After Guild have closed down their Switzerland Office, Guild UK have decided to cancel their Swiss catalogue, including my 9 Fritz Brun CDs - this with immediate effect.
I am dealing now with the take-over by another label (preferably in the form of a boxed bargain edition, including the Sterling issue of the 3rd Symphony as well). Since these CDs were all commissioned productions, all rights remain with the sponsor, which is the Brun estate.
Keep your fingers crossed with me that this deal will be successful!
Oh, that is very worrying news. We wish you well, of course, Adriano.
Indeed. I do hope that all goes well for you, and Brun.
Thans, Mark and Alan ;)
Average sales pro item so far were between 200 and 500 copies, which is, actually, not too bad for that kind of repertoire...
No. Not bad at all. Publishing these sales figures on this forum provides a useful note of reality to our discussions. That said, the prospect of a boxed set might be an incentive for some collectors who have yet to purchase these fascinating and rewarding symphonies.
Quote from: hadrianus on Thursday 13 July 2017, 12:01
Average sales pro item so far were between 200 and 500 copies, which is, actually, not too bad for that kind of repertoire...
Is this just physical CDs, or does the figure include downloads?
I have all 10 symphonies - as far as I remember I downloaded them all, from iTunes or from Chandos.
Those wishing to audition before buying should note also that they are, for the moment and as of this writing (the Guild symphonies CDs only) still available on NML, I see... (might stop being true 5 seconds from now, for all I know.)
Downloads will also be discontinued, but certainly re-installed after having found a new label. The figures refer only to physical CDs. Download figures are not reported, but this seems to be a no real winning business anyway in the classical music field, unless you offer Bartoli or Kaufmann, but these stars are asking for high royalties.
Shhh - don't tell anyone, but I'm allergic to Bartoli too.
I worked with her since her Zurich débuts as Cherubino and Rosina and we are very good friends since over 25 years. However, I could add some "shhs" too, especially after she started singing soprano and castrato repertoire and Bellini...
It's the way she 'hits' her coloratura runs - she can sound hard and juddery. As for her Norma, well, don't get me started...
Sorry to hear that Adriano!! Hopefully, it will work out.
I'd certainly buy a boxed set of the Brun symphonies!
Adriano, I sincerely hope the new deal will work out.
Yes, do keep us posted on the outcome, Adriano. These are magnificent recordings and they should be 'out there'. :)
I'd buy that box of Brun as soon as it was known to be available.
Thanks, chill319
And I can tell you that this Brun boxed re-issue becomes increasingly probable :-)
I also offer myself to sell this or that missing single CD from my own left-over stock, which gets smaller every week. But who knows, I may buy up some left-overs from Guild UK, depending from what they will ask for it. I was used to buy them at distributor's price. Fram Naxos I can still buy at a very low "artist's copies" price...
At this occasion, the liner notes, songetxts and biographies will be available on a bonus CDR. I am in process of revising all texts (and translations) and correct some early mistakes or wrong infos, especially from the time I started my Brun researches - and could not find enough information. During these last years I have consulted many Swiss and foreign archives and libraries, since in the composer's estate at the Zürich Zentralbibliothek too many documents were missing, particularly on Brun's enormous conducting activities. To assemble over 200 subscription, choral and chamber music programs between 1904 and 1950 I needed to pass days in 5 different Berne libraries, 3 in Lucerne, 2 French Swiss ones, and to correspond with 3 libraries in Berlin, 2 in Cologne, 1 in Dortmund, 2 in Vienna, 2 in The Netherlands and 2 in France. I was hoping to find documents on Brun's short London 1902 stay (where he also performed with a ladie's string quartet), but was not lucky at all...
Now I am still editing my film biography on Brun, which will be some 70 minutes long...
That's a lot of work! Thank you!
yes thank you !! I have almost all the Brun CDs... except for 8
I had planned to stream them on Qobuz, but I downloaded them instead, just in case they disappear... They are all there except the Cello concerto + songs, which I found on chandos.net, available for downloading...
They won't disappear. Very soon I will come up with good news :-)
Present downloads will be deleted soon - and taken over by another company!
I'd love to get just the cello concerto, but I'm having trouble connecting with Chandos.net.
Hello everybody :-)
Learning now that Brun's "Complete Orchestral Works" box on Brilliant Classics will have to wait until April 1st, 2019 to be issued. Well, it's still a wonder I could find another label - and I know Brilliant has a lot in their channels.
Still :'(
It'll be worth the wait for those who don't know these powerful works.
I'll buy the Brun box no doubt; it'll be worth the wait........
Thanks, dear friends :-)
I recently gave most of my CDs to my local university library with the exception of my most beloved ones, and among those kept were all the Guild CDs, but especially the Brun series and the Marco Polos that Hadrianus gave us. Guess the recently emerged American cultural marauders will have to pry the beautiful sounds from my cold dead ears!!!
Thanks, Jim, although I have no idea who you are and to which Library I gave my CDs :-)
Thanks, minacciosa :-)
It will in any case, since the contract was stipulated and signed 4 months ago already. Brun's heirs costed this an attorney's bill of 1600 CHF, in order that Brilliant's drafted contract became a mutually agreed one.
