thumb|Ignaz Brüll

Ignaz Brüll (7 November 1846 – 17 September 1907) was a pianist and composer from Austria-Hungary. Born in Moravia, he lived and worked in Vienna.

His operatic compositions included Das goldene Kreuz (The Golden Cross), which became a repertory work for several decades after its first production in 1875, but eventually fell into neglect after being banned by the Nazis because of Brüll's Jewish origins. He also wrote a small corpus of finely crafted works for the concert hall and recitals. Brüll's compositional style was lively but unabashedly conservative, in the vein of Mendelssohn and Schumann.

Brüll was also highly regarded as a sensitive concert pianist. Johannes Brahms regularly wanted Brüll to be his partner in private performances of four-hand piano duet arrangements of his latest works. Indeed, Brüll was a prominent member of Brahms's circle of musical and literary friends, many of whom he and his wife frequently entertained.

In recent years, Brüll's concert music has been revived on CD, and well-received recordings are available of his piano concertos, among other non-vocal works.

In 1872 he was appointed professor at the Horak Institute in Vienna. His parents were prosperous Jewish merchants and keen social musicians; his mother played piano and his father (who was closely related to the Talmudic scholar Nehemiah Brüll) sang baritone. In 1848 the family relocated their business to Vienna, where Brüll lived and worked for the rest of his life.

Brüll started learning piano from his mother around the age of eight and he quickly showed talent. By the age of ten, he was taking piano lessons from Julius Epstein, a professor at the Vienna Conservatory and friend of Brahms. This youthful work became a staple of Brüll's own pianistic repertoire: he played it in Vienna (1869), Berlin (1871) and England (Liverpool, Manchester and London, 1881). In America, the concerto was popularized by Richard Hoffman, who gave the U.S. premiere in 1880. Unfortunately, plans for a production at the Court Theatre in Stuttgart in 1866 failed to materialize, and the work was apparently never played.

In parallel, Brüll had also been pursuing a career as a concert pianist, playing as a popular soloist and recitalist throughout the German speaking countries. The London premiere of Das goldene Kreuz, in an 1878 production by the Carl Rosa Opera Company, coincided with the first of two extensive concert tours of England, during which he was able to play his Piano Concerto No. 2 (another youthful work, written in 1868) and arrange performances of some of his other pieces.

The Brahms circle and later years

In 1882, Brüll married Marie Schosberg, a banker's daughter who became a popular hostess to Viennese musical and artistic society.

Brüll was an honorary British consul at Budapest and was appointed an Honorary Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 1902 Coronation Honours list on 26 June 1902.

Music

Brüll's other operas include: Der Landfriede (Vienna, 1877), Bianca (Dresden, 1879), Königin Mariette (Munich, 1883), Das Steinerne Herz (Prague, 1888), Gringoire (one act, Munich, 1892), and Schach dem König (Munich, 1893). For the ballet, he wrote the orchestral dance-suite Ein Märchen aus der Champagne (1896).

Orchestral concert works by Brüll include the Im Walde and Macbeth overtures, a symphony and three serenades, a violin concerto, and the two piano concertos, as well as three other piano concertante pieces. His chamber and instrumental music includes a suite and three sonatas for piano and violin, a trio, a cello sonata, a sonata for two pianos and various other piano pieces. He also wrote songs and part-songs. Brüll's piano sonata has been recorded by Alexandra Oehler for CPO along with some other shorter keyboard pieces.

For the centenary of Brüll's death in 2007, the Cameo Classics record label and the Brüll Rediscovery Project began a recording programme intended 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 Belarusian State Symphony Orchestra under Marius Stravinsky. Janet Olney recorded a selection of solo piano works by Brüll (CC9030CD). His Piano Sonata No. 3 was recorded in 2010 by Valentina Seferinova, as was his Serenade No. 2, op. 36 for Orchestra (CC9031CD). In 2011 the Musical Director of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Laus, corrected and completed the score of Brüll's Violin Concerto and recorded the complete work with Ilya Hoffman as soloist (due to multiple errors and gaps in both the score and Brüll's original manuscript, only the slow movement had been previously released). The Macbeth overture was also recorded. All the Cameo Classics recording sessions were filmed, and a documentary on the music of Brüll and his fellow German Jewish Romantic era composers is reported to be in preparation.

Media

  • Scores for Kaila's Piano Performances listed here are available at the imslp.org Category:Brüll,Ignaz web page
  • https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Brüll,_Ignaz

thumb|left|Kaila Rochelle performance of Brüll: Op.71 Piano Suite No.2 mvt 1 Prelude

thumb|left|Kaila Rochelle performance of Brüll: Bretonische Melodien Op.45 No.1 Melodie

thumb|left|Kaila Rochelle performance of Brüll: Bretonische Melodien Op.45 No.2 Ballade

thumb|left|Kaila Rochelle performance of Brüll: Op.53 No.1 Valse-Caprice

thumb|center|Kaila Rochelle performance of Brüll: Op.53 No.2 Melodie_revised 002

thumb|center|Kaila Rochelle performance of Brüll: Mazurka Op.34 No.1

thumb|center|Kaila Rochelle performance of Brüll: Barcarole Op.34 No.2

thumb|center|Kaila Rochelle performance of Brüll: Piano Suite No.1 Op.58 4mvt set complete

Notes

References

Further reading

  • Concert Pianist Valentina Seferinova