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Teacher's education

Bruckner's father died in 1837, when Bruckner was 13 years old. The teacher's position and house were given to a successor, and Bruckner was sent to the Augustinian monastery in Sankt Florian to become a choirboy. In addition to choir practice, his education included violin and organ lessons. Bruckner was in awe of the monastery's great organ, which was built during the late baroque era and rebuilt in 1837, and he sometimes played it during church services. Despite his musical abilities, Bruckner's mother sent her son to a teaching seminar in Linz in 1841.

After completing the seminar with an excellent grade, Bruckner was sent as an assistant teacher to a school in Windhaag. The living standards and pay were appalling and Bruckner was constantly humiliated by his superior, teacher Franz Fuchs. Despite the difficult situation, Bruckner never complained or rebelled; a belief in his own inferiority was to remain one of Bruckner's main personal traits during his whole life. He stayed at Windhaag from age 17 to 19, teaching general subjects.

Prelate Michael Arneth noticed Bruckner's bad situation in Windhaag and awarded him an assistant teacher position in the vicinity of the monastic town of Sankt Florian, sending him to Kronstorf an der Enns for two years. Here he would be able to have more of a part in musical activity. The time in Kronstorf was a much happier one for Bruckner. Between 1843 and 1845, Bruckner was the pupil of Leopold von Zenetti in Enns. Compared to the few works he wrote in Windhaag, the Kronstorf compositions from 1843 to 1845 show a significantly improved artistic ability, and finally the beginnings of what could be called "the Bruckner style". Among the Kronstorf works is the vocal piece Asperges me (WAB 4), which the young assistant teacher, out of line given his position, signed with "Anton Bruckner m.p.ria. Comp". This has been interpreted as a lone early sign of Bruckner's artistic ambitions. Otherwise, little is known of Bruckner's life plans and intentions.