# Harry Brauner

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{{Short description|Romanian musician and musicologist (1908–1988)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2017}}
thumb|upright=1|Harry Brauner
'''Harry Brauner''' (24 February 1908 - 11 March 1988) was a Romanian ethnomusicologist, composer, and professor of music.

==Life==
Brauner was born in [Piatra Neamț](/source/Piatra_Neam%C8%9B) into a Jewish family with many children, including his elder brother, [Victor](/source/Victor_Brauner), who became a noted painter and sculptor of the [Surrealist movement](/source/Surrealist_movement). He moved in 1913 to Vienna with his family, where they stayed for two years.<ref name= RL>{{cite web|url=http://www.romlit.ro/din_viata_lui_harry_brauner|title=Din viata lui Harry Brauner|last=Ornea|first=Zigu|author-link=Zigu Ornea|publisher=[România Literară](/source/Rom%C3%A2nia_Literar%C4%83)|date=1999|number=42|access-date=17 November 2014|language=Romanian|archive-date=28 April 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130428083041/http://www.romlit.ro/din_viata_lui_harry_brauner|url-status=dead}}</ref> When they returned to Romania, they lived first in [Brăila](/source/Br%C4%83ila), and later in [Bucharest](/source/Bucharest). There he studied at the [Music Academy](/source/National_University_of_Music_Bucharest), having as teachers, among others, [Constantin Brăiloiu](/source/Constantin_Br%C4%83iloiu), [Dumitru Georgescu Kiriac](/source/Dumitru_Georgescu_Kiriac), and Ștefan Popescu. In 1927, he was named secretary of the Composers' Society's so-called Folklore Archives.<ref name= RL/>

Brauner was one of those who discovered Romanian folk music diva [Maria Tănase](/source/Maria_T%C4%83nase) in the mid-1930s.<ref name= RL/> He eventually became her official biographer.

During World War II, he was a teacher at a Jewish high school in Bucharest, in 1944 he became music adviser at the [Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company](/source/Romanian_Radio_Broadcasting_Company) in charge of folklore, and in 1949 he became head of the Folklore Department at the Music Academy in Bucharest.<ref name= RL/>

Brauner was implicated in the [show trial](/source/Show_trial) against [Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu](/source/Lucre%C8%9Biu_P%C4%83tr%C4%83%C8%99canu), and spent 12 years in prison, most of it in solitary confinement. He was released from [Aiud Prison](/source/Aiud_Prison) in January 1962,<ref>{{cite book |last= Muraru |first= Andrei |author-link= Andrei Muraru |title= Dicționarul penitenciarelor din România comunistă |lang=ro |publisher=[Polirom](/source/Polirom) |year= 2008 |page= 90 |isbn= 9789734608935 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340454074}}</ref> sent into internal exile to a village near [Slobozia](/source/Slobozia). He married [Lena Constante](/source/Lena_Constante) in 1964. In 1966, he was allowed to travel to the [Venice Biennale](/source/Venice_Biennale), Italy, where his brother [Victor Brauner](/source/Victor_Brauner) exhibited some of his works at the French pavilion.<ref name= RL/>

In 1967, after being named a member of the Paris Music Biennale, he was allowed to travel to Paris, where he became acquainted with [Marc Chagall](/source/Marc_Chagall). In 1968, both he and Lena Constante were rehabilitated and given a meager pension for their sufferings.<ref name= RL/>

A close collaborator of Constantin Brăiloiu, Brauner recorded about 5,000 Romanian folk songs.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.romlit.ro/harry_brauner|title=Harry Brauner|last=Datcu|first=Iordan|language=Romanian|publisher=[România Literară](/source/Rom%C3%A2nia_Literar%C4%83)|date=2008|number=4|access-date=17 November 2014|archive-date=24 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924121943/http://www.romlit.ro/harry_brauner|url-status=dead}}</ref> He died in 1988 in Bucharest.

==Books==
*1979. ''Să auzi iarba cum crește'' ("To Hear How the Grass Grows"). Bucharest: Editura Eminescu

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Constante, Lena (1995). ''The Silent Escape: Three Thousand Days in Romanian Prisons''. Berkeley: [University of California Press](/source/University_of_California_Press).
* Marian-Bălașa, Marin (2000). ''Harry Brauner: Field Collector, Director, Victim, and Love''. European Meetings in Ethnomusicology 7:83–192.
* Irina Nicolau, Carmen Huluță (1999). ''Surîsul lui Harry'' ("Harry's Smile"). Bucharest: Ars Docendi.

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brauner, Harry}}
Category:1908 births
Category:1988 deaths
Category:People from Piatra Neamț
Category:Romanian ethnomusicologists
Category:Jewish musicologists
Category:Jews from Western Moldavia
Category:Jewish Romanian musicians
Category:20th-century Romanian composers
Category:20th-century Romanian male composers
Category:20th-century Romanian musicologists
Category:20th-century Romanian journalists
Category:20th-century Romanian male journalists
Category:Inmates of Aiud Prison
Category:People detained by the Securitate
Category:Socialist Republic of Romania rehabilitations

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Harry Brauner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Brauner) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Brauner?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.