But his fame left him unchanged. He was first and last a person of deep and abiding faith. In the middle of teaching class, at the sound of the Angelus, he would stop and drop to his knees. It is hard to imagine anyone else in the lush artistic world of Vienna at the time doing the same. Bruckner on his knees at the Angelus is the defining image of a man whose faith imbued his artistic vision as it has few artists in musical history.
Faith is supposed to be able to move mountains.
If mountains can be thought of in terms of sound, Anton Bruckner's faith moved them. His monumental compositions are a musical Alps, and in listening to them, as when viewing the Alps, one can only look up in awe. I will present to him the score of my Te Deum and I hope he will judge me mercifully. However, Bruckner is a difficult composer and, in a way, an acquired taste. His main body of work consists of nine symphonies and three Masses.