#pedagogue

(Captain America Volume 1 #267)

OTD in Music History: Legendary composer, conductor, pianist, and pedagogue Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886) makes his public debut as a concert pianist, at the age of 11, in Vienna in 1822. Well, sort of. Liszt’s father had begun teaching Franz the piano at age seven, and Franz was already composing in an elementary manner within a year. Technically, the young Liszt appeared in a handful of concerts in present-day Slovakia in October / November 1820. In the wake of those concerts, however, a group of wealthy sponsors offered to finance his further musical education in Vienna... and it was only after he had received two years of formal piano lessons from Carl Czerny (1791 - 1857), himself a former student of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827), that Liszt considered himself to be a “finished” performing artist. Accordingly, Liszt always considered his first concert in Vienna in 1822 to be the *true* start of his legendary performing career. (It was also thanks to Czerny that the young Liszt met Beethoven, which was an event that he always marked out as one of the single most important and formative experiences of his life.) PICTURED: A c. 1900 real photo postcard showing Liszt as he appeared sixty years later, at the very end of his career.

pedagogue by Amina Mehmood

Here we see this antique postcard from 1916 with a nice pencil drawing from the famous young Composer, Pianist, Conductor, Teacher and Writer Franz Liszt (1811-1886).

ONCE UPON A TIME: “Tristan and Isolde”, Cologne Opera Festival on June 11, 1911. The wonderful scene photo from the second act shows the American Edyth Walker (1867-1950) as Isolde. Jacques Urlus sang Tristan, Paul Bender sang King Marke and Margarete Matzenauer sang Brangäne. Max von Schillings conducted. The production was done by Alexander d’Arnals and the set was created by Hans Wildermann.

OTD in Music History: Celebrated violinist-composer Henryk Wieniawski (1835 - 1880) is born in Lublin in what is now Poland. Hailed as one of the greatest violin composers of the 19th Century, Wieniawski’s talent was recognized from a very early age. In 1843, the eight-year-old Wieniawski was accepted as a student at the Paris Conservatoire under “special exemption” (since he wasn’t French and was technically too young to be admitted), and he studied there for the next three years. After graduating, Wieniawski immediately arranged an extensive concert tour which took him all across Europe and effectively made his name as a concert artist on the international scene. (He also found time to publish his first original composition in 1847.) At the invitation of his friend, the celebrated concert pianist Anton Rubinstein (1829 - 1894), Wieniawski relocated to St. Petersburg in 1860; he would remain there until 1872 and support himself by giving lessons and leading the Russian Musical Society’s orchestra and string quartet. From 1872 to 1874, Wieniawski toured North America with Rubinstein, and then in 1875 he was tapped to replace the ailing Henri Vieuxtemps (1820 - 1881) as violin professor at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles. As a violinist, Wieniawski was widely admired for his tone, his temperament, and his technique. As a composer, he specialized in writing virtuosic showpieces and small character pieces for his own instrument – his output includes two violin concerti as well as a slew of etudes, mazurkas, and polonaises. The prestigious "Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition" (which is named in his honor) has been held in Warsaw every five years since 1952. Pictured: A c. 1900 real photo postcard, showing the middle-aged Wieniawski staring intensely into the camera.