[cover]

Hafiz in the West:Songs of Love and Life

Martin Bruns, baritoneJan Philip Schulze, piano

Wednesday, February 25, 20097:30 p.m.

[inside front cover: no changes from Feb. 25 concert]

[page 1]

PROGRAM

"Hafiz has no peer." (Goethe)

Songs of Love and Lifeon poetry by, and inspired by, Hafiz (1320–1392)

Sir Granville Bantock(1868–1946)Alá yá! Send the Cup round

Franz Schubert (1797–1828)Geheimes (Goethe)Du bist die Ruh (Rückert)Sei mir gegrüßt (Rückert)

Alan Hovhaness (1911–2000)Hafiz wanders, weeping (Hovhaness), op. 33, no. 2

Adolf Jensen (1837–1879)from “Lieder des Hafis” (Daumer), op. 11

Ich will bis in die Sterne die Fahne der Liebe tragenLockenstricke, sollst du wissenZu der Rose, zu dem Weine, komm!

Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944)1

“Liederbuch des Hafis” (Bethge), op. 30 (1940)VorausbestimmungBetrunkenUnwiderstehliche SchönheitLob des Weines

Intermission

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)Songs on poetry by Daumer

So stehn wir, ich und meine Weide op. 32, no.8Wie bist du, meine Königin op. 32, no. 9Bitteres zu sagen, denkst du op. 32, no. 7Wenn Du nur zuweilen lächelst op. 57, no. 2Botschaft op. 47, no. 1

Hugo Wolf (1860–1903)Songs on poetry by Goethe (from “West-östlicher Divan”)

Ob der Koran von Ewigkeit sei?Was in der Schenke waren heuteWie sollt ich heiter bleiben?Sie haben wegen der TrunkenheitSo lang man nüchtern istTrunken müssen wir alle sein

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NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

by Martin Bruns

In the year 1320 Shams-ud-din Muhammad was born in the southern Persian city of Shiraz. Already at age nine or ten he was known as Hāfez or Hafiz; the name given to someone who has memorized the entire Koran. It was the period when the Black Death ravaged Europe, killing in some countries as much as half of the population. It was also the age when Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) was completing his Divina Commedia, Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) was to write his Canzoniere, Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343–1400) was born in England, the University of Prague was founded (1347), Giotto’s (1267–1337) bell tower was built in Florence, and the bible was translated into English for the first time.

Hafiz spent nearly all of his life in Shiraz, where he became a famous Sufi master. He produced an estimated 5,000 poems, of which some 600 to 700 have survived. Even today he is one of the most celebrated Persian poets ever. Hafiz's Divan, simply meaning collection, remains the most published book in the Middle East after the Koran. Thrilling as one of the greatest love stories of all time, it was set against one of the most dangerous, colorful and horrifying periods of history. Much like his book, Hafiz’s own life was mystical, romantic, mysterious and adventurous.

To the West, his work became known largely through the efforts of Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1796–1835). It was his enthusiasm for Hafiz which led to numerous translations in the 19th century and prompted many to view Hafiz in a philosophical, even spiritual light. Among such poets and translators were Friedrich Rückert (1788–1866), Georg Friedrich Daumer (1800–1875) and Hans Bethge (1876–1946), as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882). Hafiz’s poems were also greatly admired by Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881), Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837), Victor Hugo (1802–1885), Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), and Federico Garcia Lorca (1898–1936), to name but a few.

Hafiz wrote most of his poems as ghazals, a form he brought to perfection as never before or since. It is composed of a minimum of five couplets, and typically no more than fifteen. These couplets are structurally, thematically, and emotionally autonomous, yet linked to each other by the recurring rhyme of the very first couplet: AA BA CA DA etc.

Generally, Hafiz’s poems can be characterized by a love of humanity, a contempt for hypocrisy and mediocrity, and by his ability to universalize everyday experience. At the same time, Hafiz was unequivocal in his denunciation of religious rituals devoid of spiritual intensity. In his poems the sensual imagery of erotic love, wine and drinking can be viewed in a spiritual context alluding to the excitement of mystical union with the Divine. The ‘beloved’ becomes a metaphor for God; wine, a symbol of divine ecstasy; a tavern, a place of worship; and the cup, the heart of the lover of God from whom flows the wine of divine love.

