom (349-407) Patriarch of Constantinople

George of Antioch

See also

Antakya Archaeological Museum

Antiochene Rite

List of Greek place names

Monty Python's Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch

Other cities of the ancient world named Antiochia

''The Martyr of Antioch''

Theophilus of Antioch

Footnotes

External references

Karl Otfried Müller, ''Antiquitates Antiochenae'' (1839)

Albin Freund, ''Beiträge zur antiochenischen und zur konstantinopolitanischen Stadtchronik'' (1882)

R. Forster, in ''Jahrbuch'' of Berlin Arch. Institute, xii. (1897)

External links

The Ancient City of Antioch Map

Richard Stillwell, ed. ''Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites'', 1976: "Antioch on the Orontes (Antaky), Turkey"

Antioch (Antakya) Includes timeline, maps, and photo galleries of Antioch's mosaics and artifacts

Antakya Museum Many photos of the collection in Antakya's museum, in particular Roman mosaics

Antiochepedia Blog News and information about ancient Antioch.

Category:Ancient Greek cities Category:Ancient Greek sites in Turkey Category:Archaeological sites in Turkey Category:Populated places along the Silk Road Category:Crusade places Category:Former populated places in Turkey Category:Hellenistic colonies Category:History of Antioch Category:Holy cities Category:New Testament cities Category:New Testament places Category:Roman sites in Turkey Category:Seleucid Empire Category:Populated places established in the 4th century BC Category:Hatay Province Category:History of Hatay Province

bs:Antiohija#Historija ca:Antioquia de l'Orontes cs:Antiochie cy:Antiochia de:Antiochia am Orontes el:Αντιόχεια#Γενικά eo:Antioĥio fa:انطاکیه fr:Antioche#Histoire ko:안티오케이아 hy:Անտիոք hr:Antiohija#Povijest id:Antiokhia it:Antiochia he:אנטיוכיה#היסטוריה של העיר ka:ანტიოქია la:Antiochia ad Orontem#Historia hu:Antiokheia#Története mk:Антиохија nl:Antiochië#Geschiedenis ja:アンティオキア nap:Antiochia no:Antiokia ved Orontes pnb:انطاکیہ pl:Antiochia (Turcja) pt:Antioquia ro:Antiohia ru:Антиохия fi:Antiokia sv:Antiochia vid Orontes tl:Antioch th:แอนติออก uk:Антіохія wo:Ancos ci Siri

Anton Bruckner (September 04, 1824October 11, 1896) was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The former are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length. Bruckner's compositions helped to define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving harmonies.

Unlike other radicals, such as Richard Wagner or Hugo Wolf who fit the ''enfant terrible'' mould, Bruckner showed extreme humility before other 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.

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, use of repetition, and Bruckner's propensity to revise 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, who described him as "half simpleton, half God".

Biography

Early life

Anton Bruckner was born in Ansfelden (then a village, now a suburb of Linz) on 4 September 1824. His father was a village schoolmaster, as was his grandfather. It was a meagerly paid but respected position in the rural environment. Music belonged to the school curriculum, and Bruckner's father was his first music teacher. Bruckner learned to play the organ early as a child. He entered school when he was six, and proved to be a hard-working student, and was promoted to upper class early. While studying, Bruckner also helped his father in teaching the other children. After Bruckner received his confirmation in 1833, Bruckner's father decided to send him to another school in Hörsching. The schoolmaster, Johann Baptist Weiß, was a music enthusiast and respected organist. Here, Bruckner completed his school education and learned to play the organ excellently. He also wrote his first composition, ''Vier Präludien in Es-Dur für Orgel'' for the organ. However, biographers do not regard the work as exceptional; in his youth, Bruckner was gifted, but not a genius. When his father became ill, Anton returned to Ansfelden to help him in his work.

Teacher's education

His father died in 1837, when Anton was 13 years old. The teacher's position and house were given to a successor, and Bruckner was sent to the Augustinian monastery in St. Florian to become a choirboy. In addition to choir practice, his education included violin and organ lessons. Bruckner was in awe of the monastery's great organ, which was built during the late baroque era and improved in 1837, and he sometimes played it during church services. Later, the organ was to be called the "Bruckner Organ". Despite his musical abilities, Bruckner's mother decided that her son's future profession remained a teacher, and in 1840 Bruckner was sent to a teacher seminar in Linz. After completing the seminar with an excellent grade, he was sent as a teacher's assistant to a school in Windhaag. The living standards and pay were horrible, and Bruckner was constantly humiliated by his superior, teacher Franz Fuchs. Despite the difficult situation, Bruckner never complained or rebelled; a belief of inferiority was to remain one of Bruckner's main personal characteristics during his whole life. Prelate Michael Arneth noticed Bruckner's bad situation in Windhaag and awarded him a teacher's assistant position in St. Florian, sending him to Kronstorf an der Enns for two years.

