![]() Financially secure, he crafted a number of chamber music compositions, which he aggressively promoted abroad.įranz Berwald: Piano Trio No. ![]() He ran the business so successfully that he was subsequently employed as the managing director of a brick manufacturing business. Still unable to secure a musical appointment, Berwald took up the directorship of a glassworks company in northern Sweden. He unsuccessfully tried to interest the Opéra-Comique and the Conservatoire in his music, and after a dramatic tone poem written for Jenny Lind failed to gain favor with Eduard Hanslick in Vienna, Berwald returned to Stockholm. However, the Stockholm musical establishment flatly rejected his 1st Symphony complaining, “that the work’s most distinguishing characteristic was its incomprehensibility.” His operatic compositions fared little better, and Berwald returned to Vienna in 1846 via Paris. The relative success of his Viennese excursion became the catalyst for a series of four symphonies he wrote over the next three years. Financially more stable, Berwald sold his business and moved to Vienna in 1841 to resume his compositional career and to ask for the hand of Mathilde Scherer in marriage.įranz Berwald: “Play of the Elves,” Tone Painting for large OrchestraĪ concert in Vienna in 1842 included several premiers, and The Allgemeine Theaterzeitung wrote, “his new compositions are of great interest, notably for the originality of their material, their ideas and the disposition of their elements, and also of the treatment of the forms, and the composer’s use of the manifold possibilities and the power of the orchestra.” His foray into bone setting turned out to be rather successful, and apparently, some of the orthopedic devices he invented were still in use decades after his death. However, a number of operatic projects failed to reach fruition, and as his funding dried up he decided to make a living by founding an orthopedic institute in 1835. After several unsuccessful applications, Berwald finally managed to depart for Berlin in 1829 and met with Felix Mendelssohn. As such he applied for a grant from the king to travel to Germany in 1822. His early compositions were not well received, with a critic writing, “It seems as if Herr Berwald’s hunt for originality and his constant striving to impress with great effects has deliberately banished all melodiousness from his compositions.” Berwald’s reply was equally blunt, and he basically managed to alienate the entire musical establishment of Stockholm. In addition, he arranged a number of benefit concerts featuring his own compositions.įranz Berwald: Violin Concerto in C-sharp minor, Op. He quickly appeared in concerts in Stockholm, Västerås and Uppsala, and he gained employment with Carl XIII as a court musician. Thus you satisfy the demands of the art without once abandoning common sense.” Born in Stockholm, Berwald came from a long line of musicians, and his father Franz gave him first violin lessons at the age of 5. If I must pronounce on your work I would say that its most outstanding qualities are its lively invention and an exquisite feeling for development. In a personal letter Liszt wrote, “You express yourself with invention, skill and agility, your developments and recapitulations are masterfully executed, your style both elegant and harmonically original. At times he had made a living as an orthopedic surgeon and later as a manager of a sawmill and glass factory, but he had also impressed Franz Liszt with his compositions. When the Swedish composer and violinist Franz Berwald (1796-1868) died 150 years ago in Stockholm, hardly anybody noticed. She wrote, “It often seemed to me – and still does – that when I played, my overburdened soul was relieved, as if I had truly cried myself out.Violinist, Composer and Orthopedic Surgeon And she clearly knew what she was talking about - her celebrity as a pianist gave her access to all the music that Europe had to offer.Īt the piano, she poured her soul into the music. What I wouldn't give to have a conversation with her. ![]() On Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde: “The most repugnant thing I have ever seen or heard in all my life… During the entire Second Act the two of them sleep and sing through the entire last act – for fully 40 minutes – Tristan dies. He has the decline of the piano on his conscience.” And, later, “The women were, of course, mad about him – it was revolting.” ![]() On Franz Liszt, her sworn enemy: “Before Liszt, people used to play after Liszt, they pounded or whispered.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |