Back to Switzerland this week – a performance of Divertimento for Piano and String Orchestra by Fritz Brun – performed by Radio Orchestra Beromunster conducted by Hermann Müller in this radio performance from April 23, 1956.
Fritz 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 flavor.
After graduating from the Cologne conservatoire, Fritz Brun worked in Berlin, London and Dortmund where he took up various music posts. His music reflects his European travels and unites diverse inspirations from different countries and eras as equals on his musical plane. Modernist influences are skillfully interwoven into his compositions, the scherzo movements for example, draw on Stravinsky in their timbre and rhythms and Symphony No.5 liberally experiments with tonality. However, similar to his English counterparts, his music remains rooted in his homeland. Symphony No.3 is inspired by the Alps and it is his best known work, made particularly famous for its use of Italian-Swiss folk melodies. In his later life, Brun returned to Switzerland, where he served as director of the Berne Music Society until his retirement in 1941.
Franz Josef Hirt, born in Lucerne, Hirt studied with Hans Huber, Ernst Levy, Egon Petri and Alfred Cortot. From 1930 he led a concert education class at the Musikschule Konservatorium Bern [de].[1] For his commitment to contemporary French music, the French government honoured him in 1927 with the Ordre des Palmes académiques, in 1948 with the title of Knight of the Legion of Honour and in 1957 with the title of Officer of the Legion of Honour. He was appointed to the Paris École Normale de Musique by Alfred Cortot.
Hirt died in Bern at the age of 86.
The Swiss conductor, Hermann Müller, founded the Berner Kammerorchester (BKO) in 1938 and directed it for 35 years. Under his direction the BKO premiered several works by the Swiss composer Franz Tischhauser (1921-2016): Feierabendmusik (Serenade) for string orchestra (1947); Amores, die Lesbiade des Catull, for tenor, trumpet, percussion and string instruments, with Ernst Haefliger (1956); Eve’s Meditation on Love, nach Mark Twain, for soprano (Eva), tuba (Adam) and string orchestra, with Elisabeth Speiser (1972). After his age-related resignation, the BKO was under the direction of Jean-Pierre Moeckli (1973-1992). In 1949 he founded the Konstanzer Kammerchor as A-cappella choir. He was succeeded by Werner Idler (1953-1976).
Another example of a rich musical legacy gone largely unnoticed by the rest of the world. And it was only through the foresight of Swiss Radio to record these performances, many for the first time and many others for the only time and to make them available once again.
Enjoy.
