born Sept. 4, 1824, Ansfelden, Austria
died Oct. 11, 1896, Vienna
Austrian composer.
Son of a rural schoolmaster who died in Anton's youth, he was taken into a monastery as a choirboy and there learned to play the organ. Greatly gifted, he became organist at Linz Cathedral in 1855; throughout his composing career, his orchestrations would be compared to organ sonorities. In 1865 he heard Tristan und Isolde in Munich and thereafter idolized Richard Wagner , though his own works remained indebted to Ludwig van Beethoven . In 1868 he was appointed professor at the Vienna Conservatory and settled in Vienna for the rest of his life. He was 60 before he achieved fame with his Symphony No. 7 in E Major (1884). He was socially awkward and eccentric, and he remained a deeply devout Christian to his death. His reputation rests on his nine mature symphonies (186696), his three masses, and his Te Deum (1884).