A somewhat belated but very favourable review of Brun's symphonies on the Dutch site OpusKlassiek https://www.opusklassiek.nl/cd-recensies/cd-aw/brun01.htm
Thanks, Yaskovsky
It's not as "very favourable" as that: the author says that I - and all the soloists (!) - did not bring out enough "colour" in our interpretations. And that we could have been more "flexible". Which I both strongly disapprove.
Aart van der Wal apparently expects music from an extravert and "big orchestra" composer like Strauss or Respighi - an does no realize that Brun's concerns were all other than that. And that his orchestra formation is mostly Brahms-sized! In his Symphonies, the only percussion instruments are timpani; and there is no triangle, no harp, no celesta etc.
This review is unfair - although the author writes a lot of useful info about Brun and his time (from where elase he could get it than from my 164-page booklet?) - but this is not the real purpose of a CD review.
He also says that, compared to the historical bonus CD included, I have a better control of the orchestra than Brun (who is conducting there). Brun worked many times with the Swiss Radio Orchestra; and he was active from 1909 until 1941 with his regular Berne Symphony, with whom he gave over 250 concerts.
As a reviewer, I would never dare to affirm such things on music unknown to me before having consulted the scores - and, realizing that those Brun scores are hardly available - I would therefore not issue such a global judgement of a 10-CD box! Like many other reviewers he may perhaps just listened to bits and pieces...
Will come back later with more criticism. I only refer to the last paragraphs of this review, which have been translated into German so far. A full translation is being made.
It's frustrating to be confronted with such superficial critcism - considering that I was seriously involved in this project from 2003 until 2015 - and that I am still working daily on this composer.
My Fritz Brun video documentary (now at its end state) will have a duration of over 2 1/2 hours. It will not be for public viewing, but a kind of "biography with pictures and audio" for personal - or didactical use. It will not be released commercially - otherwise I would have to pay a fortune of music and pictures copyright fees.
At my age of 75 I can certainly look back to an interesting CD conducting career, but it was all other than a finacially rewarding one. The only satisfaction one can get, are some positive reviews and personal reactions from friends and admirer. But nobody takes into consideration struggles and disappointments experienced with CD company bosses.
And now it looks as nobody wants me anymore, since I am unable to raise more sponsorships. Luckily, I still can enjoy listening to music and studying scores - the only thing keeping me alive in this world, which is getting crazier day by day.
I'm sorry for using 'favourable'; my native Dutch is far better than my English or German; my Russian is basic. By using 'favourable' I thought of the Dutch word 'gunstig'. A positive word because the reviewer encourages potential customers to have a look at this release. OpusKlassiek is, in my opnion, the only serious website in Dutch about classical music in general. They comment on releases far and wide, sure not middle-of-the-road, f.i. the Winbeck cd-set just released. They happen to be Bruckner-crazy and I'm happy they made a case for Brun too.
Thanks, Yaskovsky :-)
Of course "gunstig" is still a miracle today for a maverick conductor with no concert-hall appearances like I am - doing such strange repertoire. The author could have been more cruel - and with cruel judgements I had to deal a lot in the past. The problem is that, with unknown repertoire, a reviewer often finds the music or the interpretation not good enough because he simply has no idea, or, more simply, it's not of his taste.
Forget the review, Adriano. It's not worthy of your attention. Be assured that your Brun project is fully worthy of the music it is promoting.
Thanks very much, Alan :-)
In the meantime I could learn from a friend that the originally designated reviewer of OpusKlassiek had refused to write, since he apparently couldn't do anything with Brun's music. Aart van der Wal was more than happy to take the Brun box out from his hands.
Now I am all in suspense of whatever may be coming from over the Ocean - after remembering some earlier sentences by David Hurwitz & Co...
I think we have to be aware that Brun's music requires careful listening - it doesn't immediately reveal its secrets. Any reviewer who rushes into print or has a tight deadline to meet will almost certainly miss the essence of the music. Brun takes time to appreciate...
Because of my great and long time (30 years) respect for Adriano I have listened to Brun's symphonies from time to time over the past year. I am not really sure apart from the early Sym 1 they are Romantic exactly. The next 2 are borderline IMO particularly Sym 3. I rarely feel music composed after 1925 is echt Romantic though. My thoughts are these works are more likely to appeal to listeners who enjoy say Schumann's Cello Concerto or Debussy's Jeux. I find the content of each section (not movement) of Brun's symphonies to be pleasing enough but conventional. What is distinctive is the novel (some may think odd) sequence into which these conventional passages are arranged. I've listened the most to Symphony 6 and find it quite interesting in that regard. The rest,, apart from Sym 1, I will have to listen to more.
I've returned to the Brilliant Classics reissue of the set recently with much enjoyment. (Some oddities in the labeling; symphony no.4 is definitely in major- maybe E major, I'd have to check - but absolutely not E or any other minor. Some similar things I think elsewhere?)
Symphony 4 is listed as E Major on the YT video of the Adriano set.
Yes there is something interesting about this music although I am not yet settled on its overall merit. On reflection it is apparent that composers after WW1 who did not want to go severe atonal/serial faced a difficult decision as to what musical method and rhetoric to employ. Basically composers born between 1860 and 1885 grew up in a late Romantic musical environment. Apart from Satie, they all started in that style and then reacted against it in various ways. But almost all of them returned to tonal Romanticism (or at least Romantic gestures), at times later in their career, seemingly unable to escape it unlike the later avant garde. But sticking to an unchanging Wagnerian or Brahmsian model essentially assured a composer's isolation after 1925. So the only 2 Brun symphonies I hear as unequivocally Romantic are the first 2 done by 1911. After that other elements become noticeable even though his music remained in tonal keys.
