Acknowledgements

 

This compilation of information from published and manuscript sources could not have been attempted without generous contributions from friends and enthusiasts. First and foremost, I wish to thank Mrs Audrey Brain for many hours of her time in discussion about Aubrey Brain’s career as well as her generosity in providing original documents to illustrate these pages. Stephen Pettitt’s biography of Dennis Brain (Robert Hale, 1989) has been indispensable for determining the periods of Aubrey’s tenure with the London orchestras. I am grateful to Ian Wagstaff for his kind permission to use his article in the Horn Magazine on the horn personnel of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and to reproduce his photograph of Ifor James (see Appendix E), taken at the British Horn Society’s Aubrey Brain Centenary, 10 April 1993. I would like to thank Theo Booy for his specialist knowledge of Aubrey Brain’s orchestral recordings.  Richard Kittrell has kindly permitted information on the London Symphony Orchestra’s 1912 tour of the United States and Canada to be reproduced from a souvenir book of the tour. Lady Barbirolli graciously gave her time to be interviewed on two occasions in 2004 about her recollections of Aubrey Brain (see Index to Orchestral discography). I am grateful to composer, Ernest Tomlinson, for information about Jack Coles’s Orchestre Moderne.  Mr Dennis Bradley has kindly provided family information pertaining to his father, Francis Bradley (see Index to Orchestral discography and Appendix E.) Three of Aubrey Brain’s former pupils, Ernest Lawson O.B.E., Ifor James and Douglas Moore, generously gave their time, hospitality and reminiscences (see Appendix E). Dr Amy McBeth’s discography of the horn (Westport, 1997) has proved an invaluable source of information about matrix numbers for solo recordings. Brendan Wehrung’s Mengelberg Discography has supplied the hitherto unrecorded “Mengelberg Edition Volume 5” in which a performance of Mendelssohn’s Nocturne from a 1938 BBC broadcast featured with other works performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Professor Robert Marshall has generously provided me with lists of recordings from his collection. Mr. Youngrok Lee has graciously consented to the use of entries from his Wilhelm Backhaus Discography. Others have contributed their research and expertise but prefer to remain anonymous. Last but not least, I wish to thank Yukihiro Okitsu for allowing space on his excellent Dennis Brain website for this ongoing project and for drawing my attention to recordings – most notably – an incomplete recording from a 1936 broadcast of the Dame Ethel Smyth Concerto with Antonio Brosa (violin), the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dr Adrian Boult.