Friedrich Wilhelm Anton Brase, known as Fritz Brase (; 4 May 1875 – 1 December 1940), was a German military bandmaster, conductor, and composer who was mainly active in Dublin, Ireland, as leader of the first Army School of Music in the Irish Free State.
Life
Brase was the son of a miller born in Egestorf near Hanover, Germany. Brase studied at the Conservatory of Music at Leipzig where his teachers included Carl Reinecke, Hans Sitt, and Salomon Jadassohn. In 1923 he emigrated to Ireland, and a few years later, in 1924, he and his wife Elsa, who was aged 35 when they came to Ireland, had a daughter, Mona, who was born while they lived at the Curragh Camp. The family moved to accommodation in Beggars Bush Barracks and later bought their own house in the Dublin suburb of Sandymount. His wife, Elsa, whose full name was Elisabeth Henriette Antonie, arrived in Ireland on 1 March 1923 and was granted her Irish naturalisation between 1 January 1946 and 20 October 1947.
In 1940, Brase died the day after he retired and was interred in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin, when the No. 1 Irish Army Band played. His daughter Mona, who died on 2 November 2014, is also buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery.
A street in Münster is named Braseweg in his memory.
Musical career
In 1893, he enlisted in the military band at Bückeburg where his abilities as conductor and arranger qualified him for further studies at the Hochschule für Musik, Berlin, studying with Joseph Joachim and Max Bruch.
In 1906, he was appointed conductor of the Infantry Regiment 13's band at Münster and received early encouragement, when in 1909, at the age of 34, he was promoted Prussian "Königlicher Musikdirektor" (Royal Music Director). In 1911, he was appointed conductor of the 1st (Emperor Alexander) Guards Grenadiers, "one of the most prestigious positions in the world of German military music". Following the German defeat in World War I, Brase was discharged from service in April 1919 and spent the following four years in various consignments including conducting a police band in Berlin.
Brase emigrated to Ireland in 1923, at the invitation of by General Richard Mulcahy, who wanted him to take charge of the Irish military musical training and music branch. He arrived on 1 March 1923 with a friend, Friedrich Christian Sauerzweig, who had also been a member of the Berlin Philharmonic, and was commissioned captain. Brase was attracted by the option of a rank of full colonel in the Irish Army and to take up the position of the first leader of the Army School of Music in the newly established Irish Free State and inspector of the Irish Military Music Corps where, later that year, he formed the Army No.1 Band. He also directed the Military Music School in Dublin. Having failed to find a potential Frenchman and wanting to avoid a British appointee for the army's school of music, their search for an "expert military musician" chose the German for the post.
Within just seven months of arriving in Ireland, Brase had been so productive that the first public performance of Brase's new army band took place in Dublin's Theatre Royal that October and by the following December had recorded its first two records with two more being issued in January 1925.
Until 1928, he created four military bands in cooperation with a compatriot who had emigrated with him, Captain Friedrich Christian Sauerzweig, with Brase focusing on the "Army No. 1 Band". For independent Ireland, bringing over musicians from Germany was one way of breaking free from British influence. With his band, Brase toured Ireland extensively between the mid-1920s and early 1930s, playing at many festive occasions, both indoors and in public spaces. He also initialised a regular series of band concerts for primary schools in Dublin which, over the years, were attended by thousands of Irish school children. In 1927, he also co-founded the Dublin Philharmonic Society, a successful orchestra and chorus with a brass section recruited from the army band, which he directed until 1936 when he had to resign for health reasons. At the Army School of Music, he educated a number of prominent Irish musicians including Michael Bowles, Arthur Duff, and Dermot O'Hara.