Link to... (https://www.mediafire.com/view/cjkah5mx2jj1yv1/BrunSymphony4Amazon.png/file)
Screenshot from Amazon suggesting that someone thinks it's in E minor, anyway (including, btw, the program notes I downloaded when I bought the mp3s, iirc.)
Quote from: eschiss1 on Saturday 19 October 2024, 06:21Link to... (https://www.mediafire.com/view/cjkah5mx2jj1yv1/BrunSymphony4Amazon.png/file)
Screenshot from Amazon suggesting that someone thinks it's in E minor, anyway (including, btw, the program notes I downloaded when I bought the mp3s, iirc.)
I think we would need to see the score. Admittedly late Romanticism was rather lax about moving between major and minor parallel keys so this might prove to be an academic question; but Amazon is the least trustworthy site for classical music. I wouldn't pay any attention to the info they put up. They had Michael Jackson listed as the composer of Cosi fan tutte awhile back. This is from Musicweb
Fritz BRUN (1878-1959)
Symphony No. 4 in E major (1925) [57:01]
Rhapsody for Orchestra (1957) [10:08]
Moscow Symphony Orchestra/Adriano
rec. Moscow, 2008/13
Volume 6 - Brun Orchestral Series
GUILD GMCD7411 [67:09]
I will say I find no reason to describe it as a minor-mode symphony, however, and it actually is fairly within the ambit(?) of late Romanticism, I think, but I'll give it another reason (maybe I'm missing some Debussy'an parallel harmonies, etc.)...
Worldcat, though also not unimpeachable (https://search.worldcat.org/title/611250615) (most libraries also make the common mistakes of listing Grechaninov 2 as being in A major, and Bax 1 & 7 as being in E-flat major and A-flat major respectively; those three works are in minor mode or neither, but they're certainly not in major) does give Brun 4 as "E-dur" in its score entries after all.
Thanks for your additional research eschiss. I guess we can say E major and not be called foolish.
As for the style that Brun uses, I think it is instructive to listen to the symphonies sequentially. For example in comparing the Sym 1 and Sym 2 it is clear that the Sym 1 has a direct ancestry from Beethoven to Schumann to Brahms of his Sym 1 and 2. The Brun Sym 1 Finale while fairly extrovert has typical Romantic urgency and drama. The way the brass are used is also typically Romantic. Even the soft low passage about 3 minutes in, there is nothing lax about it. There is still a noticeable tension to the passage before the main music resumes.
The Brun Sym 2 Finale has a similar extrovert quality but the material is more akin to dance and ballet. The brass are used only to accentuate the basic melodic and rhythm material rather than provide a typical Romantic climax. The material flows along much more lyrically and there is no overt urgency about it. I think this is where much of Brun's later symphonic progression stemmed from and why I have trouble viewing the later symphonies as standard Romanticism. At best we might trace a line from early Schubert to Mendelssohn to the Brahms of Sym 3. The 8 year younger Schoeck went along a somewhat similar path.
What we very much lack is a detailed academic study of the 20th C tonal symphony from 1915 - 1960. If it isn't neoclassical or obvious Romantic drama we are not quite sure what to call it.
That would make a big book. Those books I can discover limit the subject in one way or another, sometimes by too much admittedly.
I understand that although there would be no need to be exhaustive for each composer's symphonic output. Generally a composer has one or maybe two styles to consider and compare with others. But we are really handicapped in assessing them (in this site's case) for degrees and kinds of Romanticism. Brun's output has made that clearer to me.
Not sure if it was mentioned, but I was just looking at the availability of scores of Brun for me to browse and use via interlibrary loan and I see that some of the most recent, e.g. of a movement for piano quintet, a reduction of his 1947 cello concerto (published 2014) and the piano concerto (published 2012) (if a library in the US that loans to my library has this, I will certainly try to borrow this one or a full score if available, since the set I purchased includes recordings of the concertos) - were published by "Adriano Productions Morcote Erbengemeinschaft Fritz Brun" of Zürich. Cheers and thanks to the multitalented work of the conductor/publisher/record-label-owner.
Hi eschiss :-)
Thanks for your interest.
Try to find a way to send me your e-mail address ( or to find out mine) and I will be happy to send you more infos and PDFs of the Brun scores which I have edited.
As far as Brun's orchestral scores are concerned, except Symphonies 2, 3 and 4 (which were published by Hug & Co.), they never have been printed, they exists in MS form only. The problem is, that these MS are (unfortunately!) owned by the Paul Sacher Foundation, so even my hands are bound.
By the way, the score of Brun's Cello Sonata has just been released (for the first time) by Musikproduktion Höflich, and Brun's First String Quartet is in the cannel for 2025.
https://repertoire-explorer.musikmph.de/de/produkt/brun-fritz/
I've also realised a 3 1/2 hour's Fritz Brun documentary film, with 1 1/2 hours bonus tracks, including a few studio session sequences. The film is in German, and not commercially available, but I can send you its link too. It's in 27 chapters, with many musical examples and documents, easily consultable. I've often "visualizied" the musical examples with graphic interpretations of existing art pictures, or with Swiss landscape sequences.
