Louis Brassin
Encyclopedia
Louis Brassin was a Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 pianist, composer and music educator. He is best known now for his piano transcription of the Magic Fire Music from Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...

.

Career

Louis Brassin was born in Aix-la-Chapelle
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...

 in 1840. His father was a baritone named de Brassine, whose career took him and his family abroad. Louis gave his first concert at the age of six, in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

. At age seven he entered the Leipzig Conservatory as a pupil of Ignaz Moscheles
Ignaz Moscheles
Ignaz Moscheles was a Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso, whose career after his early years was based initially in London, and later at Leipzig, where he succeeded his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as head of the Conservatoire.-Sources:Much of what we know about Moscheles's life...

. In 1852 he went on concert tours with his two brothers. In 1857 he adopted the surname Brassin. In 1866-67 he taught at the Stern Conservatory
Stern conservatory
The Stern Conservatory was a private music school in Berlin with many notable tutors and alumni.-History:It was originally founded in 1850 as the Berliner Musikschule by Julius Stern, Theodor Kullak and Adolf Bernhard Marx. Kullak withdrew from the conservatory in 1855 in order to create a new...

 in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, succeeding Hans von Bülow
Hans von Bülow
Hans Guido Freiherr von Bülow was a German conductor, virtuoso pianist, and composer of the Romantic era. He was one of the most famous conductors of the 19th century, and his activity was critical for establishing the successes of several major composers of the time, including Richard...

, then resumed concertising. He was piano professor at the Brussels Conservatoire 1868-78, and played an important role in the musical life of the country. Among his pupils there were Edgar Tinel
Edgar Tinel
Edgar Tinel was a Belgian composer and pianist.He was born in Sinaai, today part of Sint-Niklaas in East Flanders, Belgium, and died in Brussels. After studies at the Brussels Conservatory with Louis Brassin and François-Auguste Gevaert , he began a career as a virtuoso, but soon abandoned this...

, Arthur De Greef
Arthur De Greef
Arthur De Greef was a Belgian pianist and composer.Born in Louvain, he won first prize in a local music composition when he was only 11, and subsequently enrolled at the Brussels Conservatoire...

 and Franz Rummel
Franz Rummel
Franz Rummel was a German pianist, born in England and active across continental Europe.Rummel was born in London into a prominent German musical family, the son of pianist Joseph Rummel and grandson of composer and conductor Christian Rummel. He studied under Louis Brassin at the Brussels...

. In 1878 he took over the piano class of Theodor Leschetizky at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory
Saint Petersburg Conservatory
The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory is a music school in Saint Petersburg. In 2004, the conservatory had around 275 faculty members and 1,400 students.-History:...

, where his pupils included Vasily Safonov, Wassily Sapellnikoff
Wassily Sapellnikoff
Wassily Sapellnikoff , was a Russian pianist.A more true transliteration of his name is Vasily Lvovich Sapelnikov, however when he concertised in England he chose the above version....

 and Gennady Korganov.

He died in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 in 1884, aged 43.

Transcriptions

Brassin's piano transcription of the Magic Fire Music from Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...

was long a concert favourite, and has been recorded many times. His other Wagner transcriptions from the Ring Cycle
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...

 were: Valhalla, Siegmund's Love Song, Ride of the Valkyries
Ride of the Valkyries
The Ride of the Valkyries is the popular term for the beginning of Act III of Die Walküre, the second of the four operas by Richard Wagner that comprise Der Ring des Nibelungen. The main theme of the Ride, the leitmotif labelled Walkürenritt, was first written down by the composer on 23 July 1851...

(Die Walküre), and Forest Murmurs (Siegfried
Siegfried (opera)
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring...

). Pianists who have recorded these pieces include Josef Hofmann, Ignaz Friedman
Ignaz Friedman
Ignaz Friedman Ignaz Friedman Ignaz Friedman (also spelled by languages Ignace or Ignacy; exactly Solomon (Salomon) Isaac Freudman(n), (February 13, 1882January 26, 1948) was a Polish pianist and composer. Critics (e.g. Harold C. Schonberg) and colleagues (e.g...

, Isador Goodman
Isador Goodman
Isador Goodman AM was a South African-Australian Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. He became a household name in Australia in the 1930s-1970s, taught at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music for 50 years, introduced many Australians to classical music, and contributed hugely to music...

, Michael Ponti
Michael Ponti
Michael Ponti is a concert and recording pianist.-Life and career:Ponti was born in Germany, but has lived in the United States for most of his life...

, Jean-Yves Thibaudet
Jean-Yves Thibaudet
-Early life:Jean-Yves Thibaudet was born in Lyon, France, to non-professional musical parents. His father played the violin, and his mother, of German origin and a somewhat accomplished pianist herself, introduced the instrument to Jean-Yves....

 and Denis Plutalov.

He also transcribed:
  • J. S. Bach
    Johann Sebastian Bach
    Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

    's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565
    Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565
    The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, is a piece of organ music attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach. It is one of the most famous works in the organ repertoire, and has been used in a variety of popular media ranging from film, video games, to rock music, and ringtones...

  • the Soldiers' Chorus from Gounod
    Charles Gounod
    Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...

    's Faust
    Faust (opera)
    Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...

  • 3 pieces after Domenico Scarlatti
    Domenico Scarlatti
    Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He is classified as a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical style...

    .

Original works

Brassin wrote two piano concertos and two German operettas (Der Thronfolger, The Heir to the Throne and Der Missionär, The Missionary), as well as many smaller, now largely forgotten piano pieces.
  • Première grande polonaise
  • Deuxième grande polonaise, Op. 18
  • 3eme Grande Polonaise
  • Feuillet d'album (Album Leaf)
  • Étude de concert
  • Impressions d'Automne (Herbst-Eindrücke) Trois etudes
  • Menuet, Gavotte et Gigue
  • Polka de la Princesse
  • Sérénade
  • Rêverie pastoral
  • Rêverie
  • Second Galop de Concert fantastique
  • Les Adieux, morceau caractéristiques
  • Grandes Etudes de Concert. Op. 12 [No. 1-6]
  • Mazurka de Salon, Op. 14
  • Au clair de la lune, Nocturne, Op. 17

Sources

  • Harold C. Schonberg
    Harold C. Schonberg
    Harold Charles Schonberg was an American music critic and journalist, most notably for The New York Times. He was the first music critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism...

    , The Great Pianists, pp. 269, 342
  • Eric Blom
    Eric Blom
    Eric Walter Blom CBE was a Swiss-born British-naturalised music lexicographer, musicologist, music critic, music biographer and translator. He is best known as the editor of the 5th edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians .-Biography:Blom was born in Berne, Switzerland...

    , ed., Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
    Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
    The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...

    , 5th ed, 1954, Vol. 1, p. 918
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