Few composers divide the crowds like Anton Bruckner, yet for many his music offers something close to a religious experience. Bruckner’s intense Roman Catholic faith sustained him through terrible mental crises, and through years of loneliness and neglect. It was the focus of the two main strands of his output: symphonies and religious choral music. Born in 1824 in rural Austria, Bruckner received his education mostly at the monastery of St. Florian, where his musical talents were recognised and encouraged: he also became an outstanding organist. His strong sense of artistic vocation took him to Vienna, where for some time his music was either ridiculed or ignored, not least because of his declared allegiance to the arch-modernist Richard Wagner. It wasn’t until he was in his sixties that Bruckner began to be recognised as a highly original symphonic thinker. His grand, spacious symphonies have been called “cathedrals in sound”, though there’s also a strong feeling for nature and for the Austrian folk music he knew from boyhood. His church music, particularly the two great Masses in E minor (1866) and F minor (1868) and the many beautiful short motets, have been loved and admired even by those who find the symphonies challenging. Though his artistic scope was narrower than that of Wagner or his young friend Gustav Mahler, what he achieved in his chosen fields is unique and, in the truest sense of the word, visionary.