This album is the tenth in a series of recordings for Toccata Classics, featuring orchestral music by various composers.
Compositional Technique
Fridrich Bruk's symphonies often feature intonations and variations of folk melodies, with many being either Jewish-themed or Finnish-themed.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Fridrich Bruk regularly incorporates Jewish themes into his symphonies to commemorate the existence of a Yiddish-speaking people within European culture that was tragically exterminated.
Composition History
Symphony No. 20, a non-programmatic work, was dedicated to Fridrich Bruk's wife, Nadezhda, commemorating their 60th wedding anniversary.
Composer Biography
Fridrich Bruk and his wife Nadezhda Mislavsky, a music teacher and choral conductor, established their own music college, Piano-Opisto Bruk, in Tampere, Finland.
Album & Artwork
This album presents Fridrich Bruk's three most recent symphonies, Nos. 19, 20, and 21, which the composer views as a tripartite meta-symphony.
Composer Biography
Fridrich Bruk's mother, Ada Bragilevsky-Bruk, a well-known concert pianist, died during World War II from what the composer believes was malaria contracted while fleeing the Nazis.
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