Obituary,
Frans Brüggen (1934-2014)
We were saddened to hear last night of the death of Frans Brüggen, a key figure in the European early music community. Born in 1934, he studied Baroque recorder and flute at the Amsterdam Muzieklyceum and musicology at the University of Amsterdam, and at the age of just 21 was appointed to a professorship at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague.
Brüggen combined his performing career as a Baroque flautist with a large amount of conducting. In 1981 he co-founded the Orchestra of the 18th Century, which (as the name suggests) specialised in period performances on authentic instruments of music from the 18th Century, and has been at the forefront of the early music scene, particularly in the Netherlands, ever since. The orchestra is organised on a collective basis - meaning that Brüggen's share of concert revenue was the same as that of each of the players under his baton.
Together with contemporaries such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt, Frans Brüggen formed part of a pioneering vanguard of early musicians who, over the last four decades or so, have brought many scholarly innovations to the performance practice of Baroque music, and helped to deepen our general understanding of how best to present it. Many of their insights have begun to be adopted even by orchestras that do not have a specific remit of "authenticity". Without wishing to do a disservice to their predecessors, it is Brüggen and his peers whom we have to thank for today's sprightly, crisp performances of early music.
Frans Brüggen - a selected discography
After a gap of two decades, Brüggen reunited with fellow recorder-players Kees Boeke and Walter van Hauwe , with whom he had formed the trio Sour Cream in the early 1970s: this ingeniously-devided programme explores music influenced by scientific discoveries, taking in Janequin, Machaut, Cornyshe and Bach along the way.
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Brüggen is joined by the late, great Gustav Leonhardt and cellist Anner Byslma on this 1969 survey of the Telemann sonatas and fantasias.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Recorded in 2010 and released only months ago, these accounts of the late Mozart symphonies (the latest of Brüggen's many recordings with his Orchestra of the 18th Century) teem with freshness and vitality: The Times described them as 'tinglingly alive and directed with superb conviction.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
These readings of Mendelssohn's best-known symphonies (the Italian in its original 1833 version) were made in Utrecht as part of Glossa's 'Grand Tour' series; the Financial Times praised Brüggen's 'light-footed fluency' and the Sunday Times his 'airy, transparent sound world'.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
This B Minor Mass was recorded live in Warsaw in spring 2009, with soloists including Dutch early music stars Johannette Zomer and Peter Kooij, and prompted Early Music Today to entreat its readers 'Please don’t even consider hesitating...Just go and buy this.'
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Now only available as a download, Brüggen's Schubert cycle from the 1990s (again with his Orchestra of the 18th Century) has cropped up time after time in recommendations for these much-recorded works: Classical Net described his interpretations as 'magnificently alert and infused with passion'.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Brüggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century first set down the Beethoven symphonies in the 1980s, and these recent revisitations (recorded in Rotterdam in 2011) won widespread acclaim and a Gramophone nomination in 2013: the Sunday Times lauded 'the depth and breadth of [Brüggen's] conception of Beethoven’s sound world', whilst The Guardian praised their 'exhilarating zeal'.
Available Formats: 5 SACDs, MP3, FLAC
David Smith - Head of Digital