In 1812–13 the first complete German translation of Hafiz’s Divan was published by the Austrian diplomat Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall. Goethe read it and immediately recognized Hafiz’s poetic genius. In Hafiz, Goethe heard the compelling voice of a rich and imaginative lyric art. He recognized Hafiz as a seeker of truth on both a spiritual and a human level. Calling Hafiz “his twin” in one of his own poems, Goethe was attracted to this mind who rejected any concept of orthodoxy, who embraced pantheism and more liberal views on religion, wisdom and love. And it inspired him to write his own West-Eastern Divan.

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The polarity of spiritual content versus human and down-to-earth perspectives paired with an abundance of imagery has attracted not only western poets to Hafiz’s work. Yet the strict formal qualities of the ghazal challenged poets and translators greatly. Goethe felt restricted by its conventions and freed himself from them, but his German contemporaries Friedrich Rückert and August von Platen (1796–1835) wrote many ghazals themselves. Rückert, in his translations of Hafiz as well as in some original poems, imitates the ghazal form, its meter and rhyme scheme, and does retain some of the elegance of Hafiz. And even though Goethe's ‘personal’ relation with Hafiz is more intimate and genuinely philosophical compared to that of Rückert, the latter takes precedence in scholarly studies of Hafiz.

One of the most popular collections of Hafiz's poems in German was that of Georg Friedrich Daumer (1800–1875) which contains rather freely adapted translations. Daumer makes use of Hafiz’s rich imagery by a colorful, yet frequently simplifying language and by creating sometimes sentimental if stereotypical atmospheres. Frequently Daumer seems to fall in exactly the traps of the repetitive rhyme scheme which Goethe consciously avoided by ignoring Hafiz’s preferred form. And yet, some of Johannes Brahms’ most beautiful songs are set to Daumer’s poetry, as well as many more by other nineteenth-century composers.Similarly, Hans Bethge’s (1876–1946) Nachdichtungen —original poems based on Hafiz, not mere translations—reflect a view on Hafiz that mirror either an idealized level of love and life, or else appeal very directly to the pleasures of drinking and erotic love. And yet, the particular quality of Bethge’s poems lies in his ability to capture the often exotic atmosphere of a given situation and find for it a colorful and longing sound in his language. Bethge was befriended with and influenced by artists like Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Auguste Rodin and Rainer Maria Rilke, and his poems were set by numerous composers of his time, amongst many Gustav Mahler (1860–1911), Richard Strauss (1864–1949), Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951), Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937) and Hanns Eisler (1898–1968).

A contemporary and compatriot of Edward Elgar, Sir Granville Bantock (1868–1946) was a highly regarded conductor-composer known for his colorful and imaginative orchestrations. Prolific in opera and symphonic works, he also set numerous songs to Persian, Indian and Chinese poetry. The first ghazal also of Hafiz’s Divan, "Alá yá! Send the Cup round" opens Bantock’s Five Ghazals of Hafiz on translations by Sir Edwin Arnold, composed in 1903. Bantock invokes a vivid scene in a passionate and spontaneous idiom. Over thirty years later, he also orchestrated the cycle, something the piano score almost seems to call for. The often chromatic vocal line and the heightened harmonic colors of the piano part show a direct and sensual response to the sweetness of the Victorian English translation.

A completely different approach we note in Franz Schubert’s (1797–1828) Geheimes, written in 1821, a song of most intimate charm. Simple harmonically and melodically, with only one motive for the piano part in the whole song, Schubert seems to thrive in triggering our imagination by only using such sparse means. The same can be said for the two following Rückert settings; both are repeating their simple melodic and harmonic material alongside the poetic verses. Composed in 1823, both are love songs full of warmth, tenderness and longing. "Du bist die Ruh," with its calm and sustained vocal line, glows as from inside and could almost be sung as a vocalise. "In Sei mir gegrüsst," on the other hand, Schubert intuitively picks up on the ghazal form Rückert used. He highlights the recurring rhyme of the second line of each couplet by repeating the ‘sei mir geküsst’ once more. Even though he uses the same material throughout the song, he finds a new harmonic turn every time we reach the refrain line, and plays with the different colors of hope, pain, doubt and even deception, that Rückert presents us with.

