Frans Brüggen, the most famous straight flute (blockflöte) player in the world, is considered among the foremost experts in the performance of 18^th century music.  He studied the straight flute with Kees Otten and the flute at the Amsterdam Muzieklyceum, and then he attended the musicology courses at the University of Amsterdam.

The Youngest Specialist in the Science of Musicology of his Generation

At only 21, he became a professor at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague and later on, he held the position of Erasmus Professor at the Harvard University and Regents professor of the University of Berkeley; these positions made him become one of the youngest specialists in the science of musicology of his generation. As Luciano Berio wrote of him, "he is not an archaeologist, but a great artist". 

After finishing his studies, he started his career as a virtuous player of blockflöte music. As a flutist soloist, he had a great success performing both the music composed by the masters of the baroque era and the music created by contemporary avangardist composers. He conducted information courses and illustrative music performances for blockflöte.

A Great Admirer of the Pre-Classical Music

In 1981, he founded the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, consisting of 18 members from 22 different countries, all of them specialists in 18^th and 19^th century music and playing on period instruments or contemporary copies. Together with the orchestra, he performed in many tours around Europe and America and made numberless recordings for Philips Classics with works by Purcell, Bach, Rameau, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Felix Mendelssohn, some of which were granted international awards. Unfortunately, this year, on 13^th August, Frans Brüggen died in Amsterdam, at 79 years old.

Providing you only a few aspects of the famous flutist᾽ career, we invite you on 30^th October, starting at 10:00, on Arpeggio, to listen to the "Calendar Page" programme, presented by Anca Ioana Andriescu, to celebrate Frans Brüggen’s 80^th anniversary.