Ignaz Brüll
Encyclopedia
Ignaz Brüll was an Austrian pianist
and composer
.
Ignaz Brüll was born the eldest son of a prosperous Jewish merchant family in the Moravia
n provincial town of Prostějov
(Prossnitz). In 1850 he moved with his parents to Vienna
, which became the centre of his life and work. Brüll was originally destined to take over his father's business, but because of his precocious gifts he also received a thorough musical education. He studied the piano with Julius Epstein
, and composition with Johann Rufinatscha
and Felix Otto Dessoff
. An enthusiastic assessment when he was fourteen years old from Anton Rubinstein
proved the decisive factor in his dedication to a musical career.
In 1864 he wrote his first opera, Die Bettler von Samarkand, and submitted it to the Court Theatre in Stuttgart
, capital of Württemberg
. At the end of 1866 he went there to supervise the production in person. His plans came to nothing, and the score disappeared into the archives. Brüll nevertheless achieved significant successes with his First Serenade for Orchestra and with performances at the piano.
In the next fifteen years he made numerous concert tours which took him not only to musical centres such as Prague
, Breslau, Berlin, Munich
, Frankfurt
, Dresden
, and Leipzig
, but also to the remotest areas of the Habsburg
monarchy and of Germany. Between tours he gave regular concerts in Vienna. In 1871 he was offered a Professorship for Piano at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, which he refused, to avoid separation from his family. He taught from 1872 at the Horak Piano Schools, one of Vienna's greatest private musical institutions, and became their artistic director in 1881. In the 1890s he refused an appointment to the Vienna Conservatory.
The sensational success of his second opera, Das goldene Kreuz, first performed on 22 December 1875 in Berlin, propelled Brüll from obscurity into the foremost ranks of contemporary composers. It also boosted his career as a pianist. The London publisher Chappell & Co.
engaged him early in 1878 for two concerts in England. At the same time, the impresario Carl Rosa was preparing a production of Das goldene Kreuz which had its London premiere at the Adelphi Theatre
on 2 March. On 28 January Brüll made his debut in a "Monday Popular Concert" which was such a success that it was followed by more than twenty further appearances in London, Liverpool
, and Manchester
. He visited England again in 1881, between 31 January and 9 March, and gave eight concerts with the usual good response.
The two concert tours to England marked the highest points in Brüll's career as a virtuoso. In the following years he sharply reduced the number of his public performances to concentrate more on composition. After his marriage in 1882 to Marie Schosberg, the daughter of a Viennese banker, his house became a social focal point in the city. He built up a large circle of friends, including Johannes Brahms
, Karl Goldmark
, Julius Epstein
, Robert Fuchs
, Anton Door, Richard Neuberger, Ludwig Rottenberg
, Richard von Perger, Eusebius Mandyczewski
, Eduard Hanslick
, Gustav Mahler
, Theodor Billroth
, and Joseph Breuer
. He spent the summer months with his family in Upper Austria, initially in Ischl, and from 1890 in Unterach on the Attersee
where he built his own holiday home, the "Berghof". This too became a magnet for musicians, artists, and literary figures.
As a composer Brüll remained faithful to the models which had brought him success in his early years, and flatly refused to have anything to do with new developments. He thereby placed himself in growing opposition to his time, but he nevertheless received many tributes on 7 November 1906, the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. When he unexpectedly died in Vienna, only a few months later, the public mourned him as a serious musician whose artistic endeavours had always shown integrity and sincerity. Das goldene Kreuz kept his name alive for the following decades, until the Nazi
ban on all Jewish artists finally swept it from the stage.
In 2007, for the centenary of Brüll's death, Brüll Re-Discovery and CD label Cameo Classics embarked on a recording project to make Brüll's orchestral works known to a wider audience. His Symphony, Op. 31 and the Serenade No. 1, Op. 29 were recorded by the Belarussian State Symphony Orchestra (CC9027CD), along with compositions for piano (CC9030CD). His Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 73, was recorded in 2010 by Valentina Seferinova for Cameo Classics, as was his Serenade for Full Orchestra (E dur) opus 36, for a CD of Serenades by Romantic German Jewish composers, including Jadassohn and Thieriot (CC9029CD). Marius Stravinsky was again the conductor, on this occasion with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2011 the Musical Director of the Malta PO, Michael Laus, took on the mammoth task of correcting and completing the score of Brûll's Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 41. Cameo Classics had attempted to record it in Minsk, but only the slow movement made it on to CD, as there were so many errors in the score and even in Brûll's original manuscript. The complete concerto was successfully recorded in June of that year with the original soloist Ilya Hoffman, conducted by Laus. The Macbeth Overture received a fresh recording. Also recorded was the Serenade for Flute and String Orchestra (.op 80) by Jadassohn (soloist Rebecca Hall) for the CD (CC9033CD). All these recording sessions were filmed, and a television documentary is in preparation on the plight of Ignaz Brûll and his fellow German Jewish Romantic era composers and their music.