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An American composer of Armenian descent, Alan Hovhaness (1911–2000) had a unique but thoroughly convincing voice in twentieth-century music, which he raised with radical individuality. Prolific in his output, his interest in looking to non-Western cultures for creative renewal in art music was shared by colleagues such as Henry Cowell, John Cage and Lou Harrison. Hovhaness’ eight Love Songs of Hafiz, op. 33 (1936 – 67), set to his own texts, create atmospheres of a timeless age which nevertheless seem human and real. The piano part of Hafiz wanders, weeping imitates a qanun, a zither instrument whose strings are beaten, serving as a backdrop to the gently soaring, brief and melismatic vocal lines that carry the lament of a searching soul.

Some 100 years earlier, the northern German composer Adolf Jensen (1837–1879) also responded to the atmospheric content of Daumer’s Hafiz transcriptions and, in 1863, composed his seven Lieder des Hafis, op. 11. By that time, though only in his mid-twenties, the former student of Franz Liszt (1881–1886) and Niels W. Gade (1817–1890) was already an established composer of songs, hailed by contemporaries as “the only heir to Schumann”. Jensen’s settings display melodic inventiveness combined with a declamatory pathos. A close friend of Johannes Brahms, Jensen was also to become a fervent admirer of Richard Wagner (1813–1883). One wonders whether Jensen, being a curious and imaginative mind, might not have joined his peers in preparing the transition from late romantic to early atonal concepts, had he not died in 1879 at only 42.

Victor Ullmann (1899–1944) was not to grow much older either. He wrote his Liederbuch des Hafis op. 30 in 1940, two years before he was to be deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp where he would be a co-prisoner not only of friends and family but also of the dedicatee of these Hafiz songs, the Czech soprano Marion Podolier. In Hafiz, Ullmann seems to have particularly enjoyed the level of ‘secretly’ communicating love messages in a dangerous and tightly controlled public environment. Against the political backdrop of his own time, Ullmann’s songs gain a terrible quality of pain and truth, glancing into human abyss, even though they appear to be light-hearted and pleasant, sometimes strong and vivid on the surface. This interpretation does not seem unduly imposed on Hafiz’s poems or their translations (in this case Bethge’s), but rather reflects the timeless wisdom of the Persian poet.

At first sight, the melodic aspects in the songs of Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) prevail over the closely knit interpretations of each word that Hugo Wolf presents us with. Yet Brahms, relying on Daumer’s versions of the poems, transcends content and form of the Hafiz-Daumer ghazals in a way that has been analytically described by musicologists, but reaches the listener only on a secondary level, if at all. In a period when the romantic concept of individualism and subjectivism gained more and more ground, Brahms reacted almost vehemently against the tide by using the simple elements of folk songs. He thought them to be closer to original, more human and less artificial ways of expression. He was attracted to Daumer’s poetry because of their proximity to folk song and because of their sentimental, sometimes even naïve imagery. Brahms’s mastery consisted in creating an apparent naturalness of expression. In songs like "So stehn wir, ich und meine Weide" or "Wie bist du, meine Königin" we encounter an almost overwhelming ‘natural’ simplicity that combines folksong-like tunes with complex aspects of rhyme, meter and verse. ‘Simply’ through sound and line, through harmony and formal balance, Brahms achieves more than words can express.

Hugo Wolf (1860–1903) on the other hand approached Hafiz through Goethe’s unsurpassed poems of the West-Eastern Divan. Wolf’s settings are as close to every word as one can only imagine, he captures every twist and enjoys every hidden level of subtext Goethe presents us

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with, and playfully brings them to life in his music. There is never only a generalized overall expression, but always an abundance of wit and sarcasm, of joy and pride, as well as tenderness and sensitivity.

