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MARY LOUISE BOEHM PLAYS PIANO MUSIC BY ERNEST SCHELLING, LEGENDARY AMERICAN PIANIST AND COMPOSER (l876-l939)
Ernest Schelling - child prodigy, virtuoso pianist, composer, conductor, patron, and founder of the Children's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic - was one of the most brilliant and enterprising personalities on the American scene in his day. As a pianist he appeared frequently with every major orchestra, often as soloist in his own piano and orchestral works, the dazzling "Suite Fantastique" and the descriptive "Impressions from an Artist's Life." His Violin Concerto was premiered by Fritz Kreisler and the Boston symphony under Karl Muck and "A Victory Ball," his orchestral tone-poem, never fails to thrill audiences.
Born in Belvidere, New Jersey on July 26, 1876, he made his piano debut at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia on March 8, 1880 at the tender age of four and a half, "A veritable musical phenomenon appeared...at the Academy of Music in the very diminutive person of Master Ernest H. Schelling. This Mozart of musical precocity played with proper phrasing, strict time, and accurate fingering." (Philadelphia Enquirer)
Trained entirely by his father, Dr. Felix Schelling, physician and musician from St. Gallen in Switzerland, the boy entered the Paris Conservatoire at age seven, the youngest pupil ever accepted, studying under Georg Mathias, pupil of Chopin. He went on to work with some of the leading pedagogues of the era including Mathias' pupil Isidor Philipp, Dionys Pruckner, pupil of Liszt, and Theodore Leschetizky, teacher of Paderewski. Between musical and general tutoring Schelling was performing in the concert halls and courts of Europe as far St. Petersburg. In 1896 Schelling's career changed when he became the only pupil of Ignace Jan Paderewski, who enabled him to make the difficult transition from child prodigy to mature artist. The two pianists became life-long friends.
Schelling made his London debut at the Crystal Palace and Queen's Hall with immense success. "Mr. Ernest Schelling,...gave a...recital in Queen's Hall on November 25, 1900... His technique is almost magical for the facility with which it enables him to exhaust the utmost possibilities of the modern forte piano. He plays with a crystal clearness and crispness only comparable with the lucidity of his interpretations... Mr. Schelling has a touch of remarkable adaptability and delicacy - his sostenutos sing and his staccatos are sharp and peremptory. A large audience was present and enthusiastically acclaimed the pianist." (Musical News, London, Dec. 4, 1900)
Schelling's North American debut as an adult was on January 24-25, 1905. He then embarked on a dazzling international career making him among the most famous pianists of the early decades of this century. "Schelling has a masterly technique, which embraces grandeur as well as exquisite delicacy. He belongs to the class of pianists of great stature, and can be counted among the premier virtuosi of our time." (Paris, 1905). In that season alone he made 186 appearances. It was at these concerts that Schelling played some of the works recorded here.
The last 17 years of Ernest Schelling's career attracted the attention of the musical world when he initiated the Children's Concerts of the Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York in the l923-1924 season. Termed by John Erskine "the musical godfather of America's younger generation," Schelling directed 187 of these concerts in New York alone, as well as in a dozen other cities from Boston to San Francisco. From 1930 they were broadcast coast to coast by CBS.
In the autumn of 1939 Schelling had been scheduled to inaugurate these concerts in London and then to embark on a national piano tour in the U.S.A. His last public appearance was with the New York Philharmonic Young People's Concert at Carnegie Hall on November 18, 1939, the first of the season. Tragically he died overnight of a sudden embolism on December 8.
The following day, a long editorial in The New York Times paid him tribute. "The career of Ernest Schelling, one of the most brilliant figures in the musical life of New York City, was one of extraordinary activity, versatility, and success. In addition to his very exceptional musical talents, there was little that Schelling was unable to do strikingly and well. Widely read, widely traveled,...and active in a hundred public enterprises, he accomplished more than his share of constructive achievements...Emerging from his early instruction as a full fledged virtuoso, Schelling also showed his gifts as a composer with a natural instinct for musical expression...It was a fine and logical accumulation of his experiences that from 1924 onwards, Schelling interested himself particularly in Children's Concerts...in this field as in others he was at the service of music and his fellow citizens. He would have been conducting this day had it not been for the swift, sharp swing of the scythe, which cut him down. He will be long and gratefully remembered."
THE PIANO MUSIC OF ERNEST SCHELLING
Ernest Schelling was a great pianist with a keen, inventive mind. Technically he made masterful use of every pianistic device known at the time. As a composer he had the power to sustain the gradual unfolding of ideas and build breathtaking climaxes. By the logic of broadly arched voice leading over suspended harmonies often with ostinato figurations in counterpoint, Schelling created modern sonorities within the framework of late-romantic harmony. The music has remarkable inner strength in addition to being magnificently scored by a pianist who knew his instrument thoroughly. From my own experience in playing concert programs of American compositions, works of Schelling stand out markedly, provided, of course, that one approaches the music in the late-romantic style with its rhetoric and drama. One must think of the sonorities and expressiveness of a Rachmaninoff, a Busoni, and other piano giants. Schelling was fond of writing in the keys of F# and C# (major and minor) which well fit his large hands and long fingers; he could easily encompass a tenth.
