Career Summary

Bittner studied law, receiving the doctorate and working as a judge and an attorney with the Justice Ministry for a time, and also music composition with Josef Labor with encouragement from Franz Schalk and Bruno Walter. He was closely associated with the Wiener Akademischer Wagner-Verein (Vienna Academic Wagner Association). As a composer, influenced by Wagner and later by Mahler, he wrote nine operas, a ballet, two operettas, incidental music, two symphonies, two symphonic poems, two string quartets, sacred choral works, and solo songs.

Bittner was briefly music editor for Der Merker (in 1919 Eberhard von Waechter states that Bittner and Richard Stöhr were joint editors of that journal: OJ 15/5, [6]), and also President of the Wiener Tonkünstlerverein. He contributed articles to Der Merker (1910, 1918, 1920) and Musikblätter des Anbruch (1924).

Bittner and Schenker

There seems to have been no direct contact between Bittner and Schenker, nor is there any known correspondence. They were both among some seventy signatories to a letter to Gustav Mahler in May 1907 expressing support for him in his conflit with the Vienna Court Opera.

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