It would be a total financial flop to have this 5-DVD-box published commercially! Swiss and German TV stations (and arte) were not even interested in a 55-minute's version of this documentary; they found that Brun had not been known enough outside Switzerland - a thing which today one can be discussed about...
And here is a link to my (too voluminous for a CD box) booklet of my "complete" Brun recordings on Brilliant Records
https://www.mediafire.com/file/rf7q4zb8sqeh80z/FRITZ_BRUN_-_Booklet_Brilliant_Classics_95784.pdf/file
@Maury: Why ist it always necessary to define and classify (music) styles? But sometimes this can help music lovers to be better introduced to less-known pieces.
Thank you for the latter link (ordinarily I'd be able to download it given that I purchased the set itself, but Amazon no longer recognizes a lot of those purchases I made, it seems- I think I see why in some cases.)
Adriano,
Nice to have you back on the site. In case you don't know (mentioned on a dfferent thread) I started acquiring your CD issues 30 years ago and am a fan.
As a scientist I enjoy understanding things but to your point, it is not me personally fetishizing categories but people in general. I am on a couple of other music boards and genre classification is the source of a lot of discussion. (Of course this site is entirely based on genre classification.) There's not an unlimited amount of time to repeatedly listen to each composer and work in a normal music library. By placing a work in a genre people can quickly understand the degree to which it fits the category. This aids comprehension. To have to maintain a memory of 50 works as independent unrelated things is difficult. Much easier to say that those 50 works fall into 3 genres.
Further, it was your recordings of the Brun symphonies that forced this more to my attention as I had trouble figuring out what he was trying to do (apart from the conventional Sym 1). But I began to see similarities with several other of his contemporaries such as Bendix, Hermann, Langgaard, some of Lajtha. On reflection they seemed to be moving towards a different kind of Romanticism (if we still want to call it that) more along the lines of pastoral styles but not exactly. Sibelius called his Symphony 6 a poem, so I will call this possible style poetic Romanticism, since it frees it from the overly specific pastoralism. My thoughts are not settled so I would be very interested in having a couple of Brun's scores to examine other than the Sym 1. I am currently going through the score of the Bendix Sym 3. Regards
PS Downloaded the Brun booklet. Thanks
Incidentally, there is as of last month a new publication (https://repertoire-explorer.musikmph.de/prefaces/5623-vw.pdf) (link to PDF preface of score, not to the score itself) of Brun's cello sonata available from MPH Munich... (of which I see you are not unaware, perhaps- "Note setting and editing: Adriano, Zürich." :) Thanks there too...)
@ eschiss
Yes, eschiss, but my new link is to a slighly revised version of the "booklet" :-)
I annouced the puslishing of the Brun Cello Sonata in my earlier posting already .
@Maury
Thanks for your compliments!
To be "simple" (but sorry if I just write this down in a hurry):
Brun started à la Brahms - and very sporadically, sometimes even with a smile, he later rarely on comes back to him. In his 2nd Symphony he consciously homages his friend Othmar Schoeck's "song-like" lyricism - and their common love for Romaticism (its Scherzo is not at all my faourite, but how wonderful is the slow movement and what a humourous finale!). In his 3rd Symphony he exeriments with extreme chromaticism and daring counterpoint - except in the slow mouvement, which forebodes alreay his later, more "modern" style - and how he can still write great lyrical music with dissonances. But its last movement is romantic again, perhaps not a a really good piece. In his 4th, in a way he justifies his good-bye to Bruckner (and faithfulness to Brahms), but at the beginning of its last movement he even tries to write aleatorically. In his 5th he uses Baroque forms with dissonaces, but also homages Berlioz (one of his favourite composers). And so he goes on, and he never wanted to repeat himself! In this 9th, he creates a sort of "Sinfonia Domestica" (but a less painfully inflated one than Strauss's) - and in his 10th I feel a homage to Robert Schumann! His most perfect Symphony may be his 8th. (I adore it), but in there he also has daring - and long - row-motivs containing all 12 notes! Its slow movement (perhaps a bit too long), is a set of variations (like the slow movement of the 3rd.) and its scherzo is a tricky "serenade" for bass-clarinet solo and a transparent nocturnal orchestra. The 6th and 7th use also Baroque forms with daring dissonaces and homages to Schoeck and to Berlioz.
But all this is pure and honest Brun. An unprepared listener needs patience to get into this rather complex world.
Do also listen to his early, fascinating and deeply humanly felt tone poem "Aus dem Buch Hiob".
And his later great "Symphonischer Prolog" should also be performed and appreciated: it's a very difficult, but imprtessive piece, in which the composer let us feel his believe in life and happiness that World War II was just reaching its end!
And what about his concertante works? Just listen to the (very originally scored) slow movements of his Piano and Cello Concerto!
Or that short, very daring (and difficult) "Verheissung" for chorus and large orchestra!
