Hermann Scherchen
Scherchen was one of the leading conductors in the middle part of the 20th Century, especially valued for his pioneering performances of the contemporary music of his time.
He was essentially self-taught as a musician, and became a violist in the Blüthner Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic when he was sixteen. In 1911 he was an assistant to Arnold Schoenberg in the preparation of Pierrot Lunaire for performance. Following its Berlin premiere, the piece was taken on a tour in which Scherchen conducted. He became the conductor of the Riga Symphony Orchestra in 1914, but was soon interred by the Russians as an enemy alien when World War I started. He returned to Germany after Russia left the war to found the Neue Musikgesellschaft, and the Scherchen Quartet. In 1919 he founded a militant magazine Melos.
He succeeded Furtwängler as the director of the Frankfurt Museum Concerts in 1922 and in the same year began a long relationship wit the Winterthur Musikollegium in Switzerland. From 1928 to 1933 he was the Generalmusikdirektor in Königsberg. He frequently conducted contemporary music festivals, especially with the International Society for Contemporary Music, with which he was connected from its founding in 1923. Among his premieres in the 1920s and '30s were the s Three Fragments from Wozzeck by Berg and the quarter-tone opera Mother by Alois Haba.
He left Germany immediately upon the accession of the Nazis to power in 1933, settling in Switzerland, where he became Music Director of the Zurich Radio Orchestra, and also gave courses in conducting, which became a regular summer school in Switzerland in 1939. In the same year he founded the Ars Viva Orchestra. He married the Chinese composer Hsia Shu-sien. They had a daughter, Tona Scherchen (or Tona Scherchen-Hsiao), born in 1937, who went back to China with her mother in 1949. She became a noted composer, especially after she moved to France in 1972.
Scherchen resumed his continent-wide activities after World War II ended. He was director of the Zürich Radio orchestra (1944-1950), and in 1950, with the support of UNESCO, opened a studio for electro-acoustical research in 1954 in Gravesano, the village where he lived. He continues his writing about new music in the Gravesano Blätter. Unlike many conductors of his generation his "new music" was not merely the new music of his youth, but the continuing evolution of new music. In the 1950s he conducted the premieres of such works as Dallapiccola's Il Prigionero, Dessau's Das Verhör des Lukullus, and Henze's König Hirsch. He was the first to play any music from Schoenberg's Aron und Moses in Darmstadt (1951), edited it for its first performance under his colleague Hans Rosbaud, and led its first performance in Berlin. He did not appear in the United States until 1964 when he conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra.
He was the author of a leading text on conducting, and of many articles supporting modern music. He suffered a heart attack while conducting Malipiero's Orfeide in Florence and died four days later.
© Joseph Stevenson /TiVo
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LP Pure, Vol. 3: Scherchen Conducts Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 "Eroica"
Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper, Hermann Scherchen
Classical - Released by Archiphon on Jan. 1, 1975
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68 - Kalinnikov: Symphony No. 1 in G Minor (Live)
Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Hermann Scherchen
Classical - Released by Archipel on Jan. 1, 2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 35, 36 & 40
Wiener Symphoniker, Hermann Scherchen
Classical - Released by Archipel on Aug. 27, 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Soňa Červená chante Mahler (Kindertotenlieder, 3e symphonie)
Sona Cervena, Hermann Scherchen, Rolf Kleinert, Leipzig RSO, Gustav Mahler
Classical - Released by Collection Hommage on Aug. 4, 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wiliam Tell Overture - Donna Diana Overture - Zampa Overture - Fra Diavolo Overture
Hermann Scherchen, Vienna State Opera Orchestra
Symphonic Music - Released by Mangora Classical on Nov. 30, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
LP Pure, Vol. 13: Scherchen Conducts Offenbach
Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper, Hermann Scherchen
Classical - Released by Archiphon on Aug. 5, 2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 2, Allegro barbaro & Romanian Dances (Mono Version)
Orchestre de l'opéra d'état de Vienne, Hermann Scherchen, Edith Farnadi
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on Jan. 1, 1959
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Brandenburg Concerti 1 - 6 (Mono Version)
Hermann Scherchen, Orchestre Des Cento Soli
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on Jan. 1, 1956
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Symphonies No. 1 of Brahms & Kalinnikov
Hermann Scherchen, Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Classical - Released by OperaPrima-Carillon on Apr. 23, 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mahler: Symphony No.7
Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper, Hermann Scherchen
Classical - Released by Westminster on Jan. 1, 1954
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Geminiani: 6 Concerti Grossi, Op. 3
Hermann Scherchen, London Baroque Ensemble
Classical - Released by >ReNovo< on Jun. 16, 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bartók: Piano Concertos Nos. 2, 3 & Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
Hermann Scherchen, Edith Farnadi
Classical - Released by Urania on Feb. 4, 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Symphonies 36, 40 & 41 (2023 Remaster)
Hermann Scherchen, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestre du Théâtre des Champs-Elysées
Classical - Released by Archipel on Sep. 8, 2023
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphonie No. 3 "Héroïque" (Mono Version)
Hermann Scherchen, Wiener Staatsoper
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on Jan. 1, 1962
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Symphonie No. 5 (Mono Version)
Hermann Scherchen, Wiener Symphoniker
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on Jan. 1, 1959
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: 4 Danses allemandes, WoO 8 - Mozart: Une petite musique de nuit & Symphonie No. 38 "Prague" (Mono Version)
Hermann Scherchen, Wiener Symphoniker
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on Jan. 1, 1959
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Cantates, BWV 198 "Ode funèbre" & BWV 106 "Actus tragicus" (Mono Version)
Hermann Scherchen, Magda László, Orchestre de l'opéra d'état de Vienne
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on Jan. 1, 1955
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Hermann Scherchen Conducts Bach and Schoenberg
Hermann Scherchen, Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Classical - Released by Tahra on Dec. 16, 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Romeo and Juliet "Ouverture" - Gayne Ballet Suite - Night on Bald Mountain
Hermann Scherchen, Vienna State Opera Orchestra
Classical - Released by Mangora Classical on Nov. 27, 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Weber, Auber & Boieldieu: Ouvertures célèbres (Mono Version)
Orchestre du Theatre National De L'Opera De Paris, Hermann Scherchen
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on Jan. 1, 1959
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
LP Pure, Vol. 21: Scherchen Conducts French Overtures
Orchestre de l'Opera National de Paris, Hermann Scherchen
Classical - Released by Archiphon on Sep. 4, 2015
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo