Xaver Scharwenka
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
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:...
, composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and teacher. He was the brother of (Ludwig) Philipp Scharwenka
Philipp Scharwenka
Ludwig Philipp Scharwenka was a German composer and teacher of music. He was the older brother of Xaver Scharwenka.- Early training :...
(1847–1917), who was also a composer and teacher of music.
Life and career
Franz Xaver Scharwenka was born in Samter, PrussiaPrussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
(Polish: Szamotuły; until 1793 and since 1919 part of Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
) in 1850. Although he began learning to play the piano by ear when he was 3, Scharwenka did not start formal music studies until he was 15, when his family moved to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and he enrolled at the Akademie der Tonkunst. Under Theodor Kullak
Theodor Kullak
Theodor Kullak was a German pianist, composer, and teacher.-Background:Kullak was born in Krotoschin in the Grand Duchy of Posen, in Wielkopolska - western part of Poland taken during the second partition of Poland by Kingdom of Prussia. He began his piano studies as a pupil of Albrecht Agthe in...
, his pianistic skills developed rapidly, and he made his debut at the Singakademie in 1869. He taught at the academy until entering military service in 1873. Upon his discharge in 1874, Scharwenka began touring as a concert pianist. Praised for the beauty of his tone, he was a renowned interpreter of the music of Frédéric 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"....
.
In 1881 Scharwenka organized a successful annual series of chamber and solo concerts at the Singakademie in conjunction with Gustav Holländer and Heinrich Grünfeld. That October he founded his own music school in Berlin. In 1886 he conducted the first in a series of orchestral concerts devoted to the music of Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
, Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
and Ludwig van 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...
while continuing to tour extensively and play his works in collaboration with other artists such as the conductor Hans Richter
Hans Richter (conductor)
Hans Richter was an Austrian orchestral and operatic conductor.-Biography:Richter was born in Raab , Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire. His mother was opera-singer Jozsefa Csazenszky. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory...
and the violinist Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...
. This triple role as pianist, composer and educator would occupy Scharwenka for the rest of his career.
In 1891, Scharwenka made his first tour of America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Deciding to emigrate, he opened a New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
branch of his Scharwenka Music School. In 1893 the Berlin Scharwenka Conservatory was united with the Klindworth Conservatory, and in 1898 he returned there
Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory
The Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory was a music institute in Berlin, established in 1893, which for decades was one of the most internationally renowned schools of music. It was formed from the existing schools of music of Xaver Scharwenka and Karl Klindworth, the Scharwenka-Konservatorium and...
as Director, from New York. In 1914, with W. Petzet, he opened a School of Music with a piano teachers' seminary attached. Among pianists who received some instruction from him were José Vianna da Motta
José Vianna da Motta
José Vianna da Motta was a distinguished Portuguese pianist, teacher, and composer. He was one of the last pupils of Franz Liszt...
, Fridtjof Backer-Grøndahl and Selmar Jansen. His Methodik des Klavierspiels was published in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
in 1907.
In addition to his activities as a pianist, composer and founder of a music school, he also organized a series of concerts, focusing mainly on works by prominent composers of the century, including Beethoven, Berlioz and Liszt. Scharwenka made several recordings for Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
in 1910 and 1913, including works of his own, as well as Chopin, 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...
, Weber
Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
and Liszt : his account of Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu
Fantaisie-Impromptu
Frédéric Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Op. posth. 66, is a solo piano composition and one of his best-known pieces. It was composed in 1834 and dedicated to Julian Fontana, who published the piece in spite of Chopin's request not to do so....
(Op. posth. 66) is admired. There are Welte-Mignon
Welte-Mignon
M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York was a manufacturer of orchestrions, organs and reproducing pianos, established in Vöhrenbach by Michael Welte in 1832.-Overview:...
piano rolls, including the Chopin A-flat Waltz, Op 42, and the F minor Fantaisie (Op. 49), his performance of which was famous. He recorded his "Polish Dance No. 1" in E-flat minor, Op. 3, No. 1 on Ampico reproducing piano roll in 1921.
He died in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, in 1924.
