Willy (Vassily Georgyevich) Brandt The Early Years
Edward H. Tarr
Many trumpeters are conversant with the two method books written by Vassily Brandt, 34 Etudes for Orchestral Trumpeters and23 Etudes ("The Last"). In a recent ITG Journal article, Richard Burkart mentioned using both volumes regularly with his students, and Keith Johnson also mentioned using one or both as specific method books for work on tonguing. In addition, Brandt's two Konzertstucke (Concert Pieces) for trumpet (actually cornet) and piano and his Ldndliche Bilder (Country Pictures) for four trumpets still occupy a firm place in the repertoire.
What most do not know, however, is that this Russian trumpeter was actually a German. Before emigrating to
Brandt in
The trumpeter, composer, and conductor Willy (Vassily Georgyevich) Brandt (1869-1923) came from Coburg. Unfortunately, inquiries into that city's archive have not yielded a birth certificate. Perhaps he came from a nearby village. In any case he is said to have absolved a four-year course in the Coburg Music School under director Carl Zimmermann (?-1919), conductor of the town band or orchestra (Stadtkapelle) from 1877 to 1908. Zimmermann's concerts were always well attended, and his young pupils were trained to play in the Kapelle as soon as possible. He was known as a strict, but highly respected, taskmaster.
Nothing more is known about Brandt's early activities or training until the age of 18. At this time he must have been a finished virtuoso, for we learn of him in 1887 as a member of the spa orchestra of Bad Oeynhausen (in north
A concert program of the "spa orchestra of Bad Oeynhausen" from September 16,1888 still survives, in which "Herr Brandt" plays Dimitresco's "Doi Oc[c]hi (Zwei Augen)" as a soloist. (See facsimile. An arrow points to Brandt's name, three lines from the bottom of the left-hand column.) This is the only trace of Brandt that could be found in Bad Oeynhausen, and at that time newspapers did not yet exist there.
Tsarist
A concert program of the "spa orchestra of Bad Oeynhausen" from September 16,1888 still survives, in which "Herr Brandt" plays Dimitresco's "Doi Oc[c]hi (Zwei Augen)" as a soloist. (See facsimile. An arrow points to Brandt's name, three lines from the bottom of the left-hand column.) This is the only trace of Brandt that could be found in Bad Oeynhausen, and at that time newspapers did not yet exist there.
Tsarist
Let us take the violin as an example. At the Moscow Conservatory, the first professor of violin was Ferdinand Laub (from
In September 1912, the first high-level Russian conservatory after
Brandt as a Musician and Teacher
Brandt was renowned for his magnificent tone, his immaculate technique, and his noble phrasing. Like Herbert L. Clarke, he liked to practice double and triple tonguing "dry," while walking in the street. His Russian was very bad, so he often communicated with his pupils by example, demonstrating with his instrument very clearly what was expected of them; daily scales and the Arban method were central in his instruction. He often accompanied his pupils on the piano, and among the pieces he so played were his own Etudes, which only survive today without accompaniment. He instilled in his pupils a love for their art.
Funeral Fanfare Written for Brandt
When Brandt died, Konstantin Listov (1900-), then still a student at the very beginning of his composing career, wrote Funeral Fanfare, the three parts of which were performed by 12 trumpeters, a snare drummer, and a kettledrummer. Some 50 years later, Selianin located the composer and persuaded him to reconstruct the piece on the basis of the third trumpet part, which was the only one to survive. Selianin made a gift of this material to the
Brandt Festival in
The Vassily Brandt International Trumpet Competition, will be held September 15-22 as part of a much larger Brandt Festival, at the Saratov State Conservatory in
Brandt in
At the conclusion of this article, I would like to share some information, previously unknown, which sheds light not only on Brandt's biography, but also on an orchestral musician's working conditions 100 years ago.
While doing research for a Coburg exhibition in 1993, I wrote to Seija Ohenoia (a friend and ex-pupil) in Helsinki, asking her if information could be found on Brandt's stay there, which Bolotin had reported on as being in two seasons, 1887-88 and 1888-89. At her request, a very cooperative archivist of the Helsinki Philharmonic sent me two surviving contracts, some extracts from the orchestral pay ledger that each musician had to sign, some newspaper announcements of impending concerts including repertoire, and Rules and Regulations on musicians' deportment.
From the newspaper accounts, we learn which pieces Willy Brandt played as a soloist while in
• 2 April 1888 and 26 January 1889: Concertino for trumpet by [W.] Herfurth
- 20 October and 27 October 1888: Fantasie for trumpet by [O.] Fuchs
- 16 February and 5 March 1889: Nordische Fantasie for "Cornet a piston" by [Theodor] Hoch (1843-1906)
- 19 April 1890: Solo for "Cornet a piston," Carneval de Venise by [J.B.] Arban (1825-1889).
These virtuoso solos, which are invariably in the form of a theme with variations and contain a number of cadenzas, are typical for their time. The Arban solo, of course, is quite well known. In his success ful search for the other pieces, the author found the Herfurth work in a Solobuch filr B-Trompete (Vol. 1) published by Rahter in Hamburg and still commercially available, the Nordische Fantasie in the of the Bad Sackingen Trumpet Museum (from the estate of Brandt's contemporary "Mr. Never-Miss," Eduard Seiffert [1870-1965], former principal trumpeter of the Dresdner Staatskapelle), and Fuchs's Fantasy on Weber's Last Thought (on a theme of Weber) in the St. Petersburg Conservatory Library.
A Musician's Life - Brandt's Contracts and the Rules and Regulations
The contracts are interesting. They are written in old Swedish. We remember that Brandt played a solo on September 16,1888, as a member of 'the Kurkapelle in Bad Oeynhausen. On September 9 of that year, in Bad Oeynhausen, he had already signed a contract stipulating that he would appear in the orchestra office in
An identical contract from September 22, 1887 survives. It is reproduced here with an English translation. Note his signature "Willy Brandt."
One stipulation, in the fourth paragraph of stipulation 8, requires comment: the death of an emperor. At that time,
Every orchestra member must have been familiar with the Rules and Regulations document which is printed in German. It was also found in the dossier of Brandt's colleague, Thule Nordin, who was active as 2nd trumpeter in the orchestra from 1887 to 1892. From its numerous prohibitions in addition to those of Brandt's contract, we learn what conditions were to be found in the early days of symphony orchestras in