Xaver Scharwenka - Life and Career

Life and Career

Franz Xaver Scharwenka was born in Samter, Prussia (Polish: Szamotuły; until 1793 and since 1919 part of Poland) 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 and he enrolled at the Akademie der Tonkunst. Under Theodor Kullak, 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.

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 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. 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 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 in 1910 and 1913, including works of his own, as well as Chopin, Mendelssohn, Weber and Liszt : his account of Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu (Op. posth. 66) is admired. There are Welte-Mignon 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, Germany, in 1924.