Norbert Brainin

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Norbert Brainin (right) with the Amadeus Quartet in 1969

Norbert Brainin (born March 12, 1923 in Vienna ; † April 10, 2005 in London ) was an Austro-British violinist and the first violinist of the Amadeus Quartet he founded .

Vita

Norbert Brainin was the eldest child of Abraham and Sophie Brainin, née Guttenberg, in the second district of Vienna. After elementary school he attended the Jewish Chajes Realgymnasium until 1937, where he was concertmaster in the school orchestra. His father, who last worked in the family's furrier business, died young, and when his mother died in January 1938, Norbert and his two siblings were taken in by relatives. Brainin received his first violin lessons at the age of seven from his uncle Max Brainin.

At the age of ten he became a student of Ricardo Odnoposoff at the New Vienna Conservatory in 1933 , then he switched to Rosa Hochmann-Rosenfeld , a student of Jakob Grün , as a private student . His piano teacher was Marie Auber, and Hugo Kauder taught him theory .

Brainin was exposed to anti-Semitic attacks early on and had to learn to defend himself: "Everybody going to school [...] was a battle," said Brainin. During the November pogrom of 1938, suitcases were placed in the window frames because the mob threw stones. Fifteen-year-old Norbert was the only “male” resident at home when the apartment was searched by the Gestapo: “... one was afraid [...], but lived with it. Since then I haven't been afraid of anything. "

Because of the persecution of Jews that began in Austria, the whole family emigrated to London in 1938. Norbert Brainin attended boarding school in Leigh-on-Sea until the summer of 1939, after which he lived with an aunt in London. Rosa Hochmann-Rosenfeld had recommended him to Carl Flesch ; However, the lessons with Flesch only lasted six months, since he went to The Hague, then Flesch's assistant Max Rostal taught him .

In the autumn of 1940 Brainin was interned as an "enemy alien" in Prees Heath, then in Onchan on the Isle of Man. Since this was illegal for the 17-year-old, he was released in March 1941, but as a “refugee musician” he was not allowed to take up a professional activity as a musician. Nevertheless, he gave private violin lessons and made chamber music with music-loving amateurs (including as a violist in a quartet with Arnold Rosé). Concert appearances for organizations in exile soon increased. He gave sonata evenings with Ferdinand Rauter , played in piano trios with Paul Hamburger and in the Max Rostal Chamber Orchestra, in the Morley College Orchestra and in the Dartington Hall Music Group. In 1944 he was involved in the premiere of the clarinet quintet by Ernst Hermann Meyer , who taught him music history. During the war years he had to do civilian military service as an unskilled machine tool fitter. Working alongside concert performances led to illness and a further interruption in violin studies. He was only able to study seriously again after the end of the war.

In 1946, Brainin received the Carl Flesch Gold Medal Award for his interpretation of Johannes Brahms' violin concerto . Then he continued teaching with Max Rostal. During the summer he worked at the invitation of Imogen, the daughter of the composer Gustav Holst , as an assistant at the Dartington Hall Music Arts Center in Totnes, Devon. In January 1948 he played the violin concerto by Ludwig van Beethoven in the prizewinners' concert of the Carl Flesch Competition in the Royal Albert Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, in addition to which he continued to play chamber music in various formations and with changing partners.

In 1940, at the Prees Heath internment camp, Brainin met the Austrian violinist Hans (later Peter) Schidlof through Ferdinand Rauter . The two performed Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's violin concerto in Brainin's arrangement for two violins and a violin duo composed by Brainin. In the internment camp Onchan on the Isle of Man, Schidlof, who was only released in July 1941, met the violinist Siegmund Nissel of the same age . The English cellist Martin Lovett had heard Brainin play at house music concerts in 1943 and met Peter Schidlof through his future wife, Rostal student Suzanne Rozsa (Rosenbaum). In 1946, Brainin, Nissel, Schidlof and Lovett began playing quartet. The first concert - still under the name Brainin Quartet - took place on July 13, 1947 at Dartington Hall. At first, Brainin and Schidlof took turns on the viola. From his debut under the new name Amadeus Quartet on January 10, 1948 in London's Wigmore Hall, Brainin continuously played first violin. The overwhelming public success marked the beginning of Brainin's almost 40-year career as the leader of the Amadeus Quartet.

