Anton Bruckner / Christoph JK Müller (arr.) Träumen und Wachen

Anton Bruckner was born in Ansfelden (Austria) in 1824 and did not have a particularly easy life. The Austrian composer came from a simple, rural background and was plagued by self-doubt throughout his life. After the death of his father, he was accepted as a choirboy at St Florian's Abbey at the age of 13. After several years as a school assistant and self-taught organ and piano studies, he initially worked as an organist in St Florian. In 1855 he was appointed cathedral organist in Linz. After an introduction to music theory and instrumentation by Simon Sechter and Otto Kitzler, Bruckner discovered Richard Wagner as an artistic role model, whom he admired throughout his life and also visited several times in Bayreuth.

In 1868 Anton Bruckner became professor of basso continuo, counterpoint and organ at the Vienna Conservatory, ten years later court organist. In 1891 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Vienna. He was regarded as an important organ virtuoso of his time, but his compositional recognition was a long time coming. It was not until the Symphony No. 7 in E major, composed between 1881 and 1883, with the famous Adagio, which was written under the impression of Wagner's death, that he received the recognition he had hoped for, even if he did not want to accept it in view of his tendency towards scepticism and self-criticism.

Anton Bruckner was a solitary composer who did not want to follow any school or doctrine. He wrote both sacred and secular works in all their facets. In addition to numerous motets, Bruckner composed three masses, the Missa Solemnis in B flat minor (1854) and the Te Deum (1881-84; CV 27.190/00), which is available from Carus-Verlag. As a symphonist, he wrote a total of nine symphonies and many symphonic studies from 1863 onwards, whereby he tended to revise finished versions several times. Bruckner's orchestral works were long considered unplayable, but for the tonal language of their time they were merely unusually bold sound monuments on the border between late Romanticism and Modernism, uniting traditions from Beethoven to Wagner and folk music.

After studying school music, artistic piano playing, jazz and orchestral conducting in Stuttgart, Karlsruhe and Lisbon, Christoph JK Müller was directly engaged as a répétiteur at the Stuttgart State Opera. This was followed by an engagement as Kapellmeister and director of the Junge Oper at the Dortmund Theatre, where he conducted numerous operas as well as operettas, musicals, ballets and concerts. His artistic highlights include the world premiere of Avner Dorman's ‘The Sultan's Children’, the German premiere of the 3rd version of Gaspare Sponini's ‘Fernand Cortez’ and the musical production ‘Songs for a new world’ by Jason Robert Brown. In addongs for a new world venues, he has been a welcome guest, for example at the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern and the Bonn Opera.

In addition to his work as a conductor, Christoph JK Müller is also active as an arranger. His arrangements and compositions have been regularly published by Carus-Verlag for over ten years. He has also written theatre music for the theatres in Heidelberg and Dortmund.

As a pianist, Christoph JK Müller enjoys the diverse wealth of notated and unnotated music. He has performed Beethoven's 3rd and 4th concertos as a piano soloist, and improvisation as a musical creation in the moment, with or without a model, is an integral part of his musical expression and identity, for which he received two awards, including at the 11th National Competition for Practical Piano Playing in Schools in 2012.

Christoph JK Müller has been working as a lecturer in orchestral conducting at the UdK Berlin since 2022. Right at the beginning of his tenure, he founded the Sinfonietta of the UdK Berlin, a dynamic ensemble that is both the institute's concert orchestra and an inspiring field of experimentation for student teachers specialising in orchestral conducting.