Theophil Franz Xaver Scharwenka (6 January 1850 – 8 December 1924) was a German
pianist
A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...
,
composer and teacher of Polish descent. He was the brother of
Ludwig Philipp Scharwenka (1847–1917), who was also a composer and teacher of music.
Life and career
Scharwenka was born in 1850 in
Samter,
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...
(Polish:
Szamotuły; until 1793 and since 1919 part of
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
). His paternal ancestors originally came from
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...
, then moved to
Frankfurt on the Oder in 1696 - probably for reasons of faith - and settled thereafter in Samter. His father, August Wilhelm, was a gifted master-builder but decidedly did not have an ear for music. His mother, née Golisch, was an ethnic Pole from a family of some means, who was musically inclined and early on instilled in her children a love of music. 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 ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
and he enrolled at the Akademie der Tonkunst. Under
Theodor Kullak
Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor.
List of people with the given name Theodor
* Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher
* Theodor Aman, Romanian painter
* Theodor Blue ...
, 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 became a renowned interpreter of the music of
Frédéric Chopin.
[Suttoni, ''New Grove (2001)'', 22:339.]
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,
Franz Liszt and
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...
while continuing to tour extensively and play his works in collaboration with other artists such as the conductor
Hans Richter and the violinist
Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim (28 June 1831 – 15 August 1907) was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher who made an international career, based in Hanover and Berlin. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of t ...
. 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. Deciding to emigrate, he opened a
New York branch of his Scharwenka Music School. In 1893 the Berlin Scharwenka Conservatory was united with the Klindworth Conservatory, and in 1898 he returned
there 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,
Fridtjof Backer-Grøndahl and
Selmar Janson. His ''Methodik des Klavierspiels'' was published in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
in 1907.
Sometime in the very early 1900s he conducted
Felix Mendelssohn's
G minor Concerto, at which the composer and pianist
Marthe Servine made her debut.
[The Roth String Quartet in a Program of Compositions by Marthe Servine. Program for concert at Town Hall, New York, NY, 9 February 1941.]
Scharwenka made several recordings for
Columbia Records in 1910 and 1913, including works of his own, as well as pieces by Chopin, Mendelssohn,
Weber and Liszt: his account of Chopin's ''
Fantaisie-Impromptu
Frédéric Chopin's ''Fantaisie-Impromptu'' ( pl, Fantazja-Impromptu) in C minor, Op. posth. 66, WN 46 is a solo piano composition. It was composed in 1834 and published posthumously in 1855 despite Chopin's instruction that none of ...
'' (Op. posth. 66) is admired. His playing is also preserved on
Welte-Mignon
M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York was a manufacturer of orchestrions, organs and reproducing pianos, established in Vöhrenbach by Michael Welte (1807–1880) in 1832.
Overview
From 1832 until 1932, the firm produced mechanical musi ...
and
Hupfeld Hupfeld is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Hans-Hermann Hupfeld, German physicist
*Herman Hupfeld
Herman Hupfeld (February 1, 1894June 8, 1951) was an American songwriter whose most notable composition was " As Time Goes By ...
piano rolls, including the Chopin A-flat Waltz, Op 42, and the F minor Fantaisie (Op. 49), his performance of which was famous. Some of his Hupfeld rolls were also converted for the American
Ampico
American Piano Company (Ampico) was an American piano manufacturer formed in 1908 through the merger of Wm. Knabe & Co., Chickering & Sons, and Foster-Armstrong. They later purchased the Mason & Hamlin piano company as their flagship piano. The ...
reproducing piano
A player piano (also known as a pianola) is a self-playing piano containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism, that operates the piano action via programmed music recorded on perforated paper or metallic rolls, with more modern im ...
.
Music
Scharwenka's own compositions include an opera (''Mataswintha''), a
symphony, four
piano concertos,
chamber music (all with piano part) and numerous piano pieces; his piano idiom somewhat resembles
Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
and
Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...
.
The four piano concertos are substantial works. The first, in B-flat minor, Op. 32, was completed in 1874 and premiered the following year. It was originally written as a solo piano fantasy, but Scharwenka was dissatisfied, and reworked it with orchestra into this form.
Franz Liszt accepted the dedication and performed it in Berlin. Its first recording was made in 1968 with
Earl Wild
Earl Wild (November 26, 1915January 23, 2010) was an American pianist known for his transcriptions of jazz and classical music.
Biography
Royland Earl Wild was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1915. Wild was a musically precocious child and ...
and the
Boston Symphony Orchestra under
Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf (born Erich Landauer; February 4, 1912 – September 11, 1993) was an Austrian-born American conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a ...
. Wild had learned the concerto as a boy under
Selmar Janson, who had studied it directly with the composer. When Leinsdorf asked Wild to record the concerto, he was able to say "I've been waiting by the phone for forty years for someone to ask me to play this".
Debora Arder, The Piano Teaching of Earl Wild
/ref>
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 commercially available.
The recording of his Fourth Piano Concerto played by Stephen Hough
Sir Stephen Andrew Gill Hough (; born 22 November 1961) is a British-born classical pianist, composer and writer. He became an Australian citizen in 2005 and thus has dual nationality (his father was born in Australia in 1926).
Biography
Houg ...
with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. It is the resident orchestra at Symphony Hall: a B:Music Venue in Birmingham, which has been its principal performance venue since 1991. Its a ...
conducted by Lawrence Foster
Lawrence Foster (born October 23, 1941) is an American conductor of Romanian ancestry. He is currently the artistic director and chief conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and the music director of the Marseille Opera and th ...