Last but not least: Brun's music is not a typically "conductor-composer's" music, but a "composer-conductor's" one. Similarly to Furtwängler, composing would have been his main goal. But as a young man already, a good conducting post was offerd to him, so he worked 38 years as a "subscription concert" maestro with a main repertoire concentrating to Beethoven, Brahms, and Bruckner. At the same time he had to lead two chrouses, allowing him to perfom the greatest masses and oratorios of music history from Bach to Honegger.
Brun was also a frequent - and much appreciated pianist in chamber concerts and song recitals! Like Ansermet, had his orchestra under total control - guest conductors were very seldomly invited. Brun even had not time to be invited to conduct other orchestra. Occasional guest appearences were in Zurich and in Geneva. Following rare "foreign" apperances as for the (Italian first!) performance of Bach's Mass in B Minor, sigle Festival concerts in Leipzig, Paris and Vienna, Brun did not reach an European renown - simply because he was not at all interested.
After he had decided to retire, the orchestra management started to realise that his successor would never be able to cope with such enormous duites as a conductor, chorus leader and chamber musician.
This large working schedule gave him little time spend in creating music. And familiar duties were also there to accomplish
Adriano,
Thank you very much for your detailed response. FYI, I do have your large Brun box. At least I wasn't going crazy that something significant happened to Brun's symphonic intentions after the Sym 1. There was a 10 year gap between Sym 1 and 2 which is a bit unusual for someone who composed 10 eventually. (Do you happen to know if Brun heard the Sibelius Sym 3 or the later Bendix symphonies 3-4 during this period?)
Your comments about his compositional process in his later symphonies are very interesting and helpful. All I can say is that I hear a certain consistency of musical rhetoric and organizational process (at the sectional level) from Sym 2 all the way through to 10 despite any shift in his "influences" or surface technique.
I would very much be interested in seeing a few of his symphonic scores if the copyright terms permit. In the US anything before 1924 is public domain. So Sym 2 and 3 would meet that cutoff at least. If there any fees please advise. Regards
Maury: no. in the US anything first given US publication before 1929 is public domain. (Next year that becomes before 1930). Unpublished (manuscript only) works have separate rules. And not all works first published after 1928 are still in copyright- it has to do with regular renewal with the Library of Congress, or applying for... etc, etc. ...
Eschiss,
I didn't realize they were progressing the date. I believe it started at 1924. As for the nuances yes I am familiar with them but didn't want to over-complicate it with Adriano. but thanks for stating them. Some full post with copyright details for the US EU and perhaps elsewhere might be a useful sticky for reference.
(BTW it looks like symphony no.4 may have been published in 1929 by Hug, so it may be in the US public domain in 2025. It's unclear whether symphonies 1 and 5-10 exist otherwise than as manuscript, as archive-copies made in 2007 etc., though again that doesn't always mean necessarily still in copyright everywhere . Also, the +95 rule doesn't apply to newer publications; works published or registered in the US since 2003 are in copyright
"Irrespective of when a work was created, its term if first published or registered in 2003 or later (including if it is still unpublished) is as follows:
If the work is by a known individual author with a known death date: 70 years from the author's death"
Maury: it was a law having to do with renewal, whose copyright-related breakyear consequence was basically "before "1923" or "this year - 96", whichever is later". In 2019, for the first time, the second part was greater than the first part, and has been increasing ever since.
eschiss,
thank you very much for the info on arcane legal workings of the copyright code. The irony is that in 2024 google etc have effectively killed copyright. :)
As for the scores I assume Adriano had to have had a conductor's score for these works whether printed or original. Also these works were performed back when Brun was alive. Doesn't his estate have all of the scores and parts?
The notes to the cello sonata point out the location of its two sources, one @ the manuscript collection of the Paul Sacher Archive and Research Center in Basle (Switzerland), one "Fritz Brun Estate Collection at the Music Department of the Zurich Central Library, are deposited a reproduction of the transcript" by an unknown copyrist. So there seem to be multiple locations for at least some of his manuscripts for such works as symphonies 1 & 5-10 e.g. for which published scores do not appear to exist (or need correction when they do).
Apologies for the lengthy digression!
No need to apologize when you are not at fault. These are digressions on topic not unrelated. But thanks for the additional info which seems clear and what would be expected.
@ Maury
@ eschiss, please read my comments more exactly: I wrote that Symphonies 2-4 were printed by Hug, which means that they can be made available "for study" or "consultation" (by parcel post and agaimnst a fee, of course). This is a procedure of many publishers, unless they have agreed (for example with MPH-Repertoire Explorer) to have them reprinted (at MPH's expenses, naturally).This can be interpreted in different ways; but generally requested real "study" scores are being hired, not its PDFs. As far as autographs are concered, the Sacher Collection is even more intransigent than Hug. But Hug, for example, asked a very large hiring material sum for the instrumental parts I used for my recordings. And the Brun heirs and myself also encountered a various difficulties every time we wanted this or that Sacher scan (of the very autographs which were donated to them!). And, if we received some (in case of the Cello Sonata we had to wait for the scans over a half a year), large transparent "Sacher logo" watermark stamps were printed over the notes on every page, meaning that if something would be reproduced somewhere, their Sacher's lawyers may turn up with a penance.
The Sacher people got a real shock after having heard incidentally from me that, before handing over original MS's to Sacher, microfilms and photocopies were handed over by Bruns's son to a Berne Library and to the Zurich Central Library.
