Cornelis van Zwol, noted Bruckner scholar, has died
Cornelis van Zwol was born in 1935 in Amersfoort in the Netherlands. He has been a music critic, journalist, and musicologist since 1956. In Holland (and not only there), he is considered the Bruckner expert par excellence. He has been reporting for Dutch radio from the Linz Bruckner Fest since 1974, and he was involved at the festival in numerous recordings and direct broadcasts. At the age of 18, he heard Bruckner's Seventh Symphony for the first time, and for him, it was "love at first sight." Working for the Anton Bruckner Institute Linz since 1978, he has added many pieces to the mosaic of our knowledge of Bruckner. In 2012, van Zwol published an 800-page biography of Bruckner (Anton Bruckner - Leven se Werken) [ISBN 978 90 6868 590 9]. While the biography was published in Dutch - thus limiting its circulation -it did feature a unique compact disc of the first recording of the 1874 version of Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 with Kurt Woess conducting the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra (See Download of the Month for November, 2010). In addition to being a recipient of the Brucknerhaus Honorary Ring, van Zwol has been awarded the Cultural Medal of the City of Linz and the Decoration of Honor in Gold for Services to the State of Upper Austria. In the Netherlands, he was made a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau. An interview that he gave in 2013 can be seen here. |
