Natan Brand
Encyclopedia
Biography
Brand was the son of a doctor, Aron BrandAron Brand
Aron Brand-Auraban , born in Ozorków, Poland, was an Israeli pediatric cardiologist. He served as chairman of the Israel Medical Association in Jerusalem, Israel, and founded the Jerusalem Academy of Medicine....
, and his wife, Mala, who immigrated to Mandate Palestine
Mandate Palestine
Mandate Palestine existed while the British Mandate for Palestine, which formally began in September 1923 and terminated in May 1948, was in effect...
in 1939. The family settled in Jerusalem. Brand began his studies as a child prodigy
Child prodigy
A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, masters one or more skills far beyond his or her level of maturity. One criterion for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 18 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding...
at the age of seven, with Haim Alexander
Haim Alexander
Haim Alexander is an Israeli composer.-Biography:Alexander was born in Berlin, Germany in 1915. In 1936, he emigrated to Mandate Palestine. He studied composition with Irma and Stefan Wolpe before graduating from the Jerusalem Academy of Music in 1945.-Awards:He has won the Engel Prize, the...
at the Rubin Academy
Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance
The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance , founded in 1958 as the Rubin Academy of Music, is located on the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.-History:...
, where he later received an Artist's and Teacher's diploma. He made his orchestral debut at the age of 11, playing with the Israel Broadcasting Authority
Israel Broadcasting Authority
Israel Broadcasting Authority is Israel's state broadcasting network.It grew out of the radio station Kol Yisrael, which made its first broadcast as an independent station on . The name of the organisation operating Kol Yisrael was changed to Israel Broadcasting Service in 1951...
Symphony Orchestra.
Brand married Lori Hillman, with whom he had two sons, Jesse and Ari. He died in 1990 at the age of 46.
Musical career
The pianist Nadia ReisenbergNadia Reisenberg
Nadia Reisenberg was an American pianist of Lithuanian birth.-Life and career:Born in Vilnius, Reisenberg studied under Leonid Nikolayev at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Due to the upheavals of the October Revolution, she and her family came back to Vilnius, then travelled to Warsaw and...
, pupil of Josef Hofmann, heard Brand play and arranged for him to study at the Mannes College of Music
Mannes College of Music
Mannes College The New School for Music is The New School university's music conservatory. While the university's main campus is located in Greenwich Village, New York City, Mannes maintains its main academic building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan....
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. Later, Brand studied with Reisenberg at the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
. After attending Juilliard, Brand continued his studies with Dorothy Taubman
Dorothy Taubman
Dorothy Taubman , is an American music teacher, lecturer and founder of the Taubman Institute of New York, who developed the "Taubman Approach" to piano playing. Her approach to piano technique is based on an analysis of the motions needed for virtuosity and musical expression, but at first earned...
, to whom he remained close until his death.
In 1969, Brand won the American Guild of Musical Artists
American Guild of Musical Artists
The American Guild of Musical Artists, AFL-CIO is the American labor union that represents 8,000 current and retired opera singers, ballet and other dancers, opera Directors, backstage production personnel at opera and dance companies, and figure skaters.-Jurisdiction:According to its website it...
Award, as well as first prize at the Société Musicale Ville-Marie
Ville-Marie
Ville-Marie may refer to:*Ville-Marie, Quebec, a town in Quebec*Fort Ville-Marie, the original name for the settlement that later became Montreal, Quebec*Ville-Marie, Montreal, a borough of Montreal.- See also :*Autoroute Ville-Marie,*Place Ville-Marie,...
competition. He also received the prestigious Josephine Fry award.
Natan Brand played in all the major halls of New York, where he made his home, and performed throughout the USA, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. On international tours, he appeared in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
. Brand tended to program his concerts around central themes. In 1983, he played a series of three concerts at Alice Tully
Alice Tully
Alice Bigelow Tully was a U.S. singer, music promoter and philanthropist.Alice Tully was born in Corning, New York. She spent her high school years at the famous Westover School in Middlebury, Connecticut. Tully began her career as a mezzo-soprano, then became a soprano. She studied in Paris and...
