Scores and Music Books from Adolf Braun’s Estate

In the beginning was a private concert in Munich, presenting and introducing the Teatro del Lago. Three years later, 15 crates containing 150 kg of scores and music books – from opera classics to jazz, Frank Sinatra and Udo Jürgens – have arrived safely in Frutillar. The ever-expanding library of the Teatro del Lago and the School of the Arts has gratefully and enthusiastically received the donation.

At the time, Nicola Schiess was asked by the German music lover and Friends of TdL supporter Irmgard Hagen in Munich what help Teatro del Lago and its School of the Arts in faraway Chile could use. “Any form of support is more than welcome -whether it is your time, contacts, financial support, but also material help, such as instruments or scores for the School of Music and the Arts”, the President of the Teatro del Lago Foundation replied. Roundabout ways led her to Dr. Anne Schwan, a dentist in Cologne who is the executor of the estate of Adolf Braun, the long-time music director at the Ernst-Deutsch-Theater in Hamburg, the largest German drama theatre in private hands. Since Adolf Braun was particularly fond of his comprehensive collection of scores, Anne Schwan was very interested in finding special hands for this treasure. It was a stroke of good fortune that the composer Prof. Dr. Neithard Bethke, a former head of sacred music at the Cathedral in Ratzeburg in Northern Germany, famed for its special acoustics, donated another convolute of scores and books. All in all, it amounted to 150 kg of material! The Kossmann Foundation generously underwrote the shipping costs to Frutillar, where the 15 crates have now arrived safe and sound, enriching the library of the Teatro del Lago. Scores of Mozart, Verdi, Puccini and Rossini operas are included alongside scores of musicals such as West Side Story, My Fair Lady and The Man of La Mancha. Apart from operettas by Lehár and Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera, students and teachers can now also study Freddy Quinn’s Song Book, The Jazz Piano Collection and numerous famous symphonies by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Haydn and Mendelssohn in Patagonia, Chile. Supporter Dr. Anne Schwan looks forward to her first journey there!