Organist in St. Florian

In 1848 he was appointed an organist in St. Florian and in 1851 this was made a regular position. In St Florian, most of the repertoire consisted of the music of Michael Haydn, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Franz Joseph Aumann. In 1855, he took up a counterpoint course with Simon Sechter. In 1861 he studied further with Otto Kitzler, who introduced him to the music of Richard Wagner, which Bruckner studied extensively from 1863 onwards. Bruckner continued his studies to the age of 40. Broad fame and acceptance did not come until he was over 60. A devout Catholic who loved to drink beer, Bruckner was out of step with his contemporaries. In 1861 he had already made the acquaintance of Franz Liszt who, like Bruckner, had a strong, Catholic religious faith and who first and foremost was a harmonic innovator, initiating the new German school together with Wagner. Soon after Bruckner had ended his studies under Sechter and Kitzler, he wrote his first mature work, the Mass in D Minor.

The Vienna period

In 1868, after Sechter had died, Bruckner hesitantly accepted Sechter's post as a teacher of music theory at the Vienna Conservatory, during which time he concentrated most of his energy on writing symphonies. These symphonies, however, were poorly received, at times considered "wild" and "nonsensical". He later accepted a post at the Vienna University in 1875, where he tried to make music theory a part of the curriculum. Overall, he was unhappy in Vienna, which was musically dominated by the critic Eduard Hanslick. At the time there was a feud between advocates of the music of Wagner and Brahms; by aligning himself with Wagner, Bruckner made an unintentional enemy out of Hanslick. However, he was not without supporters; ''Deutsche Zeitung'''s music critic Theodor Helm, and famous conductors such as Arthur Nikisch and Franz Schalk constantly tried to bring his music to the public, and for this purpose proposed 'improvements' for making Bruckner's music more acceptable to the public. While Bruckner allowed these changes, he also made sure in his will to bequeath his original scores to the Vienna National Library, confident of their musical validity.

In addition to his symphonies, Bruckner wrote masses, motets and other sacred choral works, and a few chamber works, including a string quintet. Unlike his romantic symphonies, some of Bruckner's choral works are often conservative and contrapuntal in style; however the Te Deum, Helgoland, Psalm 150 and at least one Mass demonstrate innovative and radical uses of chromaticism.

Biographers generally characterize Bruckner as a "simple" provincial man, and many biographers have complained that there is huge discrepancy between Bruckner's life and his work. For example, Karl Grebe said: "his life doesn't tell anything about his work, and his work doesn't tell anything about his life, that's the uncomfortable fact any biography must start from." Numerous anecdotes abound as to Bruckner's dogged pursuit of his chosen craft and his humble acceptance of the fame that eventually came his way. Once, after a rehearsal of his Fourth Symphony, the well-meaning Bruckner tipped the conductor Hans Richter: "When the symphony was over," Richter related, "Bruckner came to me, his face beaming with enthusiasm and joy. I felt him press a coin into my hand. 'Take this' he said, 'and drink a glass of beer to my health.'" Richter, of course, accepted the coin, a Maria Theresa thaler, and wore it on his watch-chain ever after.

Bruckner was a renowned organist in his day, impressing audiences in France in 1869, and England in 1871, giving six recitals on a new Henry Willis organ at Royal Albert Hall in London and five more at the Crystal Palace. Though he wrote no major works for the organ, his improvisation sessions sometimes yielded ideas for the symphonies. Indeed, the orchestration in his symphonies often involves abrupt switches and call-and-response between multiple groups of instruments, much like switching manuals on an organ. He taught organ performance at the Conservatory; among his students were Hans Rott and Franz Schmidt. Gustav Mahler, who called Bruckner his "forerunner", attended the conservatory at this time (Walter n.d.).

