Musical Families in the 19th/20th century

[doversoul1]

Josef Suk

[subcontrabass]

The Brains, particularly Aubrey and Dennis. Aubrey's father was also a horn player in the LSO and his brother Alfred was a horn player in the Queen's Hall Orchestra under Henry Wood (didn't any of the Brains consider a different instrument?)

Dennis was an organist (holder of an FRCO diploma).

[Hornspieler]

Err, didn't Aubrey play something else? Cor Anglais perhaps ?

Aubrey Brain was my teacher! His brother Alfred also played the horn and eventually finished up in San Francisco as Chairman of the Holywood Bowl Symphony orchestra. Their father was Arthur Brain, who was 4th horn in the famous LSO section (known as God's own quartet) led by the famous Adolf Borsdoff, whose sons, Francis (who changed his surname to Bradley' during WW2) and Emil (who stuck to the Germanic Borsdoff name) were both horn players and I worked alongside them both frequently in the BBC Light Music Unit in the 1950s.

To return to the Brain family, Aubrey's wife was a well known opera singer in the 1920s. Hls elder son, Leonard, played oboe and cor anglais. He was a member of Beecham's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and also Dennis Brain's wind quintet.

HS

[Flay]

John Barbirolli. His father Lorenzo was a violinist who had performed with his own father in the orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

Wiki tells me that: << the young Barbirolli began to play the violin when he was four, but soon changed to the cello. He later said that this was at the instigation of his grandfather who, exasperated at his habit of wandering around while practising the violin, bought him a small cello to stop him from "getting in everybody's way" >>

His first wife (for just a few years) was the soprano Marjorie Parry (whose career apparently ended prematurely: "the management at Covent Garden placed extraordinary demands on Parry. She was required to sing on tour five performances each two weeks, and to have no less than fourteen roles: Eva, Elsa, Alice Ford, Lola, Rosalinda, Octavian, Musetta, Jack (The Wreckers), Nedda, Liu, Marguerite, Leonora (Il Trovatore), Gerhilde (Die Walküre) and a Flower Maiden").

He married the delightful oboist Evelyn Rothwell in 1939 and they remained together until his death.

Unfortunately there were no children from either marriage.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Stuart and Oliver Knussen.
David and Colin Matthews.