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
-
SCHOENBERG: PELLEAS UND MELISANDE "SYMPHONISCHE DICHTUNG FÜR ORCHESTER"; FRIEDE AUF ERDEN; ERWARTUNG (AUFNAHME OHNE SOLOSTIMME)
Classical - Lançado por Nar Classical em 12/04/2023
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Der Messias, HWV 56 (Mono Version)
Pierrette Alarie, Orchestre de l'opéra d'état de Vienne, Hermann Scherchen
Miscellaneous - Lançado por BNF Collection em 01/01/1960
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge, BWV 1080 (Transcr. R. Vuataz)
Beromunster Radio Orchestra, Hermann Scherchen
Classical - Lançado por Archipel em 01/01/2004
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Water Music Suites Nos. 1-3 (Remastered 2022)
Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Hermann Scherchen
Classical - Lançado por Archipel em 01/07/2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Vivaldi: Les quatre saisons
Julian Olevski, Hermann Scherchen, Orchestre de l'opéra de Vienne
Classical - Lançado por Puzzle Productions em 01/01/2014
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: The Musical Offering BWV 1079
Hermann Scherchen, Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra
Classical - Lançado por Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording em 28/06/2021
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Johann Sebastian Bach: Messe en si mineur, BWV 232 (Hohe Messe)
Hermann Scherchen, Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Wiener Akademie Kammerchor
Classical - Lançado por Tahra em 12/06/2012
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos.3 "Eroica" & 6 "Pastoral"
Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper, Hermann Scherchen
Classical - Lançado por Westminster em 01/01/2001
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach: Musikalisches Opfer, BWV 1079 (Arr. for Chamber Ensemble by Roger Vuataz) (Remastered 2024)
Wiener Symphoniker, Hermann Scherchen
Chamber Music - Lançado por Archipel em 02/02/2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schoenberg: 5 Orchesterstücke, Op. 16, Erwartung, Op. 17 & Die glückliche Hand, Op. 18 (Live)
Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Hermann Scherchen, Kieth Engen, Magda László, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Classical - Lançado por Orfeo em 01/01/2016
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
LP Pure, Vol. 19: Scherchen Conducts the Russians
Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper, Hermann Scherchen
Classical - Lançado por Archiphon em 02/06/2015
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mahler: Works
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Hermann Scherchen, Lucretia West
Classical - Lançado por Andromeda em 12/03/2021
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
BERG: LULU SUITE "SYMPHONISCHE STÜCKE AUS DER OPER LULU", DER WEIN "KONZERTARIE", LYRIC SUITE "LYRISCHE SUITE"
Classical - Lançado por Nar Classical em 10/07/2023
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Johann Sebastian Bach : Musikalisches Opfer : Musical Offering BWV 1079
Classical - Lançado por OperaPrima-Carillon em 01/01/2004
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Hermann Scherchen dirige Wagner (Siegfried-Idyll) et Tchaikovsky (Symphonie n° 6) / 1960
Classical - Lançado por Alexandre Bak - Tahra em 01/04/2020
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Entretiens avec Georges Charbonnier
Pop - Lançado por INA Mémoire vive em 13/09/2007
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1 - 9 (Scherchen Edition)
Hermann Scherchen, Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper
Symphonic Music - Lançado por The Golden Legacy of Music em 12/08/2016
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Historical Mahler, Vol. 3 (Remastered 2023)
Hermann Scherchen, MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra
Classical - Lançado por Urania Records em 31/01/2024
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
LP Pure, Vol. 1: Hermann Scherchen Conducts Haydn
Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper
Classical - Lançado por Archiphon em 07/08/2012
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Overtures I
Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper, Hermann Scherchen
Classical - Lançado por Deutsche Grammophon (DG) em 24/04/2020
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gustav Mahler par Hermann Scherchen
Classical - Lançado por Tahra em 05/04/2011
Qualidade de CD de 16 bits 44.1 kHz - Stereo