Gerardus Hubertus Galenus von Brucken Fock is one of the most forgotten Dutch composers. Nevertheless, Edvard Grieg was extremely enthusiastic about his 24 Preludes for piano, Opus 15, which have correspondences in quality and style to the famous preludes of Chopin. Julius Röntgen, Hendrik Andriessen and Willem Mengelberg have tried to lift von Brucken Fock from his, more or less self-made, shadow, though with little success. Gerard was born in the Ter Hooge castle, in the outskirts of Middelburg, as a son of the “president” of Walcheren. He lived from December 28, 1859 to August 15, 1935.
Education: Gerard took piano lessons with professor Theodorus Leonardus van der Wurff and studied music composition with the famous composer Richard Hol, who taught him the principles of harmony. He then decided to continue with his studies in music and moved to Berlin in September 1879 to take lessons with the composer Friedrich Kiel and composition with professors Woldemar Bargiel and Ernst Rudorff.
Gerard did not finish this study at the Musikhochschule in Berlin. After some wanderings through Europe, he became a critic at “De Amsterdammer” in 1888. As such, he attended innumerable concerts of famous soloists in the early years of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, which he took down mercilessly once in a while.
Career: In Amsterdam, he was a longtime director of the Remonstrant choir, and also composed much, constantly torn between art and church. Gerard moved to Leipzig in 1890 to humiliate himself for his deeds and to earn money as a piano teacher. After working as a farm laborer in the Netherlands for a period of time, and then as a volunteer for the Salvation Army (Leger des Heils) in France, Gerard picked up the thread of composing again. Julius Röntgen drew attention to von Brucken Fock with the performances of several piano pieces during one of his soirées Röntgen-Messchaert. Yet his path as a composer was not smooth. He continued to experience anti-art periods in his life, and preferred to be in the Lord. In this last period of his life Von Brucken Fock gave some church concerts, but wrote music mainly for himself, fleeing for the company of others.
Compositions: Gerard’s fanatical and gloomy belief has resulted in melancholic compositions, of which Requiem (completed in 1934) is not the least. In many works he shows himself an impressionist – Von Brucken Fock did not paint without merit – and strong harmonic and less melodically oriented. In addition to Opus 15 and 16, Gerard’s best compositions include the two viola sonatas, cello sonata, French songs, and piano pieces from his period in Berlin, later published as Opus 27. Relatively, the Moments musicaux from 1891 (Opus 11) are played exceptionally often. Recently, more than 150 late preludes have been rediscovered. Furthermore, there is a CD with the Cello sonata performed by Larissa Groeneveld and Frank van de Laar.