Vale Frans Bruggen

[Humoresque]

Yesterday this excellent conductor died, his Beethoven recordings in particular were superb and he will be greatly missed. What are your favorite performances by Maestro Bruggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century? And as a soloist?

[Peter]

Thanks for posting this Humoresque and welcome to the forum!

Yes sad news indeed - his Beethoven recordings have always been a firm recommendation on our site. By way of tribute, here's a clip of him from the 1960's as a soloist playing Telemann:

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQatlvFvGdM[/YOUTUBE]

[Humoresque]

Here is Bruggen conducting a concert version of "Abduction from the Seraglio".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXp6MRobCig

This orchestra's Mozart recordings are superb, I regard the Orchestra of the 18th Century as arguably the best period ensemble working today.

Rest in peace Maestro Bruggen.

[AeolianHarp]

I hadn't heard of him before, but the now defunct Beethoven Only radio station used to play an 18th century orchestra- I suppose it must have been with Mr Bruggen.

[Albert Gans]

I had the pleasure, unfortunately only later, in 2010 and 11, I believe, to see him conduct Mozart's Requiem and LvB's 9th with 'his' orchestra. Despite his very constricted movements, he was quite frail and basically sat down when conducting, reminding me of Klemperer, they were two remarkable and memorable performances.
I was supposed to see him last season doing the Violin Concerto, PC 5 and the 9th again, but he was replaced. Kenneth Montgomery was a disappointment, though, particularly in the 9th. Those performances had their own stars (Isabelle Faust, who did a cadenza I'd never heard before and added something in the second movement of the VC) and Krystian Bezuidenhout on a period instrument rebuilt (Graf).
Frans Brüggen was a fantastic conductor, absolutely.

[AeolianHarp]

How wonderful you got to see Mr Bruggen conduct! And Mozart's Requiem too and our dear Beethoven's 9th!

[Decrepit Poster]

My exposer to Mr Bruggen extends back to when he was known as a recorder virtuoso and not yet as a conductor. He was my favorite of lot. I own a number of his recorder performances on LP, and maybe one or two on CD. I also own his Eroica on LaserDisc (video), two CD of Beethoven symphonies (4/6 and 7/8), a couple of Haydn symphony CDs, and a CD of Mozart's 41st symphony. It's been so long since I listened to the Beethoven CDs I recall little of them. I have a vague recollection of being somewhat disappointed with either the 4th or 6th, and quite liking either the 7th or 8th, or both. I might give them another hearing this coming week.

In any case his passing is indeed sad.

ADDENDUM: After typing the above I came across a rather interesting English language interview with Mr Bruggen, conducted during his final years. It's worth a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_DCGCl15BQ

[Frankli]

a really nice man

He was not only a great musician in all senses, but also a very nice, modest and charismatic man. I met him professionally a few times and once did him a tiny favor. He returned the favor by sending me, completely unnecessarily, a friendly and funny letter, together with one of his recordings on cd. Well, sending, they were delivered to the place where I worked at that time by his beautiful wife in person.
In 1980 or so he decided to start a career as a conductor, and took great financial risk in accomplishing his dream. I am so glad that he did.