Alfred Brüggemann (composer)

Alfred Brüggemann (born July 26, 1873 in Aachen , † September 27, 1944 in Bad Nauheim ) was a German bandmaster , music journalist , translator and composer .

Life

Alfred Brüggemann was born on July 26th, 1873 in Aachen, the eldest of three sons of a wealthy merchant and officer family. His father, Walter Theodor Adolph Brüggemann, son of Friedrich Adolph Brüggemann , was a career officer and died in 1887 at the age of 46. His mother was Louise Eugenie Rosalie Brüggemann, b. Lochner (1845–1928), a daughter of the Aachen cloth manufacturer Johann Friedrich Lochner and his wife Julie, b. Erckens . On the father's side the ancestors came from the Magdeburg area , on the mother's side from the Nuremberg area.

After breaking off a short officer training course, Alfred Brüggemann first devoted himself to studying philosophy and philology in 1894. After he became aware of his real calling, he began studying music in Naples , which he continued and completed in Berlin as a student of the composer Engelbert Humperdinck . He got his first job as Kapellmeister at the Munich Opera . In 1899 he returned to Italy. In addition to his work as a composer, Brüggemann a. a. permanent correspondent for the Milan music publisher Ricordi . For this he wrote u. a. regular contributions ( Lettera della Germania ) for the monthly magazines Revista di Musica and Musica d'Oggi . In addition, Brüggemann was the official interpreter and translator for five languages. He translated u. a. the texts of numerous operas by Puccini and other Italian composers from Italian into German.

In 1904 Alfred Brüggemann made the acquaintance of Giacomo Puccini . After the unsuccessful world premiere of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Brüggemann defended this work and then played a key role in the successful revision. A close musical collaboration and a great personal friendship developed between Brüggemann and Puccini.

At the beginning of the First World War (1914) Alfred Brüggemann was interned as a German in Italy and then released to Switzerland. He continued to maintain contact with Puccini to let his stay in Switzerland to his death in 1924. After settling in Koblenz in the local summer residence Villa Rosa born his mother Rosalie, Lochner, down. The Villa Rosa was completely destroyed in the bombing of Koblenz at the end of the Second World War. The entire inventory including valuable musical instruments as well as most of the scores and other documents were lost.

Alfred Brüggemann was married twice in Italy. From the first marriage with Geronima Bava, related. Poggio, there are three children (Irene, Minerva and Attilio), six children (Carmela, Fiametta, Rosalia, Emma, ​​Walter and Edith) from the second marriage to Luisa Vano.

Alfred Brüggemann died on September 27, 1944 at the age of 71 in Bad Nauheim.

The orchestral work Sinfonia Sentimentale (op 11) composed by him was premiered on the initiative of a grandson of Brüggemann on June 26, 2004 as part of the 2nd Philharmonic Choir Night of the State Orchestra Rheinische Philharmonie in Koblenz under the direction of Ivan Anguélov, a Bulgarian conductor . Anguélov had previously edited the work, which was only available as a score, ready for performance and had already created the CD version with the Sofia Symphony Orchestra in 2003.

Literature and Sources

• Jürgen Krombach, Bad Homburg: To the memory of Alfred Brüggemann, Composer and Translator (1873–1944) , 2003.

Web links

• Works by and about Alfred Brüggemann  in the German Digital Library
• Short biography and catalog raisonné at Klassika.info
• Recording of a television report