Brambach, Carl Joseph (1833-1902)

[Reverie]

Carl Brambach spent most of his life in Bonn.

He started out on his career as first violinist at the Bonn Opera House (1847-1850) and studied at the Cologne Conservatory (1851-1854) as a private pupil of Ferdinand Hiller and Carl Reinecke before he himself became a teacher in 1858.

In 1869 he chose to devote himself entirely to his compositions and the musical life in Bonn. He was admired particularly for his choral writing.

His insrumental writing is best described as post-Mendelssohn but there are also elements of chromaticism evident.

On 20 June 1902 Brambach died in his home in Bonn. His funeral was accompanied by singers from all over Germany. A memorial was built on his grave at the cemetery in Bonn-Poppelsdorf.

On Sunday, July 14, 2019, a memorial plaque was set up at the Rebstock car park in Königswinter-Oberdollendorf (a village across the river Rhine from Bonn), at the place where Brambach was born and spent his childhood and youth.

https://virtuellesbrueckenhofmuseum.de/vmuseum/historie/zeige_objekt.php?auswahl=13084&suche=&reihe=-13084-10-13122-1-13156-13129-13124-13114-13128-13131-13111

The overture to the opera Ariadne (1885) follows. It is about 8 minutes in length.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjB44wAiYBM

[Mark Thomas]

Thanks, Martin. Once again we are in your debt. There's also an attractive trio of Mendelssohnian piano pieces by Brambach on YouTube here.

[Alan Howe]

It's a strong overture - thanks, Martin.

Here's the list of Brambach's works available at IMSLP:
https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Brambach,_Carl_Joseph

[eschiss1]

https://imslp.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Carl_Joseph_Brambach just for the list. And the German Wikipedia article here also.

[tpaloj]

I recently made an inquiry to the Stadtarchiv in Bonn about Brambach's Nachlass which is kept there. There is no online list of that collection, but it appears that among other things his autographs to the Piano Concerto op. 39 and opera Ariadne are held there. Regrettably, they reported back to me that they don't have any materials of Brambach's Symphony, premiered in 1863, which was the work I was most looking forward to find.

Too bad. Perhaps that score is in another cupboard someplace else, or not...

[Alan Howe]

Too bad. Perhaps that score is in another cupboard someplace else, or not...

Quite. The works list at IMSLP simply reads Sinfonie (vgl. AMz 1863, S.128), which is a reference in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitschrift (= General Music Magazine) of 1863, p.128. One wonders where the score might be...