Albert Ferber
Encyclopedia
Albert Ferber was a Swiss pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

 whose international performing career spanned four decades, taking him all over the world.

Training

Albert Ferber was a classical pianist and teacher. He was born in Lucerne
Lucerne
Lucerne is a city in north-central Switzerland, in the German-speaking portion of that country. Lucerne is the capital of the Canton of Lucerne and the capital of the district of the same name. With a population of about 76,200 people, Lucerne is the most populous city in Central Switzerland, and...

, and studied in Switzerland, Germany and France where his teachers included Karl Leimer, Walter Gieseking
Walter Gieseking
Walter Wilhelm Gieseking was a French-born German pianist and composer.-Biography:Born in Lyon, France, the son of a German doctor and lepidopterist, Gieseking first started playing the piano at the age of four, but without formal instruction...

 and Marguerite Long
Marguerite Long
Marguerite Long was a French pianist and teacher.Marguerite Marie-Charlotte Long was born in Nîmes. She studied with Henri Fissot at the Paris Conservatoire, taking a premier prix in 1891, and privately with Antoine François Marmontel...

. Whilst in Switzerland he often played to Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...

 although he never regarded the latter as a teacher in the conventional sense. He first came to England in 1937, basing himself in London permanently from 1939 where he undertook further study with James Ching.

Conducting and composing

Although best known as a concert pianist and recording artist, Ferber had a brief association with the theatre and the cinema, conducting theatre orchestras during the 1940s for productions such as The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...

. A little later he appeared as pianist in the Brian Hurst film The Mark of Cain
The Mark of Cain
The Mark of Cain is a hard rock/alternative metal band from Adelaide, South Australia. Their style has been likened to that of Helmet and Rollins Band, yet this band predates both of those groups and was influenced by the early work of Joy Division and US hardcore...

(1947) and composed scores for two films, The Hangman Waits (1947) and Death in the Hand (1948), both directed by the Australian, Albert Barr-Smith. After this, his performing activities prevented any further composition until near the end of his life when he wrote a set of six songs to texts by Paul Verlaine
Paul Verlaine
Paul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.-Early life:...

.

Teaching

Alongside his performing work, Ferber had an active teaching career, gaining early experience in Italy where he deputised for his former teacher Karl Leimer. After settling in England, he was employed as piano teacher (and concert manager) at the James Ching Pianoforte School. Later in life he gave many masterclasses in both the UK and Europe for organisations such as EPTA
EPTA
EPTA can refer to:* European Parliamentary Technology Assessment* European Pulsar Timing Array* Phosphotungstic acid* European Piano Teachers Association* European Pilot Training Academy...

, but it is as a private teacher that he is probably best remembered. Robert Finley
Robert Finley
Robert Finley was briefly the president of the University of Georgia. Finley was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and graduated from College of New Jersey at the age of 15.-Early life:Finley was born to James Finley and Ann Angrest, James was born 1737 in Glasgow, Scotland where he...

 recalls that his teacher was an advocate of the Alexander Technique
Alexander Technique
The Alexander Technique teaches the ability to improve physical postural habits, particularly those that have become ingrained and conditioned responses...

 and that "he emphasised relaxation … and avoiding the build up of muscular tension and stress". Kathron Sturrock
Kathron Sturrock
Kathron Sturrock is a British pianist who studied with Cyril Smith, Joan Trimble, Alfred Brendel and Rostropovich, and worked with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf....

 commends Ferber's "gentle and helpful wisdom" which saw her "through many a dark moment", whilst Penelope Thwaites describes him as an "exceptional teacher … interested in drawing out the individuality of his pupils; believing in that individuality and conveying confidence: a rare gift". She also states that he was "much loved by all his pupils".

Career outline

Ferber's performing career developed in England through a series of Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...

 recitals in the late 1940s and early 1950s, many of which were managed by James Ching Ltd. A successful BBC audition in 1945 led to a concerto appearance for the Corporation and then to engagements with Sir Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...

 and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...

, Josef Krips
Josef Krips
Josef Alois Krips was an Austrian conductor and violinist.-Biography:Krips was born in Vienna and went on to become a pupil of Eusebius Mandyczewski and Felix Weingartner. From 1921 to 1924, he served as Weingartner's assistant at the Vienna Volksoper and as répétiteur and chorus master...

 and the Hallé Orchestra
The Hallé
The Hallé is a symphony orchestra based in Manchester, England. It is the UK's oldest extant symphony orchestra , supports a choir, youth choir and a youth orchestra, and releases its recordings on its own record label, though it has occasionally released recordings on Angel Records and EMI...

, and further work with Sir Adrian Boult
Adrian Boult
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...

, Sergiu Celibidache
Sergiu Celibidache
- Biography :Celibidache was born in Roman, Romania, and began his studies in music with the piano, after which he studied music, philosophy and mathematics in Bucharest, Romania and then in Paris...

, Jascha Horenstein
Jascha Horenstein
Jascha Horenstein was an American conductor.Horenstein was born in Kiev, Russian Empire , into a well-to-do Jewish family; his mother came from an Austrian rabbinical family and his father was Russian....

 and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt
Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt
Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt was a German conductor and composer.-Early life:Born in Berlin, he studied music in Heidelberg and Münster. He was also a composition student with Franz Schreker at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, and received a doctorate in 1923.-Career:He was a repetiteur at the...

. His career took him to most parts of the world, although he had a special affinity with South American countries, which he visited many times. In the UK he made regular recital appearances in London at the Queen Elizabeth and Wigmore Halls and continued to broadcast for the BBC until illness ended his performing career. He died in 1987.

