​I'm Felipe Barbosa Brandes. I was born in Brasília, Brazil, in 24th March, 2000. When I was a child, I already had a passion for music, even thought it was greater for popular music than for classical music, because of the influences from my mother and my father. I even started learning piano by the age of eight, in 2008. When my father died in 2007, my life changed. I had trouble to have a social life at school, and I had to deal with bullying because of my reclusion and overweight. Only after a couple of years, I conquered the respect of my fellows. 

In 2015, I wrote my first musical oeuvre, a piano-solo Pop album with 12 tracks, which I called "Il Piano", 11 of them were in Portuguese and the last in English. After that, I walked away from the simple pop music language and went to sophistication...

My relationship with the classical music started in middle 2015, because of a suggestion from a friend, who was helping me with a long-length movie recorded by me to YouTube, but unfortunally, it was censored due of copyrights infrigements of the "pop music" used there. This was the point where I left (American) popular music (I still appreciate the European 80's pop), because of the savage claiming over simple melodies, and the ardent ambitions of under average musicians, trying to gather money by any means possible.

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From that era, I've started getting evolved, and I started discovering the universe of the classical music. I've started to use the piano for more useful things, since I didn't touch a piano for 5 years. And, in March 2016, a little before my 16th birthday, I composed my first piano piece, which I called "Gallante n°1" (FWV 1).
 



 And, from this point, the things just became better and better. I've started to compose greater pieces. On May 2016, I composed "Chimere Overture Op.2", my first orchestral piece. When I reached Opus 4, I already had pieces longer than 30 minutes. Most of these pieces were dedicated for the girls Brandes tried to impress and to cherish back then. An example of it was my first Piano Concerto, Op.10, composed on November 2016, as a hommage to a girl who was important to me back then. But, since the end of 2017, I changed my plans. I started to compose the music by myself, so as no to impress any female. The time when men succeeded to conquer a girl by composing a music is past for more than 100 years. (in fact, not even Beethoven managed to live the love dreams. Academic musicians were seen as "low-level" since the 1800's)

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2017 was indeed the most produtive year for Brandes, in the matter of composing. Right in January, Brandes released his Piano Concerto n°2, Op.25, and in sequence, the so-awaited symphony by Brandes, the Symphony n°1 Op.16. On February, Brandes composed the epic Symphony n°2 Op.21, his first attempt to transcend the humanity, and his longer piece back then, lasting 82 minutes. He repeated the achievement on May 2017, when he wrote a symphony as a hommage to his granfather, Franciso José Pinheiro Brandes (1935-), and to the 10th death birthday of Felipe's father, Adriano Fortaleza Brandes (1969-2007), which was the gigantic 2-hour Symphony n°6 Op.29. Then, symphonies, concertos, sonatas and other pieces were being composed, including the legendary Symphony n°10 Op.50, the "Giant", plus of 2 hours of performance and over 50 instruments. I used to dedicate more than 80% of compositions to fellow girls of my class. I realised how miserable I was being after I left that school to another, so as to graduate

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DOWNHILL

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I tried to apply to university in the middle of 2017, in this case, to a "conductor" degree at the University of Brasilia. I was desesperate to enter university even before finishing high school, because of a new high grade standars. But, since I had only 1 year of (regular) piano playing, failing in the music exam wasn't a surprise. I learnt to conduct "Ave Verum Corpus" by Mozart and so I did in the exam, and performed "Invention n°1" by J.S. Bach (which was a disaster due to an unfortunate fever that I had in the day). I learnt to play the piece well, but then I finally realized I couldn't perform under pressure.

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After failing in the exam, I wasn't too motivated to apply again. This was the start of the downhill

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Right in January 2018, I finished my Symphony n°14 Op.74. The only big piece I've composed from the beginning to the end in 2018 was the Piano Concerto n°5 Op.73. This was the best concerto I've ever composed. Then, the Symphony n°15 Op.75, which is unfinished, and I won't finish, since I've written 60 minutes of this symphony already (in 3 movements). After that, I mostly only composed short piano pieces, with exception of Piano Sonata n°11, Op.76 and Nocturne n°5 Op.85.

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In 2019, I composed no pieces (only unfinished), and since the end of 2017 (back to Op.72) that I have unfinished pieces. There are so many unfinished work from Op.72 to Op.94, that I decided to stop cataloguing my pieces, unless it's complete.

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In 2020, somehow, I started to be productive again. After the COVID-19 outbreak, I composed a two-movement Gallante for orchestra, the Gallante Sinfonica Op.92. If you aren't used to this terminology, the "Gallante" is a genre of pieces I created (I know this title exists before, but not in the same way as mine), always dedicated to women [which goes against my new principles, but what I can do, if it's the Gallante nature?] and always paraphrasing one, two or more famous classical pieces, themes or melodies. While the first movement of Op.92 is arranged of a 2-piano gallante written in 2019, the second movement is 2020 brand-new, which I can say, is one of my best orchestral gems, paraphrasing 10 classical themes, from Bach to Kapustin, from an anthem from the Americas to the Middle East, from fugue to jazz, etc... Gallantes were with me since the first composition under my name, and the only genre I still commit after almost 5 years. Like Edward Grieg going "lyric", I also go "gallant" It's like coming home.

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Recently, I decided to return using music softwares, but less for composing, and rather arranging classical pieces. In fact, I transcribe and arrange since the Op.1 times (when I transcribed Bizet's Berceuse for piano solo), but few of these works were completed. I always dreamed to transcribe Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker (my first "favorite piece" ever) to piano. Since 2016 I didn't work with this project. 

