Harry Brauner (24 February 1908 – 11 March 1988) was an ethnomusicologist, composer, and professor of music from

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

Life

Brauner was born in

Piatra Neamț Piatra Neamț (; german: Kreuzburg an der Bistrița (Siret), Bistritz; hu, Karácsonkő) is the capital city of Neamț County, in the historical region of Western Moldavia, in northeastern Romania. Because of its privileged location in the Easter ...

into a Jewish family with many children, including his elder brother,

Victor The name Victor or Viktor may refer to: * Victor (name), including a list of people with the given name, mononym, or surname Arts and entertainment Film * ''Victor'' (1951 film), a French drama film * ''Victor'' (1993 film), a French shor ...

, who became a noted painter and sculptor of the surrealist movement. He moved in 1913 to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

with his family, where they stayed for two years. When they returned to Romania, they lived first in

Brăila Brăila (, also , ) is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County. The ''Sud-Est'' Regional Development Agency is located in Brăila. According to the 2011 Romanian census there were 180,302 pe ...

, and later in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

. There he studied at the

Music Academy The Music Academy is a classical music training program in Montecito in Santa Barbara County, California. Overview The academy hosts an annual eight-week summer music festival, highlighted by concerts and workshops directed by famous composer ...

, having as teachers, among others, Constantin Brăiloiu,

Dumitru Georgescu Kiriac Dumitru Georgescu Kiriac (18 March 1866 – 8 January 1928) was a Romanian composer, conductor, and ethnomusicologist. He was particularly known for his sacred choral works and art songs which were based on the Romanian Orthodox tradition and ...

, and Ștefan Popescu. In 1927, he was named secretary of the Composers' Society's so-called Folklore Archives. Brauner was one of those who discovered Romanian folk music diva

Maria Tănase Maria Tănase (; 25 September 1913 – 22 June 1963) was a Romanian singer and actress. Her music ranged from traditional Romanian music to romance, tango, chanson and operetta. Tănase has a similar importance in Romania as Édith Piaf in F ...

in the mid-1930s. He eventually became her official biographer. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he was a teacher at a Jewish high school in Bucharest, in 1944 he became music adviser at the

Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company The Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company ( ro, Societatea Română de Radiodifuziune), informally referred to as Radio Romania ( ro, Radio România), is the public radio broadcaster in Romania. It operates FM and AM, and internet national and lo ...

in charge of folklore, and in 1949 he became head of the Folklore Department at the Music Academy in Bucharest. Brauner was implicated in the show trial against

Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu (; November 4, 1900 – April 17, 1954) was a Romanian communist politician and leading member of the Communist Party of Romania (PCR), also noted for his activities as a lawyer, sociologist and economist. For a while, he ...

, and spent 12 years in prison, most of it in solitary confinement. He was released from

Aiud Prison Aiud Prison is a prison complex in Aiud, Alba County, located in central Transylvania, Romania. It is infamous for the treatment of its political inmates, especially during World War II under the rule of Ion Antonescu, and later under the Commu ...

in January 1962, sent into internal exile to a village near

Slobozia Slobozia () is the capital city of Ialomița County, Muntenia, Romania, with a population of 48,241 in 2011. Etymology Its name is from the Romanian "slobozie", which meant a recently colonized village which was free of taxation. The word its ...

. He married

Lena Constante Lena Constante (June 18, 1909 – November 2005) was a Romanian artist, essayist and memoirist, known for her work in stage design and tapestry. A family friend of Communist Party politician Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu, she was arrested by the Comm ...

in 1964. In 1966, he was allowed to travel to the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

, Italy, where his brother

Victor Brauner Victor Brauner (, also spelled Viktor Brauner; 15 June 1903 – 12 March 1966) was a Romanian painter and sculptor of the surrealist movement. Early life He was born in Piatra Neamț, Romania, the son of a Jewish timber manufacturer who subseque ...

exhibited some of his works at the French pavilion. In 1967, after being named a member of the Paris Music Biennale, he was allowed to travel to Paris, where he became acquainted with

Marc Chagall Marc Chagall; russian: link=no, Марк Заха́рович Шага́л ; be, Марк Захаравіч Шагал . (born Moishe Shagal; 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with se ...

. In 1968, both he and Lena Constante were rehabilitated and given a meager pension for their sufferings. A close collaborator of Constantin Brăiloiu, Brauner recorded about 5,000 Romanian folk songs. He died in 1988 in Bucharest.

Books

*''Să auzi iarba cum crește'' ("To Hear How the Grass Grows"), Editura Eminescu, Bucharest, 1979

Life

Books

References

Further reading