Looking at the various translations and all the different musical interpretations of Hafiz’s poetry, one can recognize aspects of his concepts in all of them. It seems no exaggeration, though, that Goethe was a twin of Hafiz’s in mind and at heart. Both called to drink from the divine wine of life, to fully live and experience, they both called to awaken, to see and sense, to think and feel, to be critical and open-minded. In that sense they called:

“We all ought to be drunk! Drunk! Drunk!“

"Come! sing the ghazal beautiful, delightful, full of burning passion:For joy-giving is thy verse, and life-increasing—O Hafiz!"(Hafiz, The Divan, tr. H. Wilberforce Clarke, Ode 343, couplet 9)

TRANSLATIONS

Sir Granville Bantock

Ghazal I - Alá yá! Send the Cup Round(Hafiz – transl. Sir Edwin Arnold)

Alá yá! send the cup round! o Sáki! brim and send;love, which at first was easy, grows harder at the end;

for ache of what the breeze brought from that musk-scented brow,those purple tangled tresses, hearts’ blood is dropping now.

Well! dye the prayer-mat darker with wine, then; as ‘tis bid;such solace of love’s stages from magians is not hid;

but this stage, best-beloved! Is too long! When the bellcalls to unpack the camels, by God! it will be well.

The black night, and the fearful wave, and whirlpool wild of fate; -oh, lightly-burdened ones ashore! what reck ye of our state?

Wending mine own way, unto woe and ill fame I was brought;how, in the loud assemblies, could such high lore be taught?

If thou wilt find the presence, Hafiz! why, seek it so!This world or the beloved, choose one, and let one go!

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Franz Schubert Geheimes (Secret)(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

My love has a lookthat makes men wonder;but I alonewell know its meaning.

It is: him I love,not this one or that one.So, good people, cease your wondering and your longing!

Great, yes, the powerof her glances;but meant only to tellhim of their next sweet hour.

Du bist die Ruh(Friedrich Rückert)

You are repose,and gentle peace,longing you areand what stills it.

To you I consecrate,full of pleasure and pain,as a dwelling here,my eye and heart.

Come, enter in,and closesoftly behind youthe gate.

Drive other pain out of this breast.Full be this heartof your joy.

The temple of these eyesby your gleamalone is lit,

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oh fill it wholly! Sei mir gegrüßt (You I greet)(Friedrich Rückert)

O you, snatched from me and my kiss,I greet you, I kiss you!Reached only by my yearning greetings,I greet you, I kiss you! You, given by the hand of love to this heart,you, who from my breasthave been taken! With these flooding tearsI greet you, I kiss you! Defying the distance that fiendishly separates us and lies between you and me -to irritate the envious powers of fate,

I greet you, I kiss you! Just as you always did in the fairest spring-time of love, coming to greet me with a kiss,so now, with my soul a glowing flood,I greet you, I kiss you! A breath of love erases space and time;I am with you, you are with me,I hold you in these arms, embracing you;I greet you, I kiss you!

Alan Hovhaness

Hafiz Wanders, Weeping(Alan Hovhaness)

Hafiz wanders, weeping, amid tombs,Searching for the bones of his lost love.O moon, o moon,O stars, how cold, how far.

Adolf Jensen

Up to the stars I want to carry the flag of love.I want it to fly on a cloud above all of the skies.

Up into the high ether I want to sing exalted songs,want to beat a drum in never ending praise.

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Orion and Pleiades they should circle in dance,and Sohre happily listening should postpone her own playing.

Deep below me the deserts the sandy, the enormous,should flower and green just like heavenly groves of roses.

“Why, Hafiz?” you ask. “But how can you ask such a silly question?”The girlfriend smiled at me, it ended all misery.

Lockenstricke, sollst du wissen(Georg Friedrich Daumer)

Strings of curls, you must know, are full of serious cunning and deceit;tender lips, beautiful glances, to think highly of them,to build one’s fate upon them - no wise man would do so.And it would be good, if I were a wise man.

But oh, I am a fool, a hollow reedtwisting helplessly in love’s storms,but never shy of an answer. Let the beautiful curls trick me,let them enchant my mind and senses, let the beautiful glances entrance me,

well, at least those tender lips through sweet deceit!What happiness, what blessings, in that blissful moment,when I fall for her trickery, when I trust, when I build,when I happily sell myself to her, that beautiful murderess!

