A tribute to Frans Brüggen

Even when taking into account the departures of some incredibly high profile names from the creative world this week – Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall in particular – classical music is still having a rough time of it. Claudio Abbado, Peter Sculthorpe and Lorin Maazel are just three of highly respected artists who have recently departed, and to that list can sadly be added the name of Frans Brüggen, whose death at the age of 79 was revealed yesterday.

We can be grateful this quartet lived long and extremely fruitful lives, but I wanted to focus on Brüggen this time as I absolutely love his recordings. In fact I hold him pretty much responsible for helping my initial aversion to what we awkwardly term 'period instrument' recordings, and I think he brought so much character to his interpretations he made me realise it was possible to use instruments of the time, with the sound to which we were unaccustomed, and still build cultured and individual interpretations.

The first disc of his I remember hearing was Rameau – a sparkling and colourful account of the suite Les Indes Galantes. Yet the one that made even more impact was a Philips disc bringing together middle period Mozart symphonies – the celebrated Symphony no.29 in A major, K201 and the much less known – but equally inspired – Symphony no.33 in B flat major, K319. Brüggen and his charges, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, bring a freshness to this piece, but importantly for me the orchestra still pack enough heft in the bigger chords, together with a string sound that is positively luxurious for a period band.

This is only the tip of the iceberg where Brüggen is concerned, however. With his orchestra he completed a very fine cycle of Beethoven symphonies, which Universal are helpfully making available again this month, as well as an extremely enjoyable Schubert canon, featuring among other things a Symphony no.5 in B flat major that preserves the composer's fresh inspiration.

This is before we even get to his Haydn – for it's this area of Brüggen's output that appeals to me most. To me he understands Haydn's wit and good humour, but also his craft, and there is always an elegance to Brüggen's interpretations that makes the next note in each phrase so inevitable. In Haydn that helps an awful lot – and yet the surprise element of some of the symphonies is also retained. Brüggen’s music making in the London and Paris symphonies in particular has given hours of pleasure, and I would urge you to listen if you haven't before.
And how could I almost have forgotten his Rameau? Two discs leap out at me that Brüggen recorded for Philips – the highly characterful live recording of the suite for Les indes galantes, and an equally invigorating version of a suite from the opera Dardanus.

Even before his successes as a conductor Brüggen had shown unusual ability as a flautist and recorder player. In the 1960s he recorded a sizeable amount of Baroque music for Teldec's Das Alte Werk imprint, producing some ground breaking discs of Telemann, J.S. Bach and Handel – as well as exploring some of the lesser known corners of Baroque chamber repertoire.

Even in the last years of his life, when he clearly wasn't as sprightly as he used to be, Brüggen continued to conduct from a seating position – which was the case on the only occasion I encountered him in concert, where he and his guest charges, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, gave a typically inspiring performance of Mozart's Paris symphony.

Despite his less than ideal health, Brüggen continued to record to great effect, with recent releases bringing Mendelssohn's Italian and Scottish symphonies to life, not to mention another visit to Mozart's last three works in the form. There is quite literally never a dull note in Brüggen's recorded work – and it deserves to live on long after the sad passing of its creator.

A Frans Brüggen miscellany be found on Spotify by clicking here , including Les Indes Galantes, Beethoven's Eroica symphony, a fantasia by Telemann and symphonies by Schubert (no.5), Haydn (no.102) and Mozart (no.39).

Spending time with Mozart

For the last 12 days, my musical New Year diet has consisted of little more than Mozart. It was never going to be possible to donate 100% of my time to his music over this period, but other than necessary diversions (British Sea Power, Hindemith, Fujiya & Miyagi and Anna Calvi) the vast majority has been spent in the company of Wolfgang Amadeus.

The reason for this intensive study is BBC Radio 3's Genius of Mozart season, a 12 day project playing every note the composer penned on the radio. Previously the Beeb have subjected the likes of Bach, Beethoven, Webern and a memorable double act of Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky to this intensive treatment, yet the chance to hear this applied to Mozart didn’t grab me initially.

The problem – with me, at any rate – seems one borne of respect rather than love. It is easy to appreciate Mozart's genius, either through wide-eyed wonder that he had written more than 20 symphonies by the end of his teens, or through his mastery of form, instrumentation, harmony and above all melody.

Yet if you asked me who I liked more, Haydn or Mozart, Haydn would win almost every time. Finding reasons for this is difficult, but in the end I prefer his wit, his profusion of melody and above all the sense that his really is music for the people.

That said Radio 3's festival has reaffirmed some Mozart works in my mind. Few late night treats can equal listening to the Gran Partita, the serenade for 13 wind instruments. None of the piano concertos, especially no.9 and upwards of the teens, are found wanting, and the symphonies remain incredibly involving too. For me the performance of no.39 from the ever capable Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was easily the best performance of the week.

Some Mozart I can take or leave, which isn't meant to sound dismissive and arrogant, but to say that it functions as intended – as background music - or doesn't always move me. Some of the Divertimenti (save the String Trio masterpiece) and the serenades fall into this category, while some early works do feel as if they are going through the motions. The piano sonatas, too, I find largely functional, though they retain the capability to surprise when you least expect them to.

The real winners, for me, have been found within the chamber music, which can totally absorb the mind. Each of the 'Haydn' quartets is a delight, as are the four mature String Quintets, one of the forms that Mozart truly pioneered. Also proving unexpectedly magnetic were shorter works for piano, including the Rondo in A minor K511 and the Fantasy in D minor K397. Both seem to generate the extra intensity Mozart found when working in a minor key, which can also be said of the Adagio and Fugue in C minor K546, for string quartet.

As yet Mozart's operas remain beyond my reach - the problem most certainly my end rather than the composer's, as I continue to strip away at my previous indifference to classical opera. But for now, the chamber music will do just fine.

I have grouped together some of my favourite Mozart from this intriguing series, in the form of a Spotify playlist:
The Genius of Mozart