Anton Bruckner himself gave his Fourth Symphony the epithet «Romantische» – but what does this actually mean: romantic? In a world in which life and work are ever more strictly based on reason, on rational, cold calculation and efficient function, the word covers a somewhat diffuse need for the expression of feelings that we so often have to suppress. In order to compensate for this de cit, we need, truth be told, to settle for the inauthentic, the fake, if it might be able to put us in a romantic mood, that is, one characterised by love and longing. And «settling», with its commercial connotations, is entirely appropriate here, since Bruckner’s chosen signal word, interpretable in so many and various ways, is constantly used to get us to buy – from bath salts to holidays, from perfume to houses. «Ladies’ fashion or train tickets, candlelit dinners or spa hotels: the Romantic is always with us. It lies like a cuddly blanket over things», argues the German writer Georg Rudiger in this context. ...