Hans Rott – Bruckner's favourite pupil

Hans Rott, born in 1858, studied organ with Anton Bruckner at the Conservatory of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna from 1874 and, together with Gustav Mahler, composition with Franz Krenn. At the final composition examination in 1878, he presented the first movement of his Symphony (No. 1) in E major, completed in 1880, and was the only student of the year not to receive a prize, whereupon Bruckner is said to have shouted to the amused examination board: "Don't laugh, gentlemen, you'll hear great things from this man!" Bruckner had already emphasised Rott's talent in a letter to Ignaz Traumihler on 14 June 1877: "He [...] is a brilliant musician [...] and [...] has been my best pupil so far." Heinrich Krzyzanowski, a close friend of Rott, later wrote about the intimate relationship between teacher and pupil: "None of the younger ones was as close to him [Bruckner] as R[ott]. Both were deeply religious, not to say Catholic. Both belonged to the organ & the organ to them."

Plagued by financial worries and after his symphony was rejected by the jury for the Beethoven Scholarship of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, of which Johannes Brahms was also a member, Rott's mental illness, which had already become apparent, broke out at the end of October 1880 on the train journey to Mulhouse in Alsace, where he was planning to take up a position as choirmaster. Rott tried to stop a passenger from lighting a cigar at gunpoint, fearing that Brahms had had the carriage filled with dynamite. In 1884, after several suicide attempts, Rott died of tuberculosis in a psychiatric institution at the age of just 25.