Wilhelm Backhaus

Wilhelm Backhaus

born on 26/3/1884 in Leipzig, Sachsen, Germany

died on 5/7/1969 in Villach, Kärnten, Austria

Wilhelm Backhaus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Wilhelm Backhaus ('Bachaus' on some record labels) (March 26, 1884 – July 5, 1969)[1] was a German pianist and pedagogue. He was particularly well known for his interpretations of Beethoven and romantic music such as that by Brahms. He was also much admired as a chamber musician. He was an enthusiastic user of Bechstein pianos.[2]

Musical Biography

Born in Leipzig, Backhaus studied at the conservatoire there with Alois Reckendorf until 1899, later taking private piano lessons with Eugen d'Albert in Frankfurt. As a boy of 9 or 10 he was taken to hear both of the Brahms piano concertos performed by d'Albert and conducted by Brahms himself.

He made his first concert tour at the age of sixteen. In 1905 he won the Anton Rubinstein Competition with Béla Bartók taking second place. He toured widely throughout his life - in 1921 he gave seventeen concerts in Buenos Aires in less than three weeks. Backhaus made his U.S. debut on January 5, 1912, as soloist in Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto with Walter Damrosch and the New York Symphony Orchestra.[1] In 1930 he moved to Lugano and became a citizen of Switzerland. He died in Villach in Austria where he was to play in a concert. His last recital a few days earlier in Ossiach was recorded.

Role in Nazi Germany

After the seizure of power by the Nazis, Backhaus personally met Adolf Hitler, in May 1933 at the very latest, while accompanying him on a flight to Munich.[3] In the same year he became an executive advisor of the Nazi organization Kameradschaft der deutschen Künstler (Fellowship of German Artists).[4] For the show elections of March 29, 1936, Backhaus published a statement in the magazine Die Musikwoche under the category of soloist: "Nobody loves German art and especially German music as glowingly as Adolf Hitler"[5] One month later on April 20, Hitler gave Backhaus a professorship, and in September of the same year Backhaus was invited by Hitler to be at the Nuremberg Rally.[3]

Recordings

According to some critics, Backhaus was one of the first modern artists of the keyboard (see Alfred Cortot for his antithesis) and played with a clean, spare, and objective style. In spite of this analytic approach, his performances are full of feeling. One of the first pianists to leave recordings, he had a long career on the concert stage and in the studio and left us a great legacy. He recorded virtually the complete works of Beethoven and a large quantity of Mozart and Brahms, and he was also the first to record the Chopin etudes, in 1928; this is still widely regarded as one of the best recordings (Pearl 9902 and others). Backhaus plays them smoothly and softly, overcoming their technical challenges without apparent effort. A live recording from 1953 includes seven of the Études, Op. 25 and shows the changes that occurred in his playing style over the years (Aura 119). His technical command is the same, but he is more relaxed and confident and more willing to let the music speak for itself.

His January 27, 1936 recording of Brahms's Waltzes, Op. 39, runs just over thirteen minutes. His studio recordings of the complete Beethoven sonatas, made in the 1960s, display exceptional technique for a man in his seventies (Decca 433882), as do the two Brahms concertos from about the same time (Decca 433895). His live Beethoven recordings are in some ways even better, freer and more vivid (Orfeo 300921).

His chamber music recordings include Brahms's cello sonatas, with Pierre Fournier, and Franz Schubert's Trout Quintet with the International Quartet and Claude Hobday.[6]

The Times praised Backhaus in its 1969 obituary for having upheld the classical German music tradition of the Leipzig Conservatory. His phenomenal transposing powers spawned many anecdotes: finding the piano a semitone too low at a rehearsal of Grieg's A minor Concerto, he simply played in B flat minor and then in A minor at the concert, after the instrument had been correctly tuned.[7]

Backhaus was quick to recognize the importance of the gramophone. His July 15, 1909 abridged recording of the Grieg Piano Concerto, lasting about six minutes, was not only the first recording of that work, but the first time any concerto had ever been recorded.[8] Later, on January 5, 1928, he made the first complete set of recordings of the Chopin études.

At his death, Backhaus was just completing his second complete Beethoven sonata cycle. All that was missing was the Hammerklavier Sonata when, according to the Beethoven specialist Stephen Kovacevich, Wilhelm Backhaus was the only pianist to have really understood it. (Excerpts from the book/guide to the Great Pianists of the 20th Century, published and © in 1998 by the Philips Music Group).

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Slonimsky; Theodore Baker (1992). Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Eighth Edition, New York, New York: Schirmer Books.
  2. http://bechstein.com/en/concerts-and-pianists/pianists/b/wilhelm-backhaus.html
  3. 3.0 3.1 Fred K. Prieberg: Handbuch Deutsche Musiker 1933-1945, CD-Rom-Lexikon, Kiel 2004, S. 213.
  4. Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 23.
  5. Full quote to be found (in German) by Fred K. Prieberg: Handbuch Deutsche Musiker 1933-1945, p. 213, also see Ernst Klee: Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich, p. 23.
  6. Frank Forman. Acoustic Chamber Music Sets (1899-1926): A Discography.. Journal of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections. In three parts: Volume 31, No. 1 (Spring 2000); Volume 31, No. 2; Volume 32, No. 1. Claude Hobday also recorded the work as a member of the International Quartet with Wilhelm Backhaus on Gramophone. ES 395/8 [Austria] [10 sides]. The members of that quartet performing for the recording were André Mangeot, violin; Frank Howard, viola; and Herbert Withers, cello. Reissued on CD: Biddulph [England]. LHW 038 (1997), 'Backhaus plays Schubert's Trout Quintet.'
  7. The Times (July 7, 1969) "Professor Wilhelm Backhaus"
  8. BACKHAUS, WILHELM (1884-1969) at naxos.com

External links

Recordings

This page was last modified 07.10.2013 08:54:56

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