Jan Brandts Buys

He studied at the Raff Conservatory in Frankfurt and in 1892 settled in Vienna, where he got to know Johannes Brahms, who, along with Edvard Grieg, praised his early works.

His piano concerto won an important international prize and such famous artists as Lilli Lehmann often included his songs on the same program with those of Franz Schubert.

However, his reputation today mainly rests on his comic operas and operettas, such as The Tailors of Schönau [1916] and The Man in the Moon [1922], which gained considerable international acclaim.

These two operas, along with Glockenspiel [1913] and Der Eroberer [1918] were first performed at the Dresden Hofoper, with casts that included the young Richard Tauber.

In the United States, it figured in the first New York program given by the Zoellner Quartet after returning from its formative years in Europe, at which time the work had been heard in that city only once before.