Brun Fritz

…Fritz Brun can be considered the last symphonist of the old style, one whose death was announced on 29 th November, 1959 at the age of 82. Born in Lucerne in 1878, Brun stayed true to his time – through thick and thin, one might be tempted to say – because he was a con­servative, though not in the worst possible sense of the word.

Brun grew up in Lucerne and his time active as a composer coincided with a period of high creative output of Swiss music. Brun’s repertoire sits alongside other native composers such as Honegger, Schoeck and Bloch. The crowded market, combined with the struggle to find a publisher (only three out of his ten symphonies were published in his lifetime) offers one indication as to why Brun’s works failed to reach the mainstream public. While not a household name, Brun is often touted as the Swiss answer to Vaughan Williams and Edward Elgar. Brun’s works have a nostalgic touch; they draw on the Romantic and Classical eras in their emotional sincerity and defined forms, but always with a modern flavour.

Brun's First String Quartet was composed in 1898. The complete version of his First Symphony (final Conservatory examination work of 1901) was performed in Arnhem in 1902 and was awarded the Paderewski Prize.

Let me start at the end, in 1959, the year of Fritz Brun’s death. For the year 1959 seems to mark a tragic watershed in the history of classical music. In this year, a generation of composers died, almost all of whom wrote tonal music (both romantic and neoclassical), such as Egon Kornauth, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Eric Zeisl, George Antheil and Bohuslav Martinů (who passed away in Liestal, Switzerland).

Biggest Tip possible! ** English/German edition. 288 pp + 5CD plenty of incredible music, most of which have never been heard before ** From the Wolke Verlag imprint, who've already brought us incredible books like Karl Berger's "The Music Mind Experience", "FMP Free Music Production - The Living Music", Peter Brötzmann's Along the Way, and George Lewis' "Composing While Black. Afrodiasporic New Music Today", to name only a few and a great many more - comes one of the most engrossing volumes we've encountered all year: Harry Vogt  and  Martina Seeber’s “Radio Cologne Sound The Studio for Electronic Music The WDR”. Revealing the complex and fascinating history of one of the earliest and most important dedicated electronic music studios in the world, comprising three central portraits of its important directors - Herbert Eimert, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and York Höller - as well as a wealth of material, including essays, pictures, personal memories and anecdotes, in addition to texts that shed light on the intense interplay between technology, aesthetics, and those who worked in and at the studio, across its 288 pages - soundtracked by an incredible X5 CD collection gathering many of the most important works recorded by composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Henri Pousseur, Thomas Kessler, Franco Evangelisti’, György Ligeti, Mauricio Kagel, Iannis Xenakis, John McGuire, and Luc Ferrari (to name only a few) - one of the most important discrete histories in the development of avant-garde and experimental electronic music over the course of the second half of the 20th century.