For my recordings I used the authograph photocopies of the Central Music Library - and this, luckily, before the Sacher people got shocked...
For editing the actual first printed scores of Bruns's Cello Sonata and of his 1st String Quartet, I had to sign a contract, obliging me to destroy the corresponding scans, once the printed scores would be published! This is absolutely grotesque!
We had various meetings in Basle, where the Brun heirs and the Central Library had to agree to various restrictions. But I was furious too, especially knowing that the Sacher Foundation will not do anything with Brun autographs anyway. The composer's son had handed them over to the Sacher Collection hoping that something would have been published! Sacher was a millionaire! His Archive is, in my opinion, but a "manuscript refrigerator". He had commissioned but one work to Brun (Symphonic Variations for piano and strings"), paying him a little fee of a couple of hundred Francs under condition that the authograph would become his propriety.
During is lifetime, Paul Sacher was a kind of Swiss music mafia boss he had become a much feared person, since he could destroy musical careers of players and critics with whom he had problems. After having performed in a concert, he would contact newspapers redactions to see if there would be a bad review or not, and forbiding it if there was a bad one. At he occasion his 80th birthday, a Siwss musicologist had written a very critical aticle on Sacher, exposing many of his "bad" sides. The article was censored. Apparently, his body-guard and chauffeur always carried a pistol with him. Before Hermann Scherchen was invited to Winterthur as a regular guest conductor, Sacher had written letters to composers an musicians, meaning that "we absolutely don't want this German guy over here" (Scherchen was not a Nazi, he just wanted to leave Germany). And, once everybody had opposed to his mobbing, Sacher continued harrassing Scherchen - even after he had left Winterthur for Lugano. Sacher was just jealous of such a much more better conductor than him.
If one wants to study Sacher autographs, he must travel to Basel and agree not to photocopy anything, unless it's a famous composer like Stravinsky or Martinu or others, on which a monography ir an essay is being written, needing score pages or excerpts for musical examples.
I could let you have without problems those 3 Hug Symphony PDFs (which I had personally scanned for them before its paper would crumble to dust, due to unprofessional storing or because they were manufactured with cheap paper), but I am sure that after this, those PDFs would appear in short time on ISLMP, with which the publisher and the Brun estate may not agree yet and involve myself into the affair since it is known that I had scanned them. But, in the case of these three scores, "printing copyrights" will expire soon anyway. There are different laws on this subject in different countries, meaning that I may be flexible in supplying :-)
In any case, Brun becomes performing copyright-free in 2029, making things by then much easier.
Thanks Adriano, but nothing you said surprises me except for your Swiss Mafioso. I thought Swiss people were super nicey nice. I would only need a study score as I have no orchestra at my disposal. Are those still currently available from Hug? I can well imagine the expense of individual parts for a symphony.
I have never been in the business of uploading scores to IMSLP for which I had doubts about permissions, to my knowledge. As to symphonies 2-4, my information came, however misleadingly, from Worldcat . Now symphony no.3 seems only to be available at Swiss libraries according to Worldcat - quite a few Swiss libraries - so that may explain the discrepancy; but symphony no.2 is also in the stacks of the Munich library (Bayern State Library), the Royal Danish Library, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, - all of them in the European Union, just not only in Switzerland, but admittedly unlikely to loan his scores out until 2030 if at all (he's still in copyright in 2029, the status does not, to my knowledge, change until 71 years after death. Tangentially the recent-ish change in Canadian copyright law means that composers who died in 1972 or later have a 70/1-year copyright term rather than the 50/1 that applies to composers who died in 1971 or earlier...)
@ Maury
Try to find out my e-mail address from my Website, somewhere not quite openly, it is stated :-)
Adriano,
Thanks very much. Nice to make contact with you after all these years enjoying your recordings. All the best
I am listening to the Brun Symphony box for the second time and just listened to Symphonies 7 and 8. These are perhaps the two loveliest of his symphonies and I wanted to commend the playing of the Moscow Phil and the conducting by Adriano. While I understand there are some better orchestras, these were very sensitive old school performances and I am sorry for whatever negative reviews have been made about this set. I think the musicweb reviews have been more supportive on the whole.
In addition, I was struck by the orchestrations by Brun of 3 songs by Othmar Schoeck originally for voice and piano. What a difference the sensitive orchestrations make! I am admittedly not the biggest fan of combining voice and piano since the voice is highly flexible and the piano is highly inflexible. But in Schoeck's case, because of his ultra romantic style, the piano is particularly constraining. Quixotically I hope someone orchestrates all Schoeck's songs.
PS Happy New Year everyone!
@Maury
Thanks for your comments. David Hurwitz's opinion of Brun's music was:
"Brun's spasmodic syntax must be as frustrating to the musician as to the listener. For penitential souls only."
Better orchestras are more expensive, but may not be interested in such repertoire (unless a big star promotes it), and even would play it reluctantly and, consequently, with inferior results...
Over here in Switzerland this project would have costed almost the double, and the players may have even not liked to play this difficult music. In Moscow and in Bratislava they liked it very much!