Zu der Rose, zu dem Weine, komm!(Georg Friedrich Daumer)

To the rose, to the wine, do come!to the quiet grove do come!Softly soothing my longing,which moves even rocks, oh, do come!

Sweetly calming my flowing tearswhich I have shed for oh so long, do come!To while away time with me here in the forest's chamber,Eden’s sanctuary in all its purity, do come!

Come soon, oh soon, for that not to ashesfall my burnt bones, do come!But only when the day and sun are weakbut secretly and alone, do come!

Viktor Ullmann9

Vorausbestimmung (Predestination)(Hans Bethge after Hafiz)

Everything is predestinedthrough Allah’s great goodness.Ah, what shall I do?I have long been predestinedfor the wine and the tavern.Ah, what shall I do?As by predestinationthe birds love their bushes,the deer their woods,so I love onlywine and tavern and the hostess.Everything is predestinedthrough Allah’s great goodness.Ah what shall I do? Betrunken (Inebriated)(Hans Bethge after Hafiz)

Hafiz, you are drunk,I see it from your shadow,from this reeling shadowthat behaves as crazily asif it came from the madhouse!

Oh, what a crazy shadowin the all too bright moonlight!It gesticulates and bendsand stumbles along and stretches outupwards and sideways.Oh what a grotesque shadow,what indiscreet moonlight!

I have never wanted to believe itwhen Suleima, scolding me,complained that I was drunk.Now I really must believe it:I’m an undignifiedentirely disgracefulquite inebriated drinkerwith a reeling shadowin the indiscreet moonlight!

Unwiderstehliche Schönheit (Irrestible Beauty)(Hans Bethge after Hafiz)

Pagans and the deeply religious10

are similarly dazzledby your lovely curls.

Weak souls collapse dizzilyin your cheeks’ charming dimples;strong souls rush after them.

Your eyes that were created fromthe black art, recallthe eagle’s flight from the clouds.

The gentle nightingale, which cannotrise to the cloudy heightsis entirely under your spell.

Because of you, Hafiz has forgottenhis morning and evening prayer;the downfall of his soul is clear!

Lob des Weines (In Praise of Wine)(Hans Bethge after Hafiz)

Give me my goblet! See, it outshinesthe pale lamp of reasonas the sun outshines the stars!

Give me my goblet! I want to forgetall the prayers in my breviary;I will plunge all the Koran’s chapters in wine!

Give me my goblet! And let song ring outand force its way to the dancing sphereswith a mighty impulse. I am master of theworld!

Johannes Brahms

So we stand, I and my mistress,so unfortunate with each other!

Never can I do anything to please her;never can she do anything to pain me.

It hurts her feelings when upon her browI adorn her with a diadem;

I myself am thankful, as much for a smile of favor, as for a furious reply.

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Wie bist du, meine Königin(Georg Friedrich Daumer)

How blissful you are, my queen, when you are gentle and good!Merely smile, and spring fragrance wafts through my spirit blissfully!

The brightness of freshly blooming roses, shall I compare it to yours?Ah, soaring over all that blooms is your bloom, blissful!

Wander through dead wastelands, and green shadows will be spreading,even if fearful sultriness broods there without end... blissfully!

Let me die in your arms! It is in them that death itself,even if the sharpest pain rages in my breast... is blissful!

Bitteres zu sagen, denkst du(Georg Friedrich Daumer)

You are thinking of something bitter to say,but neither now nor ever might you causeoffence,although you are so angry.Your sharp speechfounders on coral rocks,and becomes pure grace,for it must, in order to cause shame,sail over a pair of lipswhich is sweetness itself.

Wenn Du nur zuweilen lächelst(Georg Friedrich Daumer)

If, only at times, you smile,only at times fan coolnessto this unbounded fire -in patience I’ll be calm,let you do all those thingsthat cause love pain.

Botschaft (Message)(Georg Friedrich Daumer)

Blow, Breeze, gently and lovingly12

about the cheeks of my beloved;play tenderly in her locks,do not hasten to flee far away !

If perhaps she is then to ask,how it stands with poor wretched me,tell her: "Unending was his woe,highly dubious was his condition;

However, now he can hopemagnificently to come to life again.For you, lovely one,are thinking of him!"