Music
Scharwenka's own compositions include an opera (Mataswintha), a symphonySymphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
, four piano concerto
Piano concerto
A piano concerto is a concerto written for piano and orchestra.See also harpsichord concerto; some of these works are occasionally played on piano...
s, chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
(all with piano part) and numerous piano pieces; his piano idiom somewhat resembles 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 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...
. The four piano concertos are substantial works. The first, in B flat minor, Op. 32, was completed in 1874 and premiered the following year. Originally written as a solo piano fantasy, Scharwenka was dissatisfied, and reworked it with orchestra into this form. Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
accepted the dedication and performed it in Berlin. Its first recording was made in 1968 with Earl Wild
Earl Wild
Royland Earl Wild was an American pianist widely recognized as a leading virtuoso of his generation. Harold C. Schonberg called him a "super-virtuoso in the Horowitz class". He was known as well for his transcriptions of classical music and jazz...
and the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
under Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf was a naturalized American Austrian conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality...
. The fourth concerto, in F minor, Op. 82 (1908), was premiered on 18 October 1908 in the Beethovensaal, Berlin, with Scharwenka's student Martha Siebold as the soloist and the composer himself conducting.
Scharwenka's works were neglected for some years after his death; however, his "Polish Dance No. 1" in E-flat minor, Op. 3, No. 1, remained enormously popular. Since the mid-1990s, however, interest in his music has been rekindled, and recordings of most of his works are now available commercially. The recording of his Fourth Piano Concerto played by Stephen Hough
Stephen Hough
Stephen Andrew Gill Hough is a British-born classical pianist, composer and writer. He became an Australian citizen in 2005 and thus has dual nationality .-Biography:...
with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. The Orchestra's current chief executive, appointed in 1999, is Stephen Maddock...
conducted by Lawrence Foster
Lawrence Foster
Lawrence Foster is an American conductor.He became the conductor of the San Francisco Ballet at the age of 18, and served as Assistant Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta...
was voted Record of the Year by the British music magazine Gramophone in 1996. His Symphony in C minor, Op. 60, received its CD premiere in 2004.
Concertos
- Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 32 (1876)
- Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 56 (1881)
- Piano Concerto No. 3 in C-sharp minor, Op. 80
- Piano Concerto No. 4 in F minor, Op. 82 (1908)
Orchestral
- Overture in G, ScharWV 123 (1869)
- Andante religioso, Op. 46a/ScharWV 120, the composer's arrangement of the Cello Sonata (1881)
- Symphony in C minor, Op. 60/ScharWV 121 (1885)
Opera
- Mataswintha, ScharWV 150 (1896), opera in 3 acts with libretto by Ernst Koppel after Felix DahnFelix DahnFelix Ludwig Julius Dahn was a German lawyer, author and historian.-Biography:Julius Sophus Felix Dahn was born in Hamburg as the oldest son of Friedrich and Constanze Dahn who were notable actors at the city's theatre. The family had both German and French roots...
Chamber music
- Piano Trio No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 1 (1868)
- Violin Sonata in D minor, Op. 2 (1868)
- Piano Quartet in F major, Op. 37 (1876-1877?)
- Cello Sonata in E minor, Op. 46 (1877)
- Piano Trio No. 2 in A minor, Op. 45 (1878)
- Serenade for violin and piano, Op. 70 (1895)
Piano
- 5 Polish Dances, Op. 3
- Scherzo in G major, Op. 4
- Stories at the Piano, Op. 5
- Piano Sonata No. 1 in C sharp minor, Op. 6 (1872)
- Polonaise in C sharp minor, Op. 12
- Barcarolle in E minor, Op. 14
- Impromptu in D major, Op. 17
- 2 Piano Pieces, Op. 22: Novelette, Melodie
- Valse-Caprice in A major, Op. 31
- Piano Sonata No. 2 in E major, Op. 36 (1878)
- Dance Suites, Op. 41
- Polonaise, Op. 42
- Polish Dances, Op. 47
- Theme and Variations, Op. 48
- 4 Polish Dances, Op. 58: Moderato, Lento, Allegro non tanto, Moderato
- Eglantine Waltz, Op. 84
- 3 Piano Pieces, Op. 86: Nocturne, Serenade, Maerchen
Selected discography
- Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 32 played by Earl WildEarl WildRoyland Earl Wild was an American pianist widely recognized as a leading virtuoso of his generation. Harold C. Schonberg called him a "super-virtuoso in the Horowitz class". He was known as well for his transcriptions of classical music and jazz...