Until it was dissolved after Schidlof's early death in 1987, the Amadeus Quartet gave over 4,000 concerts worldwide, performed at all major music festivals, made countless radio and television broadcasts and made around 200 recordings. Even if contemporary works were played and premiered again and again (such as the 5th String Quartet by Joseph Horovitz in 1969 or Benjamin Britten's 3rd String Quartet, Op. 94, in 1976), the works of the Viennese Classic formed the core of the repertoire. The rise of the quartet was not only closely linked to the establishment of state funding for culture in Great Britain (CEMA, British Council) and the boom of the record as a mass medium, but also to the 3rd BBC program. The music manager Sir William Glock , who had come to know and appreciate the quartet at the Dartington Summer School in Bryanston, and the editor of the 3rd program, Hans Heinrich Keller, were important sponsors.

In 1948, Brainin married Käthe Kottow. The musicians remained friends, although “every rehearsal could have been the last,” says Brainin. The different but equal colleagues, the common background and the school at Max Rostal shaped a British ensemble with "Viennese sound culture", "recognized as probably the leading quartet in Europe, and among the most admired in the world", says Stanley Sadie.

After Schidlof's death, Brainin also resumed solo activity. Chamber music with prominent colleagues was still on the program, so Brainin, Nissel and Lovett performed the two Brahms Sextets op. 18 and op. 36 with members of the Alban Berg Quartet . The chamber music partners of the quartet included Clifford Curzon , Emil Gilels , Cecil Aronowitz , Benny Goodman , Mstislav Rostropovich , Benjamin Britten and Murray Perahia . A replacement for Schidlof and the continuation of the Amadeus Quartet were no longer an option.

Norbert Brainin died on April 10, 2005 in London. His grave is in Bushey Jewish Cemetery , Hertfordshire.

Teaching

In 1974 Brainin became professor for violin at the Scuola di Musica in Fiesole, in 1976 professor for chamber music at the Cologne Conservatory , 1986 professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London and in 1995 at the Liszt School of Music Weimar . Numerous successful string quartets, such as the Auryn Quartet , the Carmina Quartet , the Petersen Quartet and the Škampa Quartet , emerged from his lessons.

Awards

  • 1960 Order of the British Empire
  • together with the other quartet members: Great Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
  • Cross of Honor for Science and Art of the Republic of Austria
  • Honorary doctorates from the Universities of York, London and Caracas.
  • December 15, 1999 Golden Cross of Merit of the State of Vienna

Known relatives

literature

  • Norbert Brainin: From the spirit of music. A life in the Amadeus Quartet. Edited by Reinhold Rieger, 2005.
  • Brainin, Norbert , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.1. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 139

Web links

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  1. ^ In Memoriam Norbert Brainin: Founder and Primarius of the Amadeus Quartet. schillerinstitute.org.
  2. ↑ Audio interview with Max Brainin (Digital Collection. SEARCH: Max Brainin)
  3. ↑ In the Lexicon of Persecuted Musicians from the Nazi era , University of Hamburg, Institute for Historical Musicology [1] , Max Brainin is not referred to as an uncle, but as a cousin.
  4. ↑ Primavera Gruber: I am not afraid of anything anymore . 'Continental Britons' of a different kind - Norbert Brainin and the Amadeus Quartet, in: Zwischenwelt. Literature, Resistance, Exil , vol. 21, no. 1, Vienna, July 2004, pp. 32–33; quoted from the dictionary of persecuted musicians from the Nazi era , University of Hamburg, Institute for Historical Musicology [2]
  5. ^ Daniel Snowman: The Hitler Émigrés. The Cultural Impact on Britain of Refugees from Nazism. London, Pimlico 2003.
  6. ^ Private archive Primavera Driessen Gruber, Vienna (oral history interview with Norbert Brainin from November 8, 1999), quoted from [3]
  7. ^ Stanley Sadie: Amadeus Quartet , in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , Vol. 1, Stanley Sadie (Ed.), London, Macmillan 1980. pp. 303-304.
  8. ↑ literaturhaus.at
  9. ↑ literaturhaus.at
personal data
SURNAME Brainin, Norbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austro-British violinist
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 2005
Place of death London