Peter Branscombe

Peter Branscombe (actually Peter John Branscombe ) ( born December 7, 1929 in Sittingbourne, Kent, † 31 December 2008, St Andrews ) was an English German studies and special connoisseur of Austrian cultural history.

Life and work

Branscombe first visited the Dulwich College, where he stood out as particularly talented cricket players. After he had spent his military service in Vienna, he studied Literature at Worcester College, Oxford, and soon learned to know well renowned Austrian exiles, including the composer Egon Wellesz and the cultural historian and researcher Otto Erich Schubert German.

In 1959 Branscombe a reputation as a specialist in German studies at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, of his life he remained faithful. Since 1979 he has devoted himself preferably Austrian Studies; at his university for a specifically dedicated to this specialty institute was set up, the only one in the UK.

His particular interest was not only the popular theater of the Biedermeier ( Raimund and Nestroy ) and the Viennese suburban theaters at all, he also wrote many special studies to Joseph Haydn, Mozart and Franz Schubert. But he sat down - not least as a long-time critic of concerts and recordings, and enthusiastic staff of cultural science encyclopaedias ( for example, in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and the Wagner- manual) - with great commitment for unknown composers, conducted research on numerous personalities of the 19th century, including many unjustly forgotten as Ethel Smyth. He earned a name for himself as a stylistically sensitive translator of poetry ( Heinrich Heine ) and scientific texts.

Branscombe gave between 1996 and 2001 six farces or opera parodies under the new historical- critical edition by Johann Nestroys Complete Works out: vain, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin / pastime Earlier ratios / chief Evening Wind ( vols 35-38 ).

Since 1967, he was married to the German studies Marina Branscombe and had with her three children.

Literature (selection )

  • Branscombes dissertation is a previously unpublished two-volume study of the interrelationships between Viennese popular theater and opera: The connexions in between drama and music in the Viennese popular theater from the opening of the Leopoldstadt Theater ( 1781) to Nestroy 's opera parodies (ca 1855), with special reference to the forms of parody. Diss ( maschinenschr. ) 1976 ( Vienna City Library )
  • Heinrich Heine: Selected Verse by Heine. Translated by Peter Branscombe. Penguin Books. 1967/1968.
  • Austrian Life and Literature, 1780-1938. Eight essays. Scottish Academic Press 1978.
  • With Eva Badura- Skoda: Schubert Studies. Problems of Style and Chronology. Cambridge 1978, ISBN 0-521-22606-6.
  • W. A. Mozart: The Magic Flute. Cambridge Opera Handbooks. Cambridge 1991, ISBN 0-521-31916-1.
  • Numerous articles and reviews in: Forum for Modern Language Studies and Austrian Studies and Nestroyana.

Publications

  • Peter Branscombe in WorldCat
December 31 England Otto Erich Deutsch Ferdinand Raimund Integrated Authority File
643447
de