Bruckner never married; he was attracted to teenage girls, who turned down the proposals of the older man. One such was the daughter of a friend, called Louise; in his grief he is believed to have written the cantata "Entsagen" (Renunciation). His affection for teenage girls led to an accusation of impropriety where he taught music, and while he was exonerated, he decided to concentrate on teaching boys afterwards. His calendar for 1874 details the names of girls who appealed to him, and the list of such girls in all his diaries was very long. In 1880 he fell for a 17-year-old peasant girl in the cast of the Oberammergau Passion Play. His interest in girls appears to have been based on the assumed virtue retained through their being young, and lasted as long as they seemed worthy of marriage; he feared sin. His unsuccessful proposals to teenage girls continued into his seventies; one potential relationship that might have been suitable when he was older came to nothing because the girl would not convert to Catholicism.

In July 1886, the Emperor decorated him with the Order of Franz Joseph.

Bruckner died in Vienna in 1896, of natural causes. He is buried in the crypt of St. Florian monastery church, right below his favorite organ.

The Anton Bruckner Private University for Music, Drama, and Dance, an institution of higher education in Linz, close to his native Ansfelden, was named after him in 1932 ("Bruckner Conservatory Linz" until 2004). The Bruckner Orchester Linz was also named in his honor.

Works

Sometimes Bruckner's works are referred to by WAB numbers, from the ''Werkverzeichnis Anton Bruckner'', a catalogue of Bruckner's works edited by Renate Grasberger.

The revision issue has generated controversy. A common explanation for the multiple versions is that Bruckner was willing to revise his work on the basis of harsh, uninformed criticism from his colleagues. "The result of such advice was to awaken immediately all the insecurity in the non-musical part of Bruckner's personality," musicologist Deryck Cooke writes. "Lacking all self-assurance in such matters, he felt obliged to bow to the opinions of his friends, 'the experts,' to permit ... revisions and even to help make them in some cases." This explanation was widely accepted when it was championed by Bruckner scholar Robert Haas, who was the chief editor of the first critical editions of Bruckner's works published by the International Bruckner Society; it continues to be found in the majority of program notes and biographical sketches concerning Bruckner. Hass' work was endorsed by the Nazis and so fell out of favour after the war as the Allies enforced denazification. Hass' rival Leopold Nowak was appointed to produce a whole new critical edition of Bruckner's works. He and others such as Benjamin Korstvedt and conductor Leon Botstein argued that Haas' explanation is at best idle speculation, at worst a shady justification of Haas' own editorial decisions. Also, it has been pointed out that Bruckner often started work on a symphony just days after finishing the one before. As Cooke writes, "In spite of continued opposition and criticism, and many well-meaning exhortations to caution from his friends, he looked neither to right nor left, but simply got down to work on the next symphony." Unfortunately the matter of Bruckner's authentic texts and the reasons for his changes to them remains politicised and uncomfortable.

Symphonies

Style

Bruckner's symphonies are all in four movements (though he was unable to complete the finale of the Ninth), starting with a modified sonata allegro form, a slow movement, a scherzo in 3/4 time, and a modified sonata allegro form finale. (In the Eighth, Ninth, and the first version of the Second, the slow movements and scherzo are reversed. The Fourth features a scherzo in which the outer sections are in 2/4 meter, not the customary 3/4.) They are scored for a fairly standard orchestra of woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two or three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani and strings. The later symphonies increase this complement, but not by much. Notable is the use of Wagner tubas in his last three symphonies. With the exception of ''Symphony No. 4'', none of Bruckner's symphonies has subtitles, and most of the nicknames were not thought up by the composer. Bruckner's works are trademarked with powerful codas and grand finales, as well as the frequent use of unison passages and orchestral ''tutti''. His style of orchestral writing was criticized by his Viennese contemporaries, but by the middle of the 20th century musicologists recognized that Bruckner's orchestration was modeled after the sound of his primary instrument, the pipe organ.

Nicholas Temperley writes in the ''New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980)'' that Bruckner

alone succeeded in creating a new school of symphonic writing.... Some have classified him as a conservative, some as a radical. Really he was neither, or alternatively was a fusion of both.... [H]is music, though Wagnerian in its orchestration and its in its huge rising and falling periods, patently has its roots in older styles. Bruckner took Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as his starting-point.... The introduction to the first movement, beginning mysteriously and climbing slowly with fragments of the first theme to the gigantic full statement of that theme, was taken over by Bruckner; so was the awe-inspiring coda of the first movement. The scherzo and slow movement, with their alternation of melodies, are models for Bruckner's spacious middle movements, while the finale with a grand culminating hymn is a feature of almost every Bruckner symphony.

Bruckner is the first composer since Schubert about whom it is possible to make such generalizations. His symphonies deliberately followed a pattern, each one building on the achievements of its predecessors.... His melodic and harmonic style changed little, and it had as much of Schubert in it as of Wagner.... His technique in the development and transformation of themes, learnt from Beethoven, Liszt and Wagner, was unsurpassed, and he was almost the equal of Brahms in the art of melodic variation.

Cooke adds, also in the ''New Grove'',

Despite its general debt to Beethoven and Wagner, the "Bruckner Symphony" is a unique conception, not only because of the individuality of its spirit and its materials, but even more because of the absolute originality of its formal processes. At first, these processes seemed so strange and unprecedented that they were taken as evidence of sheer incompetence.... Now it is recognized that Bruckner's unorthodox structural methods were inevitable.... Bruckner created a new and monumental type of symphonic organism, which abjured the tense, dynamic continuity of Beethoven, and the broad, fluid continuity of Wagner, in order to express something profoundly different from either composer, something elemental and metaphysical.

In a concert review, Bernard Holland described parts of the first movements of Bruckner's sixth and seventh symphonies as follows: "There is the same slow, broad introduction, the drawn-out climaxes that grow, pull back and then grow some more – a sort of musical coitus interruptus."

In the 2001 Second Edition of the ''New Grove'', Mark Evan Bonds called the Bruckner symphonies "monumental in scope and design, combining lyricism with an inherently polyphonic design.... Bruckner favored an approach to large-scale form that relied more on large-scale thematic and harmonic juxtaposition. Over the course of his output, one senses an ever-increasing interest in cyclic integration that culminates in his masterpiece, the Symphony No. 8 in C minor, a work whose final page integrates the main themes of all four movements simultaneously."

Works

Otto Kitzler, Bruckner's last composition teacher, set him three final tasks as the climax of his studies: a choral work (Psalm 112), an overture, and a symphony. The latter, completed in 1863, was then Bruckner's Study Symphony in F minor. Bruckner later rejected this work, but he did not destroy it. While it certainly reminds one of earlier composers such as Robert Schumann, it undeniably also bears the hallmarks of the later Bruckner style. Kitzler simply commented that the work was "not very inspired". It was first performed in 1924 and not published until 1973 and is occasionally listed as ''Symphony No. 00.''

Bruckner's Symphony No. 1 in C minor (sometimes called by Bruckner "das kecke Beserl", roughly translated as "the saucy maid") was completed in 1866, but the original text of this symphony was not reconstructed until 1998. Instead, it is commonly known in two versions, the so-called ''Linz Version'' which is based mainly on rhythmical revisions made in 1877, and the completely revised ''Vienna Version'' of 1891, which begins to reveal his mature style, e.g. Symphony No. 8.

Next was the so-called Symphony No. 0 in D minor of 1869, a work which was so harshly criticized that Bruckner retracted it completely, and it was not performed at all during his lifetime, hence his choice for the number of the symphony.

His next attempt was a sketch of the first movement to a Symphony in B-flat major, but he did no further work on it afterwards. This sketch can be heared on John Berky's site.

The Symphony No. 2 in C minor of 1872 was revised in 1873, 1876, 1877 and 1892. It is sometimes called the ''Symphony of Pauses'' for its dramatic use of whole-orchestra rests, which accentuate the form of the piece. In the Carragan edition of the 1872 version, the Scherzo is placed second and the Adagio third. It is in the same key as No. 1.

Bruckner presented his Symphony No. 3 in D minor, written in 1873, to Wagner along with the Second, asking which of them he might dedicate to him. Wagner chose the Third, and Bruckner sent him a fair copy soon later, which is why the original version of the ''Wagner Symphony'' is preserved so well despite revisions in 1874, 1876, 1877 and 1888/1889. One thing that helped Wagner choose which symphony to accept the dedication was that the 3rd contains quotations from Wagner's music dramas, such as ''Die Walküre'' and ''Lohengrin''. These quotations were taken out in revised versions.

Bruckner's first great success was his Symphony No. 4 in E flat major, more commonly known as the ''Romantic Symphony'', the only epithet applied to a symphony by the composer himself. The 1874 version has been seldom played and success came only after major revisions in 1878, including a completely new scherzo and finale, and again in 1880/1881, once again with a completely rewritten finale. This version was premiered in 1881 (under the conductor Hans Richter). Bruckner made more minor revisions of this symphony in 1886–1888.