Hall, devoting them separately to sonata
Sonata
Sonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...
s, fantasies and etude
Étude
An étude , is an instrumental musical composition, most commonly of considerable difficulty, usually designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular technical skill. The tradition of writing études emerged in the early 19th century with the rapidly growing popularity of the piano...
s. In 1984 he made his Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
debut playing concertos by Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
and Chopin.
In addition to his work as a performing artist, Brand also served on the faculty of the Hebrew Arts School in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, and taught at the University of Tulsa
University of Tulsa
The University of Tulsa is a private university awarding bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. It is currently ranked 75th among doctoral degree granting universities in the nation by US News and World Report and is listed as one of the "Best 366 Colleges" by...
and at the Taubman Institute at Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
.
Critical acclaim
Geoffrey Dorfman: "... Brand ... was one of the few keyboard artists — perhaps the last — in the true tradition of Anton RubinsteinAnton 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...
: a pianist who played in the Grand Style, fully free to interpret the masterworks as the spirit moved him, with a magnificent technique at his command. His premature death at the age of 46 robbed the music world of a man who was considered by many connoisseurs to be potentially one of the world’s greatest pianists. That he was not so recognized was due to his mercurial temperament (which did him little good in the world of concerts and bookings) and his early death."
Patsy Morita, Allmusic: "Brand was a pianist who took an individual route to interpretation. Regardless of the music - whether it is the innocent Kinderszenen
Kinderszenen
Kinderszenen , Opus 15, by Robert Schumann, is a set of thirteen pieces of music for piano written in 1838. In this work, Schumann provides us with his adult reminiscences of childhood. Schumann had originally written 30 movements for this work, but chose 13 for the final version...
or the passionate Kreisleriana
Kreisleriana
Kreisleriana, Op. 16, is a composition in eight movements by Robert Schumann for solo piano, subtitled , written in April 1838. Dedicated to Frédéric Chopin, it is a very dramatic work and is considered to be one of Schumann's finest compositions....
-- there is concentration and conviction in his playing that compels attention. It is not that he was aggressive, but that he was willing to try new things and did so with resolute confidence."
Bernard Holland, New York Times: "Brand has a strong musical personality, and he negotiated the familiar twists of and turns of Carnaval
Carnaval (Schumann)
Carnaval, Op. 9, is a work by Robert Schumann for piano solo, written in 1834-1835, and subtitled Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes . It consists of a collection of short pieces representing masked revelers at Carnival, a festival before Lent...
in ways that were original without being wilful. In other words, his use of pauses and his stretching of tempos often took unusual forms, but all seemed to have a sense of careful thought behind them. Mr. Brand's ear favored clear textures and high levels of energy. Despite the scattered missed notes, he seemed very much in control of himself and his instrument. The sophisticated articulation at quiet levels and the generally lyric feeling in all this playing were impressive."
CD
- Palexa Records: Natan Brand in ConcertConcertA concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
, 1982-1990: The Legacy, Vol. 1 (Vol 2. has not been issued) - Appian Publications & RecordingsAppian Publications & RecordingsAppian Publications & Recordings is a British company specialising in the restoration and re-issue of early recordings of classical music.Known as APR, the company was apparently the brainchild of Edwin Alan and much of the transferring and remastering of historical recordings was done by Bryan...
: 1990: Natan Brand in RecitalRecitalA recital is a musical performance. It can highlight a single performer, sometimes accompanied by piano, or a performance of the works of a single composer.The invention of the solo piano recital has been attributed to Franz Liszt.... - BNLBNLBNL may refer to:* Barenaked Ladies, a rock band from Canada* Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, an Italian bank* Block nested loop, an algorithm used to join data in a relational database* British National League, a defunct ice hockey league...
: 1987: Kreisleriana Op. 16 - Nocturne Op. 27 N° 2; Sonate Op. 35 N° 2 'la Marche Funèbre' - Studio Recording