The course of Anton Bruckner's musical development may have taken a new turn when he first made the acquaintance of Wagner's music in the 1860s, but to regard him as a simple musical offshoot of Wagner, a disciple who brought to the symphony something of what Wagner brought to music drama, is both inaccurate and unfair. Indeed, an understanding of Bruckner's own sacred music—both the large masses and such smaller works as the a cappella motet Virga Jesse floruit of 1885—provides many keys to understanding Bruckner's immense symphonic works. Virga Jesse floruit, which is one of comparatively few sacred works composed after Bruckner turned to symphonies, reminds us once again that even the idea of classifying Bruckner as a Romantic is not without problems. His musical mind-set was, as has often and rightly been observed, more of the Renaissance or even the pre-Renaissance than nineteenth century modern, and no amount of chromatic elaboration and structural expansion can hide the fact that, psychologically speaking, his symphonies have nothing whatever to do with the throbbing, searching new ways of Liszt, Wagner, and company. In Virga Jesse floruit, Bruckner very consciously draws on an ancient musical heritage, spinning out rich, pure lines in a style reminiscent of Palestrina and the stile antico. It is as if time itself has no meaning to Bruckner, and in his music-making—long or short, old or new—his identity remains the same.

Virga Jesse floruit is one of Bruckner's most famous pieces; it is sung at Christmastime by choirs, amateur and professional, around the globe. The brief gradual text translates something as follows: "The rod of Jesse flourished; a virgin produced both God and man: and God restored peace, reconciling both lowest and highest within Himself. Alleluia." Bruckner's 92 measures of music move from a group of isolated phrases at the beginning of the piece through some expansive imitative play on the text "pacem Deus reddidit," and finally to the staggered alleluias, at first ecstatic and then absolutely tender, that fill the final third of this most effective piece.

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