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.
Selected works
![Theodor Wedepohl - Bildnis Franz Xaver Scharwenka, 1920](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Theodor_Wedepohl_-_Bildnis_Franz_Xaver_Scharwenka%2C_1920.jpg)
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 (1889)
* Piano Concerto No. 4 in F minor, Op. 82 (1908)
Orchestral
* Overture in C minor, 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 Dahn
Felix Dahn (9 February 1834 – 3 January 1912) was a German law professor, German nationalist author, poet and historian.
Biography
Ludwig Julius Sophus Felix Dahn was born in Hamburg as the oldest son of Friedrich (1811–1889) and Constanze ...
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-flat 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 Wild
Earl Wild (November 26, 1915January 23, 2010) was an American pianist known for his transcriptions of jazz and classical music.
Biography
Royland Earl Wild was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1915. Wild was a musically precocious child and ...
with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf (born Erich Landauer; February 4, 1912 – September 11, 1993) was an Austrian-born American conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a ...
. Recorded in 1969. (As LP, RCA Red Seal SB 6815.) CD also contains Paderewski's Piano Concerto and Balakirev's Fantasia on Themes by Glinka (Elan Recordings no. 22660).
* Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 32 played by Marc-André Hamelin
Marc-André Hamelin, OC, CQ (born September 5, 1961), is a Canadian virtuoso pianist and composer. Hamelin is recognized worldwide for the originality and technical proficiency of his performances of the classic repertoire. He has received 11 Gr ...
with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Stern. Recorded in 2005. CD also contains Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein ( rus, Антон Григорьевич Рубинштейн, r=Anton Grigor'evič Rubinštejn; ) was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor who became a pivotal figure in Russian culture when he founded the Sa ...
's Piano Concerto No. 4 (Hyperion Records
Hyperion Records is an independent British classical record label.
History
Hyperion is an independent British classical label that was established in 1980 with the goal of showcasing recordings of music in all genres and from all time period ...
no. 67508).
* Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 32 played by Seta Tanyel with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Yuri Simonov. CD also contains Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the same orchestra conducted by Carlo Rizzi. The recording was made for the now defunct label Collins Classics (No. 12632).
* Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 56 played by Michael Ponti 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). This recording is a rerelease of a Collins Classics CD.
* Piano Concerto No. 4 in F minor, Op. 82 played by Stephen Hough
Sir Stephen Andrew Gill Hough (; born 22 November 1961) is a British-born classical pianist, composer and writer. He became an Australian citizen in 2005 and thus has dual nationality (his father was born in Australia in 1926).
Biography
Houg ...
with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Foster. Recorded in 1995. CD also contains Emil von Sauer
Emil Georg Conrad von Sauer (8 October 186227 April 1942) was a German composer, pianist, score editor, and music (piano) teacher. He was a pupil of Franz Liszt and one of the most distinguished pianists of his generation. Josef Hofmann called vo ...
's Piano Concerto No. 1 (Hyperion no. 66790).
* Complete Piano Concertos played by Alexander Markovitch with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra
Estonian National Symphony Orchestra ( et, Eesti Riiklik Sümfooniaorkester ''(ERSO)'') is the leading orchestra in Estonia and is based in the capital Tallinn. The orchestra traces it roots to 18 December 1926, the first concert broadcast by Tal ...
conducted by Neeme Järvi
Neeme Järvi (; born 7 June 1937) is an Estonian American conductor.
Early life
Järvi was born in Tallinn. He initially studied music there, and later in Leningrad at the Leningrad Conservatory under Yevgeny Mravinsky, and Nikolai Rabinovich, ...
(Chandos CHAN 10814(2)) 2014.
* Symphony in C minor, Op. 60 (1885). Gävle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christopher Fifield ( Sterling 1060-2).
Notes
References
*X. Scharwenka, ''Klänge aus meinem Leben'' (Koehler, Leipzig 1922). (autobiography).
*Xaver Scharwenka, ''Sounds From My Life: Reminiscences of a Musician'' (Hardcover) by Xaver Scharwenka (Author), William E. Petig (Translator), Robert S. Feigelson (Introduction) (The Scarecrow Press, Inc.; Har/Com edition (April 28, 2007)). . (This is the first English translation of the autobiography above. In addition to extensive annotations, the book includes an introduction providing an overview of Scharwenka's life and work, a comprehensive discography, and a CD of representative selections of Scharwenka's musical compositions.)
*Rykowski, Mikolaj, ''Polifonia Zycia- Biografia Franza Xavera Scharwenki'' (Poznan: AM Verlag 2018),
*Matthias Schneider-Dominco, ''Xaver Scharwenka (1850-1924)''. Werkverzeichnis (ScharWV), (Göttingen 2003),
*Suttoni, Charles, ed. Stanley Sadie, ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition' (London: Macmilian, 2001), 29 vols. .
External links
*
Article at Klassika.info
(in German) with a database of his complete works
*
The Xaver and Philipp Scharwenka Society
*
* [https://polona.pl/search/?query=Xaver_Scharwenka&filters=creator:%22Scharwenka,_Xaver_(1850--1924)%22,creator:%22Scharwenka,_Xaver_(1850--1924)_Kompozytor%22,creator:%22Scharwenka,_Xaver_(1850--1924)_Kompozytor_%22,public:1,hasTextContent:0 Scores by Xaver Scharwenka] in digital library Polona
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scharwenka, Xaver
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