Brenton James Langbein,
AO (21 January 1928 – 6 June 1993) was an Australian violinist, conductor, and composer.
Life
Langbein was born on 21 January 1928 in the South Australian town of
Gawler
Gawler is the oldest country town on the Australian mainland in the state of South Australia. It was named after the second Governor (British Vice-Regal representative) of the colony of South Australia, George Gawler. It is about north of the ...
to James Langbein, an accomplished pianist who had set up a car dealership and garage business in Gawler, and his second wife, Juanita Zadow.
His parents were of German and Scottish ancestry, his father's grandfather, Joachim Heinrich Gottfried Langbein, having arrived in South Australia from
Mecklenburg
Mecklenburg (; nds, label= Low German, Mękel(n)borg ) is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The largest cities of the region are Rostock, Schweri ...
in 1845.
He began learning violin at age five with the teaching sisters of the Good Samaritan Convert, Gawler, and when he was eight years old, he gave his first public recital at
Tanunda Town Hall. He studied violin at the
Elder Conservatorium of Music
The Elder Conservatorium of Music, also known as "The Con", is Australia's senior academy of music and is located in the centre of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It is named in honour of its benefactor, Sir Thomas Elder. Dating in ...
under Sylvia Whitington and at age nine won a
Eugene Alderman Scholarship for a further three years' tuition at the Conservatorium, where he was taught by Ludwig Schwab, and began to perform with the
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at age fourteen.
He attended
Gawler High School
Gawler and District College is a public early learning centre and primary and secondary school located in the suburb of Evanston on the southern side of Gawler, north of the city centre of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. The colle ...
and graduated from the
University of Adelaide
The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...
with a Bachelor of Music.
In 1948 he moved to
Sydney, where he performed as a soloist and as a member of the
Sydney Symphony Orchestra and studied composition with
Sir Eugene Goosens.
He moved to Switzerland in 1951 to study with
Paul Grümmer
Paul Grümmer (26 February 1879 – 30 October 1965) was a German-born cellist and teacher.
Grümmer was born in Gera in Thuringia. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatory with Julius Klengel.
He was well known as a member of the Busch Quar ...
; during this period he was also taught by
Pablo Casals and spent six weeks studying in Vienna with Ernst Morawec.
In 1953 he settled in
Zürich
, neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon
, twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco
Zürich ...
, where he became a member of
Paul Sacher
Paul Sacher (28 April 190626 May 1999) was a Swiss conductor, patron and billionaire businessperson. At the time of his death Sacher was majority shareholder of pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche and was considered the third richest person i ...
's Collegium Musicum Zürich chamber orchestra in 1954 and its
concertmaster
The concertmaster (from the German ''Konzertmeister''), first chair (U.S.) or leader (U.K.) is the principal first violin player in an orchestra (or clarinet in a concert band). After the conductor, the concertmaster is the second-most signifi ...
two years after that; he later became the concertmaster of Sacher's
Basel Chamber Orchestra.
He was appointed Professor of Violin at the
City of Basel Music Academy
The City of Basel Music Academy (german: Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel) is an institution for music education, located in Basel, Switzerland. It comprises a music school, college of music, and a center for early music research and performance. ...
, and formed a duo with Australian pianist
Maureen Jones
Maureen Jones (born 6 June 1927) is an Australian classical pianist.
She was born in Sydney and grew up in the Sydney suburbs of Warrawee, Turramurra, and Gladesville. At primary-school age she was invited to study at the Sydney Conservatorium ...
and then a trio with fellow Australian horn player
Barry Tuckwell
Barry Emmanuel Tuckwell, (5 March 1931 – 16 January 2020) was an Australian French horn player who spent most of his professional life in the UK and the United States. He is generally considered to have been one of the world's leading horn p ...
.
In the 1960s he founded ''Die Kammermusiker Zürich'', a chamber orchestra that performed music by little-known and contemporary composers, along with youth orchestra schools in Zürich and Basel.
He was the soloist at the premiere of
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as ...
's Violin Concerto No. 2, which was dedicated to Langbein, at the 1972
Adelaide Festival of Arts and co-founded
Opera Factory later in the 1970s.
He was the musical director of the Adelaide Chamber Orchestra and co-founded the Barossa Festival, a chamber music festival in South Australia's
Barossa Valley
The Barossa Valley (Barossa German: ''Barossa Tal'') is a valley in South Australia located northeast of Adelaide city centre. The valley is formed by the North Para River. It is notable as a major wine-producing region and tourist destina ...
, in 1990.
Langbein gave his last concert in
Siena
Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.
The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centur ...
, Italy, in early April 1993. He died of cancer in Zürich on 6 June of that year, aged 65, and is buried in the Barossa Valley town of
Lyndoch
Lyndoch is a town in Barossa Valley, located on the Barossa Valley Highway between Gawler and Tanunda, 58 km northeast of Adelaide. The town has an elevation of 175m and an average rainfall of 560.5mm. It is one of the oldest towns in Sou ...
.
Recognition and legacy
Langbein received an award of honour from the
Canton of Zürich in 1983 and the Nageli Medal from the City of Zürich, an award for musicians that he had co-founded, in 1988.
In the
1986 Queen's Birthday Honours he was made an Officer of the
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gov ...
(AO) for service to music. The Brenton Langbein Theatre, part of the Barossa Convention Centre in Tanunda, is named after him,
as is the Langbein String Quartet, run by the Firm, a South Australian contemporary music organisation. Hans Werner Henze wrote a solo viola composition, ''An Brenton'', as a tribute to Langbein shortly after his death.
His papers and other ephemera were donated to the Mortlock Library at the
State Library of South Australia.
Among Langbein's compositions, a string quintet has been recorded. His only composition with an
opus number
In musicology, the opus number is the "work number" that is assigned to a musical composition, or to a set of compositions, to indicate the chronological order of the composer's production. Opus numbers are used to distinguish among composit ...
is his Prelude, Marche & Valse, Op. 1. Manuscripts of his compositions are among his papers at the State Library of South Australia.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Langbein, Brenton
Australian male composers
Australian composers
Australian conductors (music)
Australian classical violinists
Male classical violinists
20th-century conductors (music)
20th-century classical violinists
20th-century Australian male musicians
20th-century Australian musicians
Officers of the Order of Australia
People from Gawler, South Australia
University of Adelaide alumni
Musicians from South Australia
Musicians from Zürich
Australian expatriates in Switzerland
Deaths from cancer in Switzerland
1928 births
1993 deaths