Bruckner's Symphony No. 5 in B flat major crowns his most productive era of symphony-writing, finished at the beginning of 1876. Until recently we knew only the thoroughly revised version of 1878. In 2008 the original concepts of this symphony have been edited and performed by Akira Naito with the Tokyo New City Orchestra. Many consider this symphony to be Bruckner's lifetime masterpiece in the area of counterpoint. For example, the Finale is a combined fugue and sonata form movement: the first theme (characterized by the downward leap of an octave) appears in the exposition as a four-part fugue in the strings and the concluding theme of the exposition is presented first as a chorale in the brass, then as a four part fugue in the development, and culminating in a double fugue with the first theme at the recapitulation; additionally, the coda combines not only these two themes but also the main theme of the first movement. Bruckner never heard it played by an orchestra.

Symphony No. 6 in A major, written in 1879–1881, is an oft-neglected work; whereas the Bruckner rhythm (two quarters plus a quarter triplet or vice versa) is an important part of his previous symphonies, it pervades this work, particularly in the first movement, making it particularly difficult to perform.

Symphony No. 7 in E major was the most beloved of Bruckner's symphonies with audiences of the time, and is still popular. It was written 1881–1883 and revised in 1885. During the time that Bruckner began work on this symphony, he was aware that Wagner's death was imminent, and so the Adagio is slow mournful music for Wagner, and for the first time in Bruckner's oeuvre, the Wagner tuba is included in the orchestra.

Bruckner began composition of his Symphony No. 8 in C minor in 1884. In 1887 Bruckner sent the work to Hermann Levi, the conductor who had led his Seventh to great success. Levi, who had said Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony was the greatest symphony written after Beethoven, believed that the Eighth was a confusing jumble. Bruckner was devastated by Levi's assessment. Bruckner revised the work, sometimes with the aid of Franz Schalk, and completed this new version in 1890. Cooke writes that "Bruckner not only recomposed [the Eighth]... but greatly improved it in a number of ways.... This is the one symphony that Bruckner did not fully achieve in his first definite version, to which there can be no question of going back."

The final accomplishment of Bruckner's life was to be his Symphony No. 9 in D minor which he started in August 1887, and which he dedicated "To God the Beloved." The first three movements were completed by the end of 1894, the Adagio alone taking 18 months to complete. Work was delayed by the composer's poor health and by his compulsion to revise his early symphonies, and by the time of his death in 1896 he had not finished the last movement. The first three movements remained unperformed until their premiere in Vienna (in Ferdinand Löwe's version) on 11 February 1903.

Bruckner suggested using his Te Deum as a Finale, which would complete the homage to Beethoven's Ninth symphony (also in D minor). The problem was that the Te Deum is in C major, while the 9th Symphony is D minor, and, although Bruckner began sketching a transition from the Adagio key of E major to the triumphant key of C major, he did not pursue the idea. There have been several attempts to complete these sketches and prepare them for performance, as well as completions of his later sketches for an instrumental Finale, but only the first three movements of the symphony are usually performed.

Sacred choral works

Bruckner wrote a Te Deum, settings of five Psalms (including Psalm 150 in the 1890s), about forty motets (among them settings of ''Christus factus est pro nobis'' and ''Ave Maria''), and at least seven Masses. His Requiem in D minor of 1849 is the earliest work Bruckner himself considered worthy of preservation. It shows the clear influence of Mozart's Requiem (also in D minor) and similar works of Michael Haydn. His early Masses were usually short Austrian ''Landmessen'' for use in local churches and did not always set all the numbers of the ordinary. The three Masses Bruckner wrote in the 1860s and revised later on in his life are more often performed. The Masses numbered 1 in D minor and 3 in F minor are for solo singers, chorus and orchestra, while No. 2 in E minor is for chorus and a small group of wind instruments, and was written in an attempt to meet the Cecilians halfway. The Cecilians wanted to rid church music of instruments entirely. No. 3 was clearly meant for concert, rather than liturgical performance, and it is the only one of his Masses in which he set the first line of the Gloria, "Gloria in excelsis Deo", and of the Credo, "Credo in unum Deum", to music. (In concert performances of the other Masses, these lines are intoned by a tenor soloist in the way a priest would, with a line of plainsong).

