Posted by Zechmeister on November 11, 2000 at 15:31:57:
In Reply to: Re: Arnold Jacobs and Viennese tuba posted by Richard on November 09, 2000 at 19:27:41:
About O. W. Brucks
Otto Waldemar Brucks (born 1858) studied at the Berlin University of Music. He played the Contra Bass Tuba at the orchestra rehearsals (February 1875) and the premiere of Wagner's Ring (Bayreuth 1876). The former viennese horn player of the Vienna Philharmonic and new conductor of the Vienna Court Opera Hans Richter conducted this production and brought Brucks as tuba player to Vienna and with him the Viennese tuba.
A new instrument was bought from the Berlin instrument maker Paulus (1875). Brucks stayed only one year in Vienna and went after the Ring-premiere in Bayreuth (1876) as slide trombone player (second position) to the Berlin Court Opera. 1883 he became an opera singer (heroic baritone with a repertory of more than 60 operas).
Besides a lot of soloparts in Wagner operas he sang the solo part of the trumpeter in the opera "The trumpeter of Säckingen" and played the solo trumpet on the stage too. He was very famous as a member of the Munich court opera.
Because of his good relations to Richard Wagner in the past later (about 1906) he was appointed to the position of the director of the City theatre in Metz (by that time a part of Germany, now France), where he died in 1914.
Waldemar Otto Brucks was married with a daughter of the Bavarian duke.