There are already various Schoeck song orchestrations on CD, as, for example, by Rolf Urs Ringger (1974/1977) and, just lately by Graziella Contratto. And I have done an arrangement of 9 songs from Schoeck's "Das stille Leuchten" for medium voices and wind quintet, which was performed in Zurich in 1919, at the occasion of Gottfried Keller's 200th birthday. I hoped for a larger ensemble, but the City of Zurich had not enough money for that... Dmitry Ashkenazy was the clarinetist. It was an open-air concert with other arrangements of mine, which was attended by over 1000 persons. It took place in the park near the Villa Wesendonck.
Adriano,
Thank you very much for the additional citations of Schoeck songs that have been orchestrated. Makes a big difference, to me at least. I don't think a full orchestra is required but woodwinds and strings are essential IMO.
As for Brun, your box set jogged me into a journey of discovery here perhaps to the annoyance of some. What I have termed Poetic Romanticism to distinguish it from High Romanticism, Classical Romanticism and Neo Tristanesque Romanticism, in the event was not a big success with audiences. Even though there is not much harsh dissonance, languor or bombast about it, audiences and even critics found it puzzling, or their favorite term, enigmatic.
Sibelius Sym 3 which I for years thought of as an inexplicable style change I see now has certain characteristics typical of Poetic Romanticism as does to a lesser extent his Sym 6. It is interesting that Sibelius himself recounted that when talking to Rimsky Korsakov after an early performance of the Sym 3 that Rimsky-Korsakov shook his head and said: 'Why don't you do it the usual way; you will see that the audience can neither follow nor understand this.'
On the surface the Sym 3 seems fairly tidy and normal and almost classical in form with its 3 movements but the sequential movement of the segments are atypical and they don't flow in either a straightforward Classical or Romantic way. We can compare it to Prokofiev's Sym 1 which is clear neo-classicism and easy to follow even for average audiences. The Sibelius Sym 3 is not at all like that nor are the other works in this style by Bendix, Hermann, Brun and others.
Quote from: Maury on Tuesday 31 December 2024, 20:14What I have termed Poetic Romanticism to distinguish it from High Romanticism, Classical Romanticism and Neo Tristanesque Romanticism
There's too much crossover among these terms for them to be at all useful, I'm afraid.
I agree. I'm sorry but they are too personal and lack clear and discrete delineation. I find them confusing rather than helpful. Sorry.
To be fair, there doesn't have to be a problem with using one's own typology. Where it can become an issue is in the suggestion that the original artists were somehow aware of such categories when they created their works. While this is not unheard of (e.g., composers labeling themselves as "Wagnerites" at some point) most of them would probably see their oeuvre as a continuum. In practical terms, I personally find it most useful to either remain very broad ("romanticism") or very precise (e.g., "late Strauss-influenced") when talking about music. And even then the categorization is entirely my own.
Thanks, gentlemen. And so back to Brun, please.
Let me try again keeping to musical issues. To explain briefly my use of the term Poetic Romanticism (lyric poetry, not narrative) was meant to convey a musical aspect common to certain romantic symphonic works roughly between 1888 and the 1950s. The musical issue is the degree of perceived orderliness from one musical passage to the next within movements. Lyric poetry is rather non linear in its sequence from one thought or image to the next, certainly compared to narrative poetry. The lyric art is creating such sequences that somehow still seem interesting and novel when considered as a totality.
When music has a clear formal structure that is mirrored with the musical content listeners have an easier time grasping it. Shorter harmonically structured melodies are heard as tunes while long complex melodies are heard more as melodiousness. Non linear (less expected) musical sequences within a movement are harder to grasp and the listener spends time puzzling over them rather than continuing to listen without loss of attention.
To loop back to Hurwitz' comment about too much non-linear musical thinking (spasmodic) in Brun's symphonies, it presumably lay behind Rimsky's observation to Sibelius about his Sym 3 being too hard for audiences to understand. Given its modest proportions and circumspect harmonic practice, it seems rather surprising for Rimsky to say that but he was astute. The Sibelius Sym 3 has been his least popular symphony and is rarely performed well either. This is not to say that this kind of music is without value or interest which is the logical leap that Hurwitz makes. Rimsky was more acute in simply saying that audiences were going to have more trouble with following it because of the way that the music was organized.
There is a commonality of sorts with the late chromatic romantic style that was discussed here with Erlanger and the Belle Epoque French opera composers as well as the composers like Schreker, Zemlinsky, Szymanowski.
What these styles of music require of listeners is a certain immersion into them to grasp the totality of the content in a movement and the entire work rather than using certain separable passages as stepping stones to understanding the movement or work as a whole. The practical problem is a Catch 22 process whereby orchestras don't play the works because audiences find them a bit more challenging to grasp and audiences find the works in the style harder to grasp because orchestras don't program them enough.
I am a reasonably experienced musical listener and I noted above that I found it challenging per Rimsky to grasp what Brun and others in this style were doing at first and second listen. It took repeated listening to begin to get comfortable enough to start to make judgments as to the relative success of a given movement or work as a whole given the features of this particular style. I think trying to use the usual normative Romantic works as a basis for comparison here is not apt. Works that seem to fit within "Poetic Romanticism" or late chromatic Romanticism have to be evaluated for the degree of excellence within the character of their respective styles alone. The only fair alternative is to reject the entire style.
I think also we need to see both these styles as based on the observations of talented composers in this time period that the normative Romantic symphonic style after 50 years was becoming increasingly predictable. So this generated various attempts to reintroduce a certain amount of novelty to such works.
