Dutch composer and editor.

Brandts-Buys studied at the Raff Conservatory in Frankfurt, and in 1893 settled in Vienna, where after 1901 he worked for Universal Edition preparing piano arrangements. As a composer, he was influenced by Brahms and Grieg. He wrote eight operas, three piano concertos, and orchestral and chamber works.

Brandts-Buys and Universal Edition

When Universal Edition was founded in 1901, Brandts-Buys immediately became its chief arranger of the central classical repertory of opera, orchestral, concerto, and chamber works for piano, both two-hands and four-hands. Thus he arranged the later Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert symphonies for four hands, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Weber overtures for two and four hands, all the Beethoven concertos and the Mendelssohn violin concerto and all the Beethoven string quartets for four hands, and Don Giovanni, Zauberflöte, Figaro, Fidelio, and Der Freischütz for two hands, and many other works. He must thus have supplied Universal Edition with one of its most lucrative product ranges.

Brandts-Buys and Schenker

In 1905, Schenker made piano four-hands arrangements of a selection of Handel organ concertos (UE 936). A second volume by him (UE 937) was scheduled and advertized, but Schenker refused to hand over the materials because of a dispute over the size of his honorarium. Universal Edition transferred the assignment to Brandts-Buys, whose volume was scheduled as vol. III (UE 1555) and published in 1908.

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