Background
Louis Brassin was born in Aix-la-Chapelle in 1840. His father was a baritone named de Brassine, whose career took him and his family abroad.
composer music educator musicologist pianist university professor
Louis Brassin was born in Aix-la-Chapelle in 1840. His father was a baritone named de Brassine, whose career took him and his family abroad.
University of Music and Theatre Leipzig.
He is best known now for his piano transcription of the Magic Fire Music from Wagner"s Die Walküre. Louis gave his first concert at the age of six, in Hamburg. At age seven he entered the Leipzig Conservatory as a pupil of Ignaz Moscheles.
In 1857 he adopted the surname Brassin.
In 1866-1867 he taught at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, succeeding Hans von Bülow, then resumed concertising. He was piano professor at the Brussels Conservatoire 1868-1878, and played an important role in the musical life of the country.
Among his pupils there were Edgar Tinel, Arthur De Greef, Franz Rummel and Alfred Wotquenne. In 1878 he took over the piano class of Theodor Leschetizky at the Saint St. Petersburg Conservatory, where his pupils included Vasily Safonov, Wassily Sapellnikoff and Gennady Korganov.
He died in Saint St. Petersburg in 1884, aged 43.
Brassin"s piano transcription of the Magic Fire Music from Wagner"s Die Walküre was long a concert favourite, and has been recorded many times. His other Wagner transcriptions from the Ring Cycle were: Valhalla, Siegmund"s Love Song, Ride of the Valkyries (Die Walküre), and Forest Murmurs (Siegfried). Pianists who have recorded these pieces include Josef Hofmann, Ignaz Friedman, Isador Goodman, Michael Ponti, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Denis Plutalov and Severin von Eckardstein.
He also transcribed:
J. South. Bach"s Toccata and Fugue in Doctorate minor, BWV 565
the Soldiers" Chorus from Gounod"s Faust
3 pieces after Domenico Scarlatti.