Hermann Scherchen | |
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| Born | (1891-06-21)21 June 1891 Berlin |
| Died | 12 June 1966(1966-06-12) (aged 74) |
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Hermann Scherchen (21 June 1891 – 12 June 1966) was a German conductor, who was principal conductor of the city orchestra ofWinterthur from 1922 to 1950. He promoted contemporary music, beginning with Schoenberg'sPierrot Lunaire, followed by works byRichard Strauss,Anton Webern,Alban Berg,Edgard Varèse, laterIannis Xenakis,Luigi Nono andLeon Schidlowsky. He usually conducted without using a baton.
Scherchen was born in Berlin. Originally aviolist, he played among the violas of theBluthner Orchestra of Berlin while still in his teens. He conducted in Riga from 1914 to 1916 and inKönigsberg from 1928 to 1933, after which he left Germany in protest of the newNazi regime and worked in Switzerland. Along with the philanthropistWerner Reinhart, Scherchen played a leading role in shaping the musical life ofWinterthur for many years, with numerous premiere performances, the emphasis being placed on contemporary music. From 1922 to 1950, he was the principal conductor of the city orchestra of Winterthur (today known asOrchester Musikkollegium Winterthur).[1]
Making his debut with Schoenberg'sPierrot Lunaire, he was a champion of 20th-century composers such asRichard Strauss,Anton Webern,Alban Berg andEdgard Varèse, and actively promoted the work of younger contemporary composers includingIannis Xenakis,Luigi Nono andLeon Schidlowsky.[2]
He was the teacher ofKarel Ančerl,Egisto Macchi,Marc Bélanger,Françoys Bernier,Anna Renfer,Frieda Belinfante andKarl Amadeus Hartmann, and contributed to thelibretto of Hartmann's operaSimplicius Simplicissimus. He also premiered Hartmann's early workMiserae. ConductorFrancis Travis was a pupil, then conducting assistant, for five years.
He is probably best known for his orchestral arrangement (and recording) of Bach'sThe Art of Fugue. His 1953 "Lehrbuch des Dirigierens" (Treatise on Conducting,ISBN 3-7957-2780-4) is a standard textbook.
LikeVasily Safonov and (in later life)Leopold Stokowski, Scherchen commonly avoided the use of a baton.[3] His technique when in this mode sometimes caused problems for players; an unidentified BBC Symphony Orchestra bassoonist told the singerIan Wallace that interpreting Scherchen's minuscule hand movements was like trying to milk a flying gnat.[4] According toFritz Spiegl,[5] Scherchen worked largely through verbal instructions to his players and his scores were peppered with reminders of what he needed to say at each critical point in the music.
However, Scherchen did not always dispense with the baton. The film of his rehearsal of his edition of Bach'sThe Art of Fugue with the CBC Toronto Chamber Orchestra shows him using a baton throughout.
Scherchen's first wife – who was also his third wife – was Auguste Marie (Gustl) Jansen, whom he married on 17 June 1921. After a brief marriage to actressGerda Müller from 1927 to 1929, he was again together with Gustl Jansen. In 1936, Scherchen married the Chinese composerXiao Shuxian in Peking (Beijing). A daughter,Tona Scherchen, was born to them in 1938. She has also made a name for herself as a composer. The last of his five wives was the Zurich-based Romanian mathematics teacherPia Andronescu,[6][7] with whom he had five children: Myriam, David, Esther, Nathan and Alexandra.
He died inFlorence, survived by a number of children from five wives and other women.[8]
One of his sons wasKarl Hermann "Wulff" Scherchen. Wulff metBenjamin Britten when they were thirteen (nearly fourteen) and twenty, respectively. Their romantic relationship did not begin until four years later. John Bridcut describes the passionate exchanges of letters between the increasingly-famous composer and the teenager inBritten's Children. Wulff's relationship with Britten is also the subject ofSerenade for Tenor, Saxophone and Orchestra, a song cycle byLyle Chan based on the romantic letters exchanged by the pair.
Until 2014, his daughter, Myriam Scherchen, co-ran the music labelTahra, which released officially authorized historical recordings of conductors such as Scherchen, Furtwängler, Mengelberg and others, generally drawn from primary recorded sources. Tahra ceased business after the death of the co-principal of the label, René Trémine.
The sister of Auguste Maria Jansen, Helene (Lene) Jansen, was married to the Hungarian cartographerAlexander Radó, who, under the alias 'Dora', was a member of the European-wide resistance organization known as the "Rote Kapelle". When Radó was threatened in Switzerland by German security agents and faced eviction, Hermann Scherchen hid him in his apartment in Geneva.[9]
Scerchen's recorded repertoire was extremely wide, ranging from the baroque to the contemporary, fromVivaldi toReinhold Glière. HisMahler recordings, made before Mahler became a part of the standard repertoire, were especially influential; so too were his recordings ofBach andHandel, which helped pave the way for the period-performance practice movement. Included as well were significant recordings of music byHaydn,Beethoven,Berlioz,Tchaikovsky,Glière,Bartók,Schoenberg and many others.
Other recordings:
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