Repertoire

As soloist with orchestra, Ferber played several concertos by Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

 and Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

 as well as the first, second and fourth of the Rachmaninoff concertos, the second by Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

, Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

 and Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...

, and those by Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

 and Grieg
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...

. More unusually, the Concerto for Piano and Strings by Robert Gerhard featured in his repertoire. He also appeared as accompanist to Alexander Kipnis
Alexander Kipnis
Alexander Kipnis , was a Ukrainian-born operatic bass of great artistry and vocal endowment.Having initially established his artistic reputation in Europe, Kipnis became an American citizen in 1931, following his marriage to an American...

 in Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

's Winterreise (at the age of 18) and as chamber musician, playing with Henryk Szeryng
Henryk Szeryng
Henryk Szeryng was a Polish violinist.-Early years:He was born in Żelazowa Wola, Poland on 22 September 1918 into a wealthy family....

 (violin) and Ernesto Xancó (cello) in duos, and with both artists in trios.

Ferber was most active as a solo recitalist, the pianist's repertoire being extensive and wide-ranging. In addition to standard works by J. S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

, Beethoven, Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

, Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Schubert, Ferber played many lesser-known twentieth century works such as the piano sonatas by Ernest Bloch
Ernest Bloch
Ernest Bloch was a Swiss-born American composer.-Life:Bloch was born in Geneva and began playing the violin at age 9. He began composing soon afterwards. He studied music at the conservatory in Brussels, where his teachers included the celebrated Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe...

, Frank Bridge
Frank Bridge
Frank Bridge was an English composer and violist.-Life:Bridge was born in Brighton and studied at the Royal College of Music in London from 1899 to 1903 under Charles Villiers Stanford and others...

 and Robert Simpson
Robert Simpson (composer)
Robert Simpson was an English composer and long-serving BBC producer and broadcaster.He is best known for his orchestral and chamber music , and for his writings on the music of Beethoven, Bruckner, Nielsen and Sibelius. He studied composition under Herbert Howells...

, and Robert Gerhard's Don Quixote suite. In July 1947 he gave the first performance of Lennox Berkeley
Lennox Berkeley
Sir Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley was an English composer.- Biography :He was born in Oxford, England, and educated at the Dragon School, Gresham's School and Merton College, Oxford...

's Six Preludes for Piano at Broadcasting House and in May 1951 premiered Gerhard's Three Impromptus at the Wigmore Hall. Even when playing works by mainstream composers, Ferber tended to avoid the obvious and introduced audiences to comparative rarities such as Beethoven's Variations on Salieri's La Stessa, la Stessissima, Chopin's Variations on a German Folksong and Schumann's Sonata No. 3. However, the artist was especially drawn to French repertoire, in particular the music of Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...

 and Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

, whose œuvre often featured in his concerts. His recital programmes were always imaginative and varied, often structured around collections of shorter items rather than major works, though the latter were included.

Recordings

Albert Ferber's playing is well represented on disc, one of his earliest LP recordings, of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words and Schumann's Kinderscenen, appearing in 1951 for Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....

. In the same year he made a live recording of Brahms's Variations on a Theme of Haydn for two pianos, partnering Adelina de Lara at her ‘farewell’ Wigmore Hall concert. Over the next thirty years he recorded, for Saga Records, Fauré's piano music (in two volumes), sonatas by Beethoven and Balakirev, along with pieces by Brahms, Chopin, Chopin-Liszt, Debussy, Liszt, Ravel and Smetana. For Meridian, he recorded music by Chaminade, Debussy, Fauré, Ibert, Poulenc and Satie; for Rare Recorded Editions, he made an LP of Rachmaninov's Sonata No. 1 and Variations on a Theme of Chopin; and for the Ducretet-Thomson label, he recorded two sets of Beethoven variations and all of Debussy's piano music. His last recording, made in 1981 for Hyperion, was of the Schubert Impromptus D899 and 935. It is now extremely difficult to obtain any of these recordings, although a few were re-released in CD format and Forgotten Recordshttp://forgottenrecords.com/ has recently reissued some of his Debussy and Beethoven recordings. However, as Robin O’Connor formerly of Saga Records observes, the pianist is now almost unknown.4

Style

Ferber's performing style was tasteful, intelligent and unpretentious, devoid of self-serving gesture. His recording of the Balakirev sonata, the finale in particular, demonstrates that his playing was sometimes technically fallible, but he could always identify with the style and underlying spirit of a work and, in concert, his performances seemed to convey musical essence rather than pianistic ego. His sound was distinctive: clear in texture and articulation, and of a fragile beauty which some critics felt could become hard under pressure. His strengths were probably most consistently shown to best effect in the music of Fauré where his tonal shading and undemonstrative interpretation – ‘art concealing art’ – attracted universal admiration. However, perhaps most impressive amongst his recorded legacy is his LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...

 of the Rachmaninov Sonata No. 1 where everything seems to work for him. All performing elements unite to produce a vivid, sharply-drawn, account of an immediacy more commonly associated with live than with studio playing. The recording can be enjoyed on a moment-by-moment basis but equally appreciated as a deeply satisfying cohesive musical experience.

Sources

Coore, Rita: 'Ferber - a pianist worth going anywhere to hear' in The Daily Gleaner (Jamaica), May 1952

Harding, James: 'Musician before virtuoso' in Records and Recording, July 1979

Humphreys, Ivor: 'Albert Ferber' in Hi-Fi News, August 1979

British Library Sound Archive
British Library Sound Archive
The British Library Sound Archive in London, England is one of the largest collections of recorded sound in the world, including music, spoken word and ambient recordings....

, September 2007

Mr Ferber's personal journals
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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