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Written as a death-mask homage to composer Anton Bruckner in the 200th anniversary year of his birth, Bruckner’s Skull is inspired by Bruckner’s obsession with death, and in particular the two alleged occasions when Bruckner cradled the skulls of both Beethoven and Schubert when their bodies were exhumed and moved to Vienna’s Central Cemetery in 1888. The many quirks, morbid fixations and zealous eccentricities of Bruckner have been reported anecdotally throughout the centuries.

These reports include the commissioning of the only photograph in his possession of his late mother after her death; requests to exhume and see the body of a late cousin; specific instructions on his own burial under the organ that he played at the St Florian Monastery; the keeping of lists of his female students to whom he would continually propose well into his old age; the duality in his hyper-religious, grandiose sense of divine musical purpose coupled with his extreme shyness and debilitating low self-esteem; and the relentless counting of bricks on walls, blades of grass, pearls on dresses, leaves on trees and bars in his own music. Bruckner spent a year in a sanatorium where his fixations were classed as ‘numeromania’, which is now known as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. The symptoms of OCD manifest in the ways in which a person experiences uncontrollable, intrusive, distressing and recurring thoughts (obsessions), which are alleviated by engaging in repetitive behaviours and actions (compulsions) that are attributed to a specific fear of dire consequences (to themselves, loved ones or others) if those behaviours and actions are not completed to a perceived satisfactory degree.

Bruckner’s Skull is intended as a psychological-musical exploration of the great composer’s character and the stories that surround his life, death, passions and obsessions. The focus of the piece is to delve into Bruckner’s mind through the lens of his morbid fixations as a kind of musical post-mortem, to find out why he was driven to act in the societally unacceptable – and, by modern standards, immoral and potentially criminal – ways that he allegedly did. Therefore, the musical material in this work is directly derived from fragments of Bruckner’s compositions and altered to an obsessional degree. The work includes some hidden and overt references to both Schubert and Beethoven’s music as well. Schubert’s String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, also known as ‘Death and the Maiden’, and the first movement from Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor represent the presence of each composer’s skull in the hands of Bruckner. Their music is warped and transformed by Bruckner’s obsessive qualities, which merge with his own hyper-religious, austere Romanticism as though Schubert and Beethoven are being viewed through Bruckner’s fanatical eyes. A significant quotation also comes from Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 131, which was performed to Schubert at his request on his own deathbed – perhaps the last piece of music he ever heard. All of which is intended to show the more human and musical connections that these three composers shared in their lives and deaths.

The stories of Bruckner’s life may never be fully confirmed beyond anecdote and speculation, meaning that he may never be fully understood on his own terms and in his own way. Therefore, this piece takes those stories at face value and tries to understand a flawed man while attempting to find the humanity at the centre of such dark fascinations. As the psychologist Carl Jung expressed: ‘In the end, man is an event that cannot judge itself, but, for better or worse, is left to the judgment of others.’

© 2025 Jay Capperauld