Other music

As a young man Bruckner sang in men's choirs and wrote music for them. This music is rarely performed. Biographer Derek Watson characterizes the pieces for men's choir as being "of little concern to the non-German listener". Of thirty such pieces, ''Helgoland'' is the only secular vocal work Bruckner thought worthy enough to bequeath to the Vienna National Library.

The Overture in G minor of 1862 (revised in 1863) is occasionally included in recordings of the symphonies, and it is one of the works Bruckner wrote during his apprentice with Otto Kitzler. At that time he also wrote, as orchestration exercises, a March in D minor and three short orchestral pieces. These works already show hints of Bruckner's emerging style.

A String Quartet in C minor was discovered decades after Bruckner's death, but is only of interest as a student composition. The later String Quintet in F major, contemporaneous with the Fifth and Sixth symphonies, has been frequently performed.

There is an orchestral Symphonic Prelude that is sometimes attributed to Bruckner and sometimes to Mahler. It was discovered in the Vienna National Library in 1974 in a piano duet transcription and later orchestrated by Albrecht Gürsching, who did not know the original orchestral score (published by Doblinger, Vienna). It is likely the work of one of Bruckner's students.

Bruckner's Two Aequale for three trombones is a solemn, brief work.

He also wrote Lancer-Quadrille for piano. Among his most unusual and evocative compositions is the choral ''Abendzauber'' (1878) for tenor, yodelers and four alpine horns. It was never performed in Bruckner's lifetime.

Bruckner never wrote an opera, and as much as he was a fan of Wagner's music dramas, he was uninterested in drama. In 1893 he thought about writing an opera called ''Astra'' based on a novel by Gertrud Bollé-Hellmund. Although he attended performances of Wagner's operas, he was much more interested in the music than the plot. After seeing Wagner's ''Götterdämmerung'', he asked: "Tell me, why did they burn the woman at the end?" Nor did Bruckner ever write an oratorio.

Reception in the 20th century

Because of the long duration and vast orchestral canvas of much of his music, Bruckner's popularity has greatly benefited from the introduction of long-playing media and from improvements in recording technology.

Decades after his death, the Nazis strongly approved of Bruckner's music because his music was considered by them to be an expression of the zeitgeist of the German volk, and Hitler even consecrated a bust of Bruckner in a widely photographed ceremony in 1937 at Regensburg's Walhalla temple. Bruckner's music was among the most popular in Nazi Germany and the Adagio from his 7th Symphony was broadcast by the German radio (Deutscher Reichsrundfunk) upon announcing the news of Hitler's death on 1 May 1945. However this did not hurt Bruckner's standing in the postwar media, and several movies and TV productions in Europe and the United States have used excerpts from Bruckner's music ever since the 1950s, as they already did in the 1930s. Nor did the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra ever ban Bruckner's music as they have Wagner's, even recording with Zubin Mehta the Eighth Symphony.

Bruckner's symphonic works, much maligned in Vienna in his lifetime, now have an important place in the tradition and musical repertoire of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

The life of Bruckner was portrayed in Jan Schmidt-Garre's 1995 film ''Bruckner's Decision'', which focuses on his recovery in the Austrian spa. Ken Russell's TV movie ''The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner'', starring Peter Mackriel, also fictionalizes Bruckner's real-life stay at a sanatorium because of obsessive-compulsive disorder (or 'numeromania' as it was then described).

In addition, "Visconti used the music of Bruckner for his ''Senso'' (1953), its plot concerned with the Austrian invasion of Italy in the 1860s." The score by Carl Davis for ''Ben-Hur'' takes "inspiration from Bruckner to achieve reverence in biblical scenes."

Conductors

Among the conductors most associated with the works of Bruckner, going in chronological order, the first to be mentioned should perhaps be Bruno Walter, who acted as an "ambassador" for Bruckner in the United States; made celebrated recordings of symphonies 4, 7 and 9 late in his career; wrote an essay on "Bruckner and Mahler". Otto Klemperer made one of the first two recordings of Bruckner (the adagio of the Eighth Symphony from 1924). Wilhelm Furtwängler made his conducting debut with the Ninth Symphony in 1906 and conducted Bruckner constantly throughout his career.

Hans Knappertsbusch was unusual in continuing to perform the first published editions of Bruckner's symphonies even after the critical editions became available. Eugen Jochum recorded Bruckner's numbered symphonies multiple times, as did Herbert von Karajan. Günter Wand, in addition to audio recordings, also made video recordings of his Bruckner concerts. Georg Tintner received acclaim late in life for his complete cycle of recordings on the ''Naxos'' label.

The Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache did not conduct all of Bruckner's symphonies, but those that he did conduct resulted in readings of great breadth, possibly the longest accounts of the works on record. This is especially true in the case of the Eighth Symphony, which lasts over 100 minutes. Although he never made commercial recordings of Bruckner, several recordings of concert performances were released after his death.

Eliahu Inbal recorded an early cycle which featured some previously unrecorded versions. For instance, Inbal was the first conductor to record the 1st version of Bruckner's 3rd, 4th, and the completed finale to the 9th. Daniel Barenboim recorded 2 complete cycles of Bruckner's symphonies, one with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the other with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Sir Georg Solti also recorded a complete cycle with Chicago. Bernard Haitink recorded all of Bruckner's numbered symphonies with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and re-recorded several symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic and Berlin Philharmonic. Carlo Maria Giulini made a speciality of Bruckner's late symphonies. Giuseppe Sinopoli was in the process of recording all Bruckner's symphonies at the time of his death.

More recently Riccardo Chailly, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Christian Thielemann, Mariss Jansons and Benjamin Zander have recorded several Bruckner symphonies. Leon Botstein is the most recent conductor to record inauthentic versions of Bruckner's symphonies (e.g., 1894 Schalk version of the Fifth)

See also

Bruckner Orchestra Linz

International Bruckner Society

List of Austrians in music

List of Austrians

The Bruckner Problem

Media

References

;Notes ;Sources

Bruckner, Anton. Symphony No. 8/2, C minor, 1890 version. Edited by Leopold Nowak. New York: Eulenberg, 1994.

Gilliam, Bryan, ''The annexation of Anton Bruckner: Nazi revisionism and the politics of appropriation'', in ''Bruckner Studies'' edited by Timothy Jackson and Paul Hawkshaw.

Korstvedt, Benjamin M. Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 19.

ed. Stanley Sadie, ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (London: Macmillan, 1980), 20 vols. ISBN 0-333-23111-2.

ed. Stanley Sadie, ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition'' (London: Macmillan, 2001), 29 vols. ISBN 0-333-60800-3.

External links

The life of Anton Bruckner in Chord and Discord, American Bruckner Society, 1940. A very well-written biography, with references to the conflict with the Hanslick/Brahms field, and 19th century Austrian culture and society.

The Bruckner Journal devoted to Anton Bruckner, edited by Ken Ward, caters for lay enthusiasts, musicians and academics. Produced in the UK

Bruckner Discography edited by John F. Berky – Detailed listing recordings of Anton Bruckner's orchestral works. Also includes articles and free downloads

Extensive article (35 pages) by Aart van der Wal on Bruckner's Symphony No. 9, unfinished finale

Classical Net – Bruckner Bio, Recordings, and Essays

UV.es – Anton Bruckner Bibliography

Detailed information on the various editions and revisions of Bruckner's symphonies

Discography and List of Works

MPG.de

Bruckner biography, 19th century Austrian culture and society

Bruckner MIDIs at Classical Archives

Homepage for Bruckner's House museum (Ger)

The Music of Eternity by David B. Hart, ''First Things''

Category:1824 births Category:1896 deaths Category:People from Linz-Land District * Category:Austrian Roman Catholics Category:Austrian composers Category:Romantic composers Category:Viennese composers Category:Walhalla enshrinees Category:Recipients of the Order of Franz Joseph Category:Austrian music theorists

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Classical Adlerian psychology is a values-based, fully integrated theory of personality, model of psychopathology, philosophy of living, strategy for preventative education, and technique of psychotherapy. Its mission is to encourage the development of psychologically healthy and cooperative individuals, couples, and families in order to effectively pursue the ideals of social equality and democratic living. A vigorously optimistic and inspiring approach to psychotherapy, it balances the equally important needs for optimal development of the individual as well as social responsibility.

With a solid foundation in the original teachings and therapeutic style of Alfred Adler, it integrates several resources: the contributions of Kurt Adler, Alexander Müller, Lydia Sicher, Sophia de Vries, and Anthony Bruck; the self-actualization research of Abraham Maslow; and the creative innovations of Henry Stein.