I'm afraid I find this analysis completely impenetrable.
My experience with Brun's symphonies is simple: it mainly involves wrestling with the knotty issue of increasing chromaticism. It's a process I find I have to undergo with composers such as Reger, Senfter, Woyrsch, Schoeck, etc. Sometimes I enjoy the hard work of working out what's going on, sometimes I don't.
Regarding, Sibelius, no such 'knotty' difficulty is involved as his harmonic procedures are more obvious and his orchestral palette more distinctive. I have never found his 3rd Symphony at all problematic. I'd say No.6 is a tougher listen, but it has a fabulously luminous quality which is hard to resist.
I too, I don't like picky categorisations of musical works. Especially considering that they came from earlier musicologists who had practically at their disosal only the big "Bs", Vivaldi, Mozart, Haydn and Wagner. Since a few decades, fortunately, an immense unknown/forgotten repertoire came to light.
As far as Brun's attitude towards atonality is concerned, just an example:
On his 5th Symphony - which he considered a "problematic one" since it not only required "intelligent Swiss audiences" but also "an intelligent conductor and many rehearsals" - he wrote:
I am faced with atonality like an enemy, should it end up as desolate paper music, but the knowledge that artists like Stravinsky and Schoeck are dealing with it captivates me greatly." (...)
"I felt the urge to consider chamber music-like writing. It was an elementary need. Intensive studies of Beethoven's late works lead me into it. At the same time I felt concerned with atonality."
This Symphony has a fabuolous, quite dissonant and tense Chaconne as a first movement. It stylistically deviates from the remaining movements, so he even allowed it to be played separately in concerts.
Thanks, Adriano! At last the view of a Brun expert! So helpful.
May we say, then, that the issue for Brun and other composers like him was how to maintain confidence in tonality while certain others were abandoning it - or is it more complicated than that?
I think so, Alan. But, as many other "tonal" composers of that time, Brun just liked to experiment with atonality. He even tried out, for example, to work with an extended theme made up of all 12 chromatic notes, but still sounding melodic within a cleverly constructed accompaniment.
He too he may have been concientious enough to think about who will have to listen to his music - as every "honest" (or, let's say "fair") composer should do :-)
Respighi, for example, comes up in some of his later works with very unusual harsh dissonances; but such "episodes" may still look as "homages" to his more "modern" colleagues. In "Feste Romane" he also homages Stravinsky's "Petrushka".
One must not forget that since the beginning of the 20t century, our musical ears have been "educated" considerably - allowing us to be able to hear more dissonances without always needing to stop them. It's mostly a question of goodwill and personal attitude towards the arts. This "educational development" also happened in the domain of pop music and jazz - thanks to many forward-thinking composers, who cleverly "experimented". The same happened to our eyes in the field of figurative arts. In my life I was able to approach more music lovers to modern/dissonant music than I ever thought. It depends how this "education" is done.
After David Hurwitz's thundering negative review on Brun - based on just one CD (definitely the wrong one) - I suggested him to listen to more music by this composer, but he refused. He had made his opinion without listening to Brun's lyric and differently constructed works - ignoring that composers can stylistically develop!
Quote from: adriano on Friday 03 January 2025, 06:59he may have been concientious enough to think about who will have to listen to his music
That's a generous thought. I personally cannot listen to much of the mature Schoenberg however hard I try. But Brun is a different matter altogether: with him I understand the music scaffolding he tries to construct...
Thanks, Alan! And, of course, there is the legitimate "de gustibus..." effect too :-)
I'll take mature Brun over mature Schoenberg every time!
Well, the "mature" Brun (if we consider this term chronologically) confirms to be a return to post-Romantic tonality...
As far as I can remember right now - without digging into my archive - Brun conducted also works by "unusual" composers like Braunfels, Nicodé, Vladigerov, Szymanowski and Delius.
Works by Reger, Kodaly, Strawinsky, Mahler and Hindemith were quite unusual for Berne between 1910 and 1940 too. I could even find a 1937 mentioning of Shostakowich's First Symphony, but not its confirming evening program leaflet.
Besides this, he premiered and conducted works by practically all his Swiss contemporaries, starting from Schoeck and Honegger.
But Brun's main repertoire involved the big "B"s (Bruckner included), Mozart - and Berlioz (one of his favorite composers). He would have loved a definitely more experimental repertoire, as I could learn from his letters.
Alan, what about changing the title of this thread, eliminating "GUILD" and just mentioning "on CD", since Guild CDs are officially no more available, and the Brilliant Classics Box is still actual. So we could also consider new Brun CDs as:
https://prospero-classical.com/album/fritz-brun-early-chamber-music/
and:
https://vdegallo.com/en/produit/fritz-brun-violin-sonata-no-1-in-d-minor-violin-sonata-no-2-in-d-major-cello-sonata-in-f-minor-alessandro-fagiuoli-alessia-toffanin-andrea-musto/
Quote from: adriano on Friday 03 January 2025, 11:56what about changing the title of this thread
Unfortunately I don't know how to do this without changing each individual post!
But thanks for all this fascinating information on Brun and his historical context.
The Prospero CD has been noted here:
https://prospero-classical.com/album/fritz-brun-early-chamber-music/
Thanks, though, for the link to the Gallo CD.