Hugo Wolf

Ob der Koran von Ewigkeit sei?(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Has the Koran existed for all eternity?On that I shall not inquire! Was the Koran created? That I do not know! That it is the Book of Books, I believe as is my Muslim duty.

But that wine has existed for all eternity, that I do not doubt; or that it was created by angelsperhaps is also no myth. The man who drinks, as it always has been, looks God in the face more alertly.

Was in der Schenke waren heute(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

In the tavern today, first thing in themorning,there was such a commotion! The landlord, girls! Torches, people! There were such quarrels, such insults!

The flute piped, the drum sounded! It was all a mess; but I myself, full of delight and love,I too was there.

The fact that I haven't learnt how to behave, 13

that's something I might be criticized for; but at least I have kept my distance from disputes in schools and universities.

Wie sollt ich heiter bleiben(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

How could I remain cheerfulso far from day and light?But now I want to writeand I can't drink.

When she drew me to herselfno words were used.Just as my tongue stopped thenSo has my pen stopped now.

So then! I'll allow the barmanto continue to top up my glass.I just say, "Remember"and they immediately know what I want.

So lang man nüchtern ist(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

For as long as you are sober, you are pleased with what is bad; when you have had a drink, you know what's what; but then excess is on hand: Hafiz, teach me how you understand this.

For my opinion isn't an exaggeration: if you can't drink you can't love; but then, you drinkers shouldn't imagine yourself to be better: if you can't love you can't drink.

Sie haben wegen der Trunkenheit(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

They have complained about our drunkenness numerous times and for a long time have not said enough about our drunkenness. Usually one succumbs to drunkenness until the day breaks; however, my drunkenness has chased me around during the night.It is love's intoxication that makes me so very miserable, that tears at my heart day and night, and night and day, A heart that swells and grows in drunken songs, so that sober drunkenness dares not compete. Night or day, the intoxication of love, song, and wine, is the most divine drunkenness that enchants and pains me.

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Trunken müssen wir alle sein(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Drunk! We all ought to be drunk! Youth is drunkenness without wine; If old age can drink itself back to youththat is a wonderful virtue.

Cares are part of our lovely lifebut an antidote to care is available in grapes. Let's hear no more about it! Wine is seriously forbidden.

So if we are going to get drunk Let's drink only the best wine! You would be a double heretic to be damned for drinking plonk. Drunk! We all ought to be drunk! Drunk! Drunk!

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ARTISTS

Swiss baritone Martin Bruns has won much acclaim for his concert, oratorio, and opera appearances at major concert halls and festivals in Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Geneva, Aldeburgh, Salzburg, New York, Seattle, San Diego, and Ottawa. Garnering praise for his "warm, open voice" (Süddeutsche Zeitung) and "magnificent interpretation" (Le Temp), he has been a soloist with major European orchestras; with Scharoun-Ensemble (Berlin Phil); Academy for Early Music, Berlin; Israel's Kibbutz Orchestra; and the NY Chamber Symphony, under conductors such as Viotti, Schwarz, Bolton, Ericson, Holliger, and Ostrowsky. A "superior lieder singer" (Wiesbadener Tagblatt), Bruns regularly appears with pianists Ulrich Eisenlohr, Brian Zeger, and Kolja Lessing, fortepianist Christoph Hammer, and guitarist Matts Bergström. Of his 92nd St Y debut, the New York Times noted "the work of a fresh young baritone and an inquiring mind."

Besides his Baroque and Romantic repertoire, Bruns performs lesser-known twentieth-century works by Busoni, Jarnach, Strasfogel, Diamond, and others. For the Petrarca 700-year anniversary, he offered recitals with works setting Petrarca texts by Lalo, Cornelius, Pfitzner, Schubert, Liszt in concerts in Berlin, Dresden, Bonn, Augsburg, Basel and Stuttgart. He recently gave three different Schumann recitals at the Rheinische Musikfest Bonn, a David Diamond program at the Ottawa Chamber Music Fest, performances at the Bayrische Akademie der Schoenen Kuenste Muenchen, Musikhalle Hamburg, Mahler's "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen" with Orchestre Symphonique de Mulhouse and a “Winterreise” program in Munich.

His career began at Wiesbaden's Opera in leading roles as Papageno, Guglielmo, Figaro (Barbiere), Donner (Rheingold), and Silvio. He has made guest appearances at the opera houses of Düsseldorf (Dandini) and Munich (Elviro, Xerxes).

Having received his basic musical training iin the boys choir of his hometown Basle, Switzerland, Martin Bruns went on to study violin at the Basle Musikhochschule, became a member of the Berne Symphony Orchestra for a few seasons, and then studied voice in Fribourg, Zurich, and at the Juilliard School. After winning the New York State Metropolitan Opera Auditions and the Joy in Singing Award, his career began at the Wiesbaden Opera in leading roles such as Papageno, Guglielmo, Figaro (Barbiere), Donner (Rheingold), and Silvio. Guest appearances have also taken him since to the opera houses of Düsseldorf, Freiburg, Berne and Munich (Bavarian State Opera).

Martin Bruns has been a soloist with major orchestras in Europe and overseas, including the Choir and Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio in Munich, the Scharoun Ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic, the NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg, the New York Chamber Symphony, and the Israel Kibbutz Orchestra. In the field of early music he has also sung with the Ensemble of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and the Academy for Early Music Berlin.

A sought-after recitalist, he has appeared at major concert halls and festivals in, among others, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Bonn, Zurich, Geneva, Lucerne, Salzburg, New York, Seattle, San Diego, and Ottawa.

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Together with pianist Kolja Lessing he recorded Strasfogel’s “Dear Men and Women” for Decca as well as a CD of songs and chamber music by Philipp Jarnach on the Divox label.

Martin Bruns also enjoys musicological research: in celebration of the 700th anniversary of Francesco Petrarca in 2004 he published the first ever overview of the musical settings on Petrarch’s poetry from the 15th to the 21st century, edited two compilations of songs on poems by the Italian Renaissance poet, and founded the “Festival Petrarca Musicale” near Augsburg, Germany. In 2007 he gave the premiere performances of Antonin Dvorak’s cycle “Cypresses” in the rediscovered original version for voice and piano in Ludwigshafen and Ljubljana, and his recital at the Beethovenhaus in Bonn was broadcast by the European Broadcasting Union. From 2002 until 2008 Bruns taught voice at the University of Augsburg and each summer he is on faculty at the "Daniel Ferro Vocal Program" in Greve in Chianti (Italy).

Jan Philip Schulze studied piano at the Munich Hochschule für Musik and Moscow's Tchaikovsky Conservatory, and has been awarded scholarships and prizes at piano competitions in Spain, Italy, and South Africa. He has studied interpretation of German lied with Helmut Deutsch and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and enjoys an active career as a soloist, chamber musician, vocal accompanist, and teacher. Mr. Schulze has performed at major festivals, including the Schubertiade Feldkirch; the Münchener Biennale; Hermann Prey's "Musiktage;" the Edinburgh Festival; Salzburger Festpiele; Lucerne Festival; Münchener Opernfestspiele; and in the concert halls of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Konzerthaus Wien; Auditorio Nacional, Madrid; Wigmore Hall, London; and Teatro Liceo, Barcelona.

He has performed at the Stavanger Festival in Norway; Odense Festival in Denmark; Maurizio Pollini Festival in Tokyo; and made his debut with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. He is active in the field of contemporary music, performing regularly throughout Europe and Asia as a member of the Ensemble TrioLog München, which won the Münchener Kulturpreis. Mr. Schulze has recorded for Col Legno, MDG Dabringhaus und Grimm, and Farao Classics. He is on the faculty of Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover and has conducted master classes at the Royal Academy of Music, London and in South Korea, Spain, Italy, and Ukraine. Forthcoming concerts will take place at the Theatre du Capitole, Toulouse; La Monnaie, Brussels; Palao de la Musica, Barcelona; Prinzregententheater, Munich.

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Moscow String QuartetThursday, May 21, 7:30 pmWorks by Gubaidulina, Glinka, and Borodin

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