Brun: Symphony no 1

Day 281

Brun: Symphony no 1

Moscow Symphony Orchestra

Adriano

I purchased this CD on spec at a charity shop, having never heard of the composer and knowing nothing about his music. It turns out that he was a Swiss composer working in the first half of the 20th century. His music is mostly unpublished and received very few performances in his life. Brun was also a conductor and was quite well connected to several mainstream figures in European music of the time but he was very much a minor figure. Indeed the conductor of this CD - who goes by the single name Adriano - seems almost singlehandedly to have promoted Brun's work - the extensive notes that go with the recording are among the most pretentious I have ever seen and make some very exaggerated claims about his music.

It turns out that this is a fairly competent symphony in a conservative Brahmsian style written by an obviously capable musician - nothing more nor less.  There must be hundreds of such symphonies written by students (Brun was in his early 20s when this was written) lurking in dusty cupboards in the music conservatoires of Europe. I suspect that they all are like this - not unpleasant but entirely unmemorable. To be fair to Brun, there are some quite striking ideas in the first two movements, but they go nowhere and the other two movements have less to offer.  The whole cycle of Brun's symphonies has been recorded by Adriano - I can't imagine ever wanting to acquire the rest of them to follow his development as a composer over 50 year - there are some pretty scathing reviews of the complete set on the internet.