Wilhelm Backhaus
Wilhelm Backhaus ( born March 26, 1884 in Leipzig, † July 5, 1969 in Villach, Austria ) was a German pianist.
Life
His father was Gustav Ludwig Guido Backhaus, his mother Clara Marie Schoenberg. He was married since 1910 with harpist Alma Backhaus born Herzberg ( * January 24, 1886, † 22 December 1978).
Wilhelm Backhaus 1891 students at Alois Reckendorf and attended from 1894 to 1899, the Leipzig Conservatory, where he continued to study piano with Reckendorf and composition with Salomon Jadassohn. In addition to piano, he studied the violin and counterpoint. From the autumn of 1899, he was briefly a student of Eugen d' Albert in Frankfurt am Main. His piano studies he continued with Alexander Ilyich Siloti.
Its probably the first public appearances at all he had in his hometown of Leipzig, an age of 12 and then again at the age of 14 years: the II Philharmonic concert of Winderstein Orchestra in October 1898, he wowed the audience in the crowded Albert Hall with Mozart, Liszt, Chopin. In Darmstadt then followed its probably the first foreign public appearances: November 20, 1899, he impressed in the Darmstadt hall building, inter alia, with his interpretation of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, and already on March 29, 1900 was followed by the second concert in the Grand Ducal Hessian residence ( in which he then lived from 1911 to 1915 even ). Also in 1900 it came to travel to London and thus the beginning of an international career. In 1905 he won first prize at the Anton Rubinstein Competition in Paris, the second prize went to Béla Bartók. In that year he became a professor at the Royal College in Manchester; this office he gave after a year again. From 1905 to 1908 he was " Holiday masterclasses " at the royal conservatory special Hausen. In 1925/26 taught Backhaus at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (USA).
He and his wife moved back home in 1930 in Switzerland to Bioggio at Lugano on, lived in the villa Wellingtonia at Via Giuseppe Mazzini and took Swiss citizenship in 1931, but had still continued in Germany.
After the seizure of power by the National Socialists, he learned at the latest in May 1933, Adolf Hitler personally, whom he accompanied on a flight to Munich. In the same year he was Präsidialbeirat the camaraderie of the German artist. In 1936, Backhaus for parliamentary election on March 29 in the journal Music Week in the category On behalf of the soloists election advertising: "No one loves the German art and especially the German music glowing as Adolf Hitler ... " A month later, back home on the 20th appointed by Hitler to Professor April and charged in September of the same year by Hitler as guest of honor to the Nazi Party. 1938 Backhaus also Reichskulturkammer Senator.
Backhaus distinguished himself as Beethoven and Brahms Performer. His ability to transpose works effortlessly, is regarded as extraordinary. The London " Times " praised him in 1969 in an obituary as "the greatest surviving exponents of classical German music tradition that has been maintained in the conservatory of his native city of Leipzig ."
Backhaus made in 1909 with the Piano Concerto ( Grieg ), the first complete recording of a concert work at all. He was also the first pianist in 1927 and all the Chopin Etudes grossed ( this is still regarded as one of the best interpretations of these works ). He was to old age as a reliable concert and studio performer. Among his best known and most important recordings include the 32 Beethoven sonatas for the British Decca Records, the first recording in Stereophonic sound (except for the Piano Sonata No. 29 (Beethoven) in monophonic ), which was awarded the Prize of the German Record Critics' today as in parts none applies.
His last two concerts took place in the collegiate church in Ossiach ( Carinthia), held on 26 and 28 June 1969 were recorded for the radio. Backhaus had on the second night (June 28 ), after a dizzy spell, change the original program and played instead of the last sentence of [ Piano Sonata No. 18 ( Beethoven) ] Two Fantasy Pieces, Op 12 ( Schumann) (Op. 12, No. 1 " In the evening " and # 3 " Why " ) and as a bonus the Impromptu a flat major Op.142 No. 2 by Schubert. A few days later, Wilhelm Backhaus died in Carinthia.
His tomb is located at the Cologne Melaten Cemetery. The artistic estate of Wilhelm Backhaus is now in the archives of the Research Institute for Salzburg music history at the Department of Art, Music and Dance Studies at the University of Salzburg.
Honors
Trivia
- Wilhelm Backhaus played in the 70 years of his concerts more than 4,000 times in public.
- About the conductor Karl Böhm quipped Backhaus 1967, during the rehearsal of the Brahms concerto, " This guy plays Brahms pretty good for his age ," Böhm was at that time 73 years old and therefore good ten years younger than Backhaus.
- In a performance of the Piano Concerto in A Minor by Edvard Grieg presented Backhaus notes that the piano was tuned half a tone too low, and the concert just played in B flat minor.