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
and composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Ignaz Brüll was born the eldest son of a prosperous Jewish merchant family in the Moravia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
n provincial town of Prostějov
Prostejov
Prostějov is a city in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic. Today the city is known for its fashion industry and special military forces based there....
(Prossnitz). In 1850 he moved with his parents to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, which became the centre of his life and work. Brüll was originally destined to take over his father's business, but because of his precocious gifts he also received a thorough musical education. He studied the piano with Julius Epstein
Julius Epstein (pianist)
Julius Epstein was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish pianist. He was a pupil at Agram of the choir-director Vatroslav Lichtenegger, and in Vienna of Johann Rufinatscha and Anton Halm...
, and composition with Johann Rufinatscha
Johann Rufinatscha
Johann Rufinatscha was an Austrian composer, theorist and music teacher.-Life:Rufinatscha was born in 1812 in Mals . At the age of 14 he came to Innsbruck, where he studied the piano, violin, and musical study at the conservatory...
and Felix Otto Dessoff
Felix Otto Dessoff
Felix Otto Dessoff was a German conductor and composer.-Biography:Dessoff was born in Leipzig and entered the conservatory there where he studied composition, piano and conducting with some of the foremost teachers of the day, including Ignaz Moscheles for piano and Moritz Hauptmann and Julius...
. An enthusiastic assessment when he was fourteen years old from Anton Rubinstein
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
proved the decisive factor in his dedication to a musical career.
In 1864 he wrote his first opera, Die Bettler von Samarkand, and submitted it to the Court Theatre in Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, capital of Württemberg
Württemberg
Württemberg , formerly known as Wirtemberg or Wurtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia....
. At the end of 1866 he went there to supervise the production in person. His plans came to nothing, and the score disappeared into the archives. Brüll nevertheless achieved significant successes with his First Serenade for Orchestra and with performances at the piano.
In the next fifteen years he made numerous concert tours which took him not only to musical centres such as Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, Breslau, Berlin, Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, and Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, but also to the remotest areas of the Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...
monarchy and of Germany. Between tours he gave regular concerts in Vienna. In 1871 he was offered a Professorship for Piano at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, which he refused, to avoid separation from his family. He taught from 1872 at the Horak Piano Schools, one of Vienna's greatest private musical institutions, and became their artistic director in 1881. In the 1890s he refused an appointment to the Vienna Conservatory.
The sensational success of his second opera, Das goldene Kreuz, first performed on 22 December 1875 in Berlin, propelled Brüll from obscurity into the foremost ranks of contemporary composers. It also boosted his career as a pianist. The London publisher Chappell & Co.
Chappell & Co.
Chappell & Co. was an English company that published music and manufactured pianos.-History:It was founded in 1810 by Samuel Chappell in partnership with music professors Francis Tatton Latour and Johann Baptist Cramer. Cramer was also a well-known London composer, teacher and pianist...
engaged him early in 1878 for two concerts in England. At the same time, the impresario Carl Rosa was preparing a production of Das goldene Kreuz which had its London premiere at the Adelphi Theatre
Adelphi Theatre
The Adelphi Theatre is a 1500-seat West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals...
on 2 March. On 28 January Brüll made his debut in a "Monday Popular Concert" which was such a success that it was followed by more than twenty further appearances in London, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, and Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
. He visited England again in 1881, between 31 January and 9 March, and gave eight concerts with the usual good response.
The two concert tours to England marked the highest points in Brüll's career as a virtuoso. In the following years he sharply reduced the number of his public performances to concentrate more on composition. After his marriage in 1882 to Marie Schosberg, the daughter of a Viennese banker, his house became a social focal point in the city. He built up a large circle of friends, including Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
, Karl Goldmark
Karl Goldmark
Karl Goldmark, also known originally as Károly Goldmark and later sometimes as Carl Goldmark; May 18, 1830, Keszthely – January 2, 1915, Vienna) was a Hungarian composer.- Life and career :...