with the Boston Symphony OrchestraBoston Symphony OrchestraThe Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
conducted by Erich LeinsdorfErich LeinsdorfErich Leinsdorf was a naturalized American Austrian conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality...
. Recorded in 1969. (As LP, RCA Red Seal SB 6815.) CD also contains Paderewski's Piano Concerto and BalakirevMily BalakirevMily Alexeyevich Balakirev ,Russia was still using old style dates in the 19th century, and information sources used in the article sometimes report dates as old style rather than new style. Dates in the article are taken verbatim from the source and therefore are in the same style as the source...
's Fantasia on Themes by GlinkaMikhail GlinkaMikhail Ivanovich Glinka , was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition within his own country, and is often regarded as the father of Russian classical music...
(Elan Recordings no. 22660).
- Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 32 played by Marc-André HamelinMarc-André HamelinMarc-André Hamelin, OC, CQ, is a French Canadian virtuoso pianist and composer.Born in Montreal, Quebec, Marc-André Hamelin began his piano studies at the age of five. His father, a pharmacist by trade who was also a pianist, introduced him to the works of Alkan, Godowsky, and Sorabji when he was...
with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Stern. Recorded in 2005. CD also contains Anton RubinsteinAnton RubinsteinAnton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
's Piano Concerto No. 4 (Hyperion RecordsHyperion RecordsHyperion Records is an independent British classical record label.-History:The company was named after Hyperion, one of the Titans of Greek mythology. It was founded by George Edward Perry, widely known as "Ted", in 1980. Early LP releases included rarely recorded 20th century British music by...
no. 67508).
- Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 56 played by Michael PontiMichael PontiMichael Ponti is a concert and recording pianist.-Life and career:Ponti was born in Germany, but has lived in the United States for most of his life...
with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Kapp. Issued in 1971 as LP, VOX Candide STGBY 651. Also contains Scherzo Op. 4, Erzählung am Klavier No 2, Op. 5, Novelette Op. 22, No. 1, and Polonaise, Op 42.
- Piano Concerto No. 3 in C sharp minor, Op. 80 played by Seta Tanyel with the Radio Philharmonie Hannover conducted by Tadeusz Strugala. Recorded in 1996. CD also contains Piano Concerto No. 2 (Hyperion no. 67365)
- Piano Concerto No. 4 in F minor, Op. 82 played by Stephen HoughStephen HoughStephen Andrew Gill Hough is a British-born classical pianist, composer and writer. He became an Australian citizen in 2005 and thus has dual nationality .-Biography:...
with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Foster. Recorded in 1995. CD also contains Emil von SauerEmil von SauerEmil Georg Conrad von Sauer was a notable German composer, pianist, score editor, and music teacher. He was a pupil of Franz Liszt and one of the most distinguished pianists of his generation...
's Piano Concerto No. 1 (Hyperion no. 66790).
- Symphony in C minor, Op. 60 (1885). Gävle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christopher FifieldChristopher FifieldChristopher Fifield is an English symphony orchestra conductor and classical music historian and musicologist based in London.Currently the conductor of the Lambeth Orchestra, Fifield is known for his exploration of neglected compositions, often from the 19th century Romantic repertoire...
(SterlingSterling Records (Sweden)Sterling Records is a classical music record label, specializing in releasing world premiere recordings of the orchestral work of romantic composers....
1060-2).
External links
- Article at Klassika.info (in German) with a database of his complete works
- The Xaver and Philipp Scharwenka Society
- Xaver Scharwenka Piano Quartet Op.37 & Piano Trio No.2, Op.45 sound-bites and short bio