THEME AND VARIATIONS is dedicated to his teacher, mentor and friend Ignace Jan Paderewski. It is a major work in which the variations are like 'symphonic etudes,' each with its own technique, color and mood. Schelling's music is original and buoyant, radiating a youthful freshness. The poignant theme itself is based on the chromatic descent over the interval of a fourth, traditionally associated with tragedy and sorrow. Schelling weaves this theme through 15 variations to a triumphant finale. His brilliant virtuosity turns the Variations into a
mosaic of novel colors and amazing effects.
Reviews: "At Queen's Hall last night, Ernest Schelling introduced a wonderfully clever set of variations of his own on a characteristic theme in F# minor. The variations have excellent variety, some being marked by feverish gaiety and some by deep melancholy. Not merely are they full of such difficulties as none but a pianist of rare accomplishments would dare to attack, but all are worked with great skill and originality; and the work is by no means a vehicle for display, but a sincere and poetical composition." (The London Times, December 3, 1909)
FATALISME, ROMANCE AND VALSE GRACIEUSE are from a set of pieces written in 1904, held together by a common tonality and harmonic structure. A master poet, Schelling was able to write short works that are large in content and have a big impact. FATALISME, in particular, translates a poetic idea into an impressive sound picture, as it builds up tremendous tension harmonically and melodically, while at the same time holding back the climax until its powerful release.
UN PETIT RIEN (A Little Nothing) is reminiscent of a Chopin waltz, yet with its own personal charm and élan. AU CHATEAU DE WILIGRAD, an impressionistic work of highly unusual tone colors, explores the upper range of the keyboard, pianissimo. Both works are dedicated to "Son Altesse Madame la Duchesse Jean-Albert de Mecklenbourg, Princesse de Saxe".
NOCTURNE A RAGUSA was written for and dedicated to Paderewski, who in the 1924 season played it seventy-eight times and recorded it for Victor (Nov. 11, 1927). A poem is quoted (author unknown) on the opening page:
"Chapels of the Dalmatian Coast half hidden on the rugged heights
Send out a silvery vesper call,
Ragusa of haunting charm and glorious past,
Its flickering lights lit one by one,
Mirage of a Venice adrift
Across the Sapphire Sea."
"I took a trip down the Dalmatian coast and was deeply impressed by its melancholy beauty and was inspired to write down some of my impressions. Mr. Paderewski did me the honor to ask me to write for him a short Barcarolle to be played on his programs for his tour, and so I wrote this Nocturne." (Ernest Schelling, in a letter to Mr. Schaad, Aeolian Company, New York, April 4, 1928).
The beginning of RAGUSA (1926) has some kinship with Chopin's Berceuse, but differs by its haunting mood, the gradual emergence of sparkling rhythms, its shifting colors and dramatic dynamics, ranging from softest pianissimo to full sonorous fortissimo. Here Schelling creates a tone poem almost orchestral, with the sound of bells, first in the distance and then climaxing in the deep tones of the bourdon. The music fades away on soft, dreamy glissandi, alternatingly on the black and the white keys.
An untitled work, which we have called IMPROVISATION, was included in a group of pieces written by several composers in honor of Paderewski, published in 1941. It combines an exotic lyricism with soft chromatics.
RITMICISSIMO is taken from a set of five pieces, called "Silhouettes" (1928). Schelling and other composers were asked to write music for the benefit of the Association of Music School Settlements in New York, which was published by Carl Fischer, Inc. RITMICISSIMO's brilliant toccata-like opening breaks into a middle section evoking Moorish, North African folksongs played on a wooden flute and bagpipes. Its irresistible rhythms lead to an exciting finale a challenging virtuoso piece.
This recording is another in a series of discoveries for which Mary Louise Boehm has become known. Miss Boehm has made a major contribution to the music world by locating and reviving neglected masterworks. Thanks to her, several compositions have become part of the concert repertoire again. Her impressive discography includes works by Abel, Gyrowetz, Haydn, Schroeter, Field, Moscheles, Kalkbrenner, Spohr, Pixis and Hummel; among contemporary Americans: Orrego-Salas, Cordero, Diamond, Rochberg, and the romantic-American composers Foote, Gottschalk and Heinrich. Miss Boehm's most successful discovery has been the composer Amy Beach, who after decades of neglect is now again recognized as one of America's major composers from the turn of the century. Ernest Schelling's compositions were highly acclaimed here and abroad during his lifetime. The current issue of his piano works will make his music available again to today's audiences. Mary Louise Boehm is splendidly equipped to play this kind of romantic music in the school of such masters as Robert Casadesus, Walter Gieseking and Luisa Stojewska her teachers and mentors.
Schelling and collegues. Dec. 29, 1929.
Emiho de Gorgoza, Felix Salmond, Albert Stoessel, Alfred Pochon, Ernest Hutcheson, Josef Lhevinne, José Iturbi, Walter Damrosch, Willem Mengelberg, Fritz Kreisler, Ernest Schelling.
Piano Music by ERNEST SCHELLING
(b.1876-Belvidere, New Jersey, d.1939-New York City)
Played by MARY LOUISE BOEHM, piano
Theme and Variations (1904) 22.20
Valse Gracieuse (1904) 6.02
Ragusa (Nocturne) (1926) 7.04
Improvisation (1939) 4.02
Un Petit Rien (1904) 2.51
Au Chateau de Wiligrad (1904) 6.42
Recorded: October 9-12, 1995
This recording celebrates the 120th anniversary of Ernest Schelling's birth and has been made possible through a grant from the Musicians Emergency Fund, Inc., New York; the generosity of the Fundacio A.C.A., Mallorca; and the kind assistance of the Ernest Schelling Archives, New York, making available scores and biographical information.
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