I feel as I should head to gathering piano pieces and giving some color to them. In other words, arranging piano pieces to orchestra. When I think of composers with a big piano solo oeuvre, I think of Beethoven and Chopin, so these composers will be on my "must-arrange" list.

I was always fascinated by Beethoven's Piano Sonatas. His n°1 will always be my favorite (and don't ask me to explain why, because I simply love it, the most "Sturm und Drang" piece ever).

In May 2020, I finished my first big arrangement, the orchestral version of Beethoven's Sonata Op.2 n°1. I was very happy with the results, even though it was pretty demanding from the fast 4th movement to the end. 

I really want to arrange Beethoven's all 32 piano sonatas, and I feel like this would be a better contribution to music's legacy than composing just dull symphonies and redundant piano pieces like I do.

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And when I believe I won't handcraft anymore, some greater force always lead me back to a music software, no matter how busy I am with self-development, with the dozens of languages I learn (I'm conversational in 6 already) and courses I apply

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This was a little summary about how did I become who I am today, and how great were the results of this journey

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Arrangements and Paraphrases

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Here is a list of Brandes' musical arrangements. Here they are classified by:

Green - finished arrangements

Yellow - under development

Red - not in development right now (or abbandoned)

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*Berceuse, by Georges Bizet (1868) (arr.2016)

Original: tenor, harp, harmonium

Arranged: piano solo

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*The Nutcracker, by Piotr I. Tchaikovsky (1891) (arr.2016)

Original: orchestra (complete ballet)

Arranged: piano solo

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*Radetsky March, by Johann Strauss Sr. (1848) (paraph.2016)

Original: orchestra [viennese]

Arranged: piano solo (Brandes' Op.13)

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*Symphony No.8, by Gustav Mahler (1907) (arr.2017-)

Original: orchestra, off-stage brass, 2 choruses, soloist singers

Arranged: piano solo

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*Berceuse, by Sveinbjörn Sveinbjörnsson (1895) (arr/paraph.2017)

Original: violin and piano

Arranged: piano solo

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*Bachianas Brasileiras No.4, by Heitor Villa-Lobos (1930-41) (paraph.2018)

Original: piano solo

Arranged: piano solo (concertist version)

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*12 Etudes, Op.10, by Fréderic Chopin (1829-32) (arr.2019)

Original: piano solo

Arranged: orchestra

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*Concert Etudes Op.40 n°3, by Nikolai Kapustin (1984) (arr.2020-)

Original: piano solo

Arranged: concert band (+piano and electric guitar)

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*Piano Sonata No.2, by Fréderic Chopin (1839) (arr.2020-)

Original: piano solo

Arranged: orchestra (+piano)

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*32 SONATAS by Ludwig v. Beethoven (1795-1822) (arr.2020-)

Original: piano solo

Arranged: orchestra (+piano)

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LIST OF ARRANGED SONATAS: 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30; 31; 32

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Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.1, No.2 and No.3 have already their orchestral arrangement complete.

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n°1: https://youtu.be/uBbS89-11jI

n°2: https://youtu.be/JVKZ-l_dyIk

n°3: https://youtu.be/i6NotibZYpo

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When any other sonata by him is complete, I'll update this list

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p.s: the arrangements are called "Sonata for Orchestra", and although this is (musically speaking) incorrect, it makes sense as the original pieces were written under the genre "sonata", and the arrangements were designed "for orchestra", to be performed "by an orchestra"

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Contribution to IMSLP

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Since I'm no longer interested in composition (only arrangements, seldomly), I thought about the destiny of my previous compositons. I removed them from Youtube as they weren't published and I was afraid for them to be "claimed" by someone else. Not only didn't I have money for publishing almost 100 works, I also thought these pieces were of low level, outrageous, and sometimes, even a "waste of paper" (thus spoke some music anaylist who checked out my work after a personal fan of my music shared it with him). I'm very overcritical about my music, which explains why I left composing.

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So, what did I decide to do with my old compositions?

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Well, I discovered that IMSLP, an online music library for public domain pieces and non-PD (if the copyright owner allow them to archive, like Leo Ornstein's music which isn't PD but his son allowed IMSLP to host his music). I also discovered that an amateur composer can also upload their music to the online library. So, I decided that it would be a worthy destiny to these pieces, which I'm no longer interested (since it's only me who listens to it... not even my mom had a little of curiosity for my music). Perhaps, some day... tommorow, or in 30 years, someone gets interested to perform my music... you're free to do it, but if you record it to a publisher, I must have a share. Anyways, let's stop talking about inconvenient topics...

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IMSLP is a very organized library. I'm afraid that, if I leave my pieces there for a long time without regular visiting, they may be deleted due to "lack of parts" or "lack of recordings", etc... I want to make this clear: I'll only have the job of extracting individual parts from scratch, when someone contacts me for performing this piece. Some of my orchestral pieces have already their parts uploaded. But this is the maximum I can do about my pieces for this site - regarding to having all parts' PDF uploaded. I've got a life, a quite busy one, and also some academic enrolling (in International Relations - far away from the musical realm) and extracting parts demand most of my time, like hours (for just one orchestral piece of mine). So, once again, I'll publish new individual parts only by demand (either from a collector, or a pianist/conductor interested in performing it)

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Visit my IMSLP's composer page here: https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Brandes,_Felipe

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It'll host all my compositions and arrangements. Although less than a half of my pieces were uploaded on IMSLP, I'll keep updating my oeuvre there, so keep checking my page