Theory of personality

Primary and secondary feelings of inferiority

The primary feeling of inferiority is the original and normal feeling in the infant and child of smallness, weakness, and dependency. This usually acts as an incentive for development. However, a child may develop an exaggerated feeling of inferiority as a result of physiological difficulties or handicaps, inappropriate parenting (including abuse, neglect, over-pampering), or cultural and/or economic obstacles. The secondary inferiority feeling is the adult's feeling of insufficiency that results from having adopted an unrealistically high or impossible compensatory goal, often one of perfection. The degree of distress is proportional to the subjective or felt distance from that goal. In addition to this distress, the residue of the original, primary feeling of inferiority may still haunt an adult. An inferiority complex is an extreme expectation that one will fail in the tasks of life that can lead to pessimistic resignation and an assumed inability to overcome difficulties.

Striving for significance

The basic, common movement of every human being is, from birth until death, of overcoming, expansion, growth, completion, and security. This may take a negative turn into a striving for superiority or power over other people. Unfortunately, many reference works mistakenly refer only to the negative "striving for power" as Adler's basic premise.

Compensation

A tendency to make up for under-development of physical or mental functioning through interest and training, usually within a relatively normal range of development. Over-compensation reflects a more powerful impulse to gain an extra margin of development, frequently beyond the normal range. This may take a useful direction toward exceptional achievement, or a useless direction toward excessive perfectionism. Genius may result from extraordinary over-compensation. Under-compensation reflects a less active, even passive attitude toward development that usually places excessive expectations and demands on other people.

Feeling of community

Translated variably from the German, ''Gemeinschaftsgefuehl'' can mean community feeling, social interest, social feeling or social sense. The concept denotes a recognition and acceptance of the interconnectedness of all people, experienced on affective, cognitive, and behavioral levels. At the affective level, it is experienced as a deep feeling of belonging to the human race and empathy with fellow men and women. At the cognitive level, it is experienced as a recognition of interdependence with others, i.e., that the welfare of any one individual ultimately depends on the welfare of everyone. At the behavioral level, these thoughts and feelings can then be translated into actions aimed at self-development as well as cooperative and helpful movements directed toward others. Thus, at its heart the concept of "feeling of community" encompasses individuals' full development of their capacities, a process that is both personally fulfilling and results in people who have something worthwhile to contribute to one another.

Style of life

A concept reflecting the organization of the personality, including the meaning individuals give to the world and to themselves, their fictional final goal, and the affective, cognitive, and behavioral strategies they employ to reach the goal. This style is also viewed in the context of the individual's approach to or avoidance of the four tasks of life: other people, work, love and sex.

Fictional final goal

Classical Adlerian Psychology assumes a central personality dynamic reflecting the growth and forward movement of life. It is a future-oriented striving toward an ideal goal of significance, superiority, success or completion. The early childhood feeling of inferiority, for which one aims to compensate, leads to the creation of a fictional final goal which subjectively seems to promise total relief from the feeling of inferiority, future security, and success. The depth of the inferior feeling usually determines the height of the goal which then becomes the "final cause" of behavior patterns.

Unity of the personality

The position that all of the cognitive, affective, and behavioral facets of the individual are viewed as components of an integrated whole, moving in one psychological direction, without internal contradictions or conflicts.

Private logic (vs. common sense)

Private logic is the reasoning invented by an individual to stimulate and justify a style of life. By contrast, common sense represents society's cumulative, consensual reasoning that recognizes the wisdom of mutual benefit.

Safeguarding tendency

Cognitive and behavioral strategies used to avoid or excuse oneself from imagined failure. They can take the form of symptoms—such as anxiety, phobias, or depression—which can all be used as excuses for avoiding the tasks of life and transferring responsibility to others. They can also take the form of aggression or withdrawal. Aggressive safeguarding strategies include deprecation, accusations, or self-accusations and guilt, which are used as means for elevating a fragile self-esteem and safeguarding an overblown, idealized image of oneself. Withdrawal takes various forms of physical, mental, and emotional distancing from seemingly threatening people and problems.

Psychology of use (vs. possession)

The perspective that an individual uses his thinking, feeling, and actions (even his symptoms) to achieve a social end. He does not merely inherit or possess certain qualities, traits, or attitudes, but adopts only those characteristics that serve his goal, and rejects those that do not fit his intentions. This assumption emphasizes personal responsibility for one's character.

See also

Individual psychology

Style of life

North American Society of Adlerian Psychology

de:Gemeinschaftsgefühl es:Psicología clásica adleriana