, Julius Epstein
Julius Epstein (pianist)
Julius Epstein was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish pianist. He was a pupil at Agram of the choir-director Vatroslav Lichtenegger, and in Vienna of Johann Rufinatscha and Anton Halm...
, Robert Fuchs
Robert Fuchs
Robert Fuchs was an Austrian composer and music teacher.As Professor of music theory at the Vienna Conservatory, Fuchs taught many notable composers, while he was himself a highly regarded composer in his lifetime....
, Anton Door, Richard Neuberger, Ludwig Rottenberg
Ludwig Rottenberg
Ludwig Rottenberg was an Austrian/German composer and conductor.-Biography:Rottenberg came from a German-speaking Jewish family in Czernowitz, the then-capital of Bukovina, which at the time was part of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy...
, Richard von Perger, Eusebius Mandyczewski
Eusebius Mandyczewski
Eusebius Mandyczewski was a musicologist, composer, conductor, and teacher. He was an author of numerous musical works and is highly regarded within Austrian, Romanian and Ukrainian music circles.- Family and friends :...
, Eduard Hanslick
Eduard Hanslick
Eduard Hanslick was a Bohemian-Austrian music critic.-Biography:Hanslick was born in Prague, the son of Joseph Adolph Hanslick, a bibliographer and music teacher from a German-speaking family, and one of his piano pupils, the daughter of a Jewish merchant from Vienna...
, Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
, Theodor Billroth
Theodor Billroth
Christian Albert Theodor Billroth was a German-born Austrian surgeon and amateur musician....
, and Joseph Breuer
Joseph Breuer
Joseph Breuer was a rabbi and community leader in Germany and the United States. He was a Rabbi of one of the large Jewish synagogues founded by German-Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi oppression that had settled in Washington Heights, New York....
. He spent the summer months with his family in Upper Austria, initially in Ischl, and from 1890 in Unterach on the Attersee
Attersee (lake)
Attersee is the largest lake of the Salzkammergut area of Austria. It extends for about 20 km from north to south and 4 km from east to west. Its water comes from the Seeache, which flows out of another lake, the Mondsee...
where he built his own holiday home, the "Berghof". This too became a magnet for musicians, artists, and literary figures.
As a composer Brüll remained faithful to the models which had brought him success in his early years, and flatly refused to have anything to do with new developments. He thereby placed himself in growing opposition to his time, but he nevertheless received many tributes on 7 November 1906, the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. When he unexpectedly died in Vienna, only a few months later, the public mourned him as a serious musician whose artistic endeavours had always shown integrity and sincerity. Das goldene Kreuz kept his name alive for the following decades, until the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
ban on all Jewish artists finally swept it from the stage.
In 2007, for the centenary of Brüll's death, Brüll Re-Discovery and CD label Cameo Classics embarked on a recording project to make Brüll's orchestral works known to a wider audience. His Symphony, Op. 31 and the Serenade No. 1, Op. 29 were recorded by the Belarussian State Symphony Orchestra (CC9027CD), along with compositions for piano (CC9030CD). His Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 73, was recorded in 2010 by Valentina Seferinova for Cameo Classics, as was his Serenade for Full Orchestra (E dur) opus 36, for a CD of Serenades by Romantic German Jewish composers, including Jadassohn and Thieriot (CC9029CD). Marius Stravinsky was again the conductor, on this occasion with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2011 the Musical Director of the Malta PO, Michael Laus, took on the mammoth task of correcting and completing the score of Brûll's Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 41. Cameo Classics had attempted to record it in Minsk, but only the slow movement made it on to CD, as there were so many errors in the score and even in Brûll's original manuscript. The complete concerto was successfully recorded in June of that year with the original soloist Ilya Hoffman, conducted by Laus. The Macbeth Overture received a fresh recording. Also recorded was the Serenade for Flute and String Orchestra (.op 80) by Jadassohn (soloist Rebecca Hall) for the CD (CC9033CD). All these recording sessions were filmed, and a television documentary is in preparation on the plight of Ignaz Brûll and his fellow German Jewish Romantic era composers and their music.