James Kwast
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James Kwast (23 November 1852 – 31 October 1927) was a Dutch-German pianist and renowned teacher of many other notable pianists. He was also a minor composer and editor.
Biography[edit]
Jacob James Kwast was born in Nijkerk, Netherlands, in 1852. After studies with his father and Ferdinand Böhme in his home country,[1] he became a student of Carl Reinecke at the Leipzig Conservatory, and had later studies in Berlin under Theodor Kullak, and Brussels under Louis Brassin and François-Auguste Gevaert. He settled in Germany in 1883, initially as a teacher at the Cologne Conservatory, and later at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt and the Klindworth-Scharwenka (1903–06) and Stern conservatories in Berlin. His students included Else Schmitz-Gohr.
He participated in the first performance in England of Brahms’s Piano Trio in C minor, with Carl Fuchs and Carl Deichmann.[2]
Clara Schumann played her last public concert in Frankfurt on 12 March 1891. The last work she played was Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Haydn, in the piano-duet version, with Kwast as her partner.[3]
He died in Berlin in 1927, aged 74.
Teacher[edit]
His reputation as a teacher reached far and wide. The list of his students includes:
- Walter Braunfels (whom he introduced to the music of Hans Pfitzner)[4]
- Carl Friedberg
- Ilse Fromm-Michaels
- Percy Grainger
- Otto Klemperer (who studied under Kwast at three institutions and credited him with the whole basis of his music development)[5]
- Ethel Leginska
- Walter Burle Marx[6]
- Hans Pfitzner (his future son-in-law)
- Edith Weiss-Mann[7]
- Hermann Zilcher[8]
Compositions[edit]
He wrote a piano concerto and various piano pieces, as well as piano transcriptions of Bach organ works. He edited the keyboard works of Joseph Haydn.
Personal life[edit]
His first wife was Antonie (“Tony”), the daughter of Ferdinand Hiller. Their daughter Mimi Kwast married his pupil, the composer Hans Pfitzner.
He later married a pupil of his, Frieda Hodapp, who was a successful pianist. She was the dedicatee of Max Reger's F minor Concerto, which she premiered in 1910, and the soloist in the first Berlin performance of Busoni's Concertino, BV 292.[9] She also premiered Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Telemann, Op. 134, on 14 March 1915 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. The work was dedicated to her husband.[10]
His brother was the conductor Jan Albert Kwast (Quast).
References[edit]
- ^ Bach cantatas
- ^ Archives Hub Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Peter Clive. Brahms and His World: A Biographical Dictionary, p. 403. Retrieved 23 October 2014
- ^ Orel Foundation
- ^ "Otto Klemperer site". Archived from the original on 2011-09-26. Retrieved 2011-07-09.
- ^ "Burle Marx Musica Society". Archived from the original on 2011-09-11. Retrieved 2011-07-09.
- ^ Jewish Women Encyclopedia
- ^ Slonimsky, Nicolas (1978). "Zilcher, Hermann". Baker's Biographical dictionary of musicians (6th ed.). New York: Schirmer Books. p. 1946. ISBN 0-02-870240-9.
- ^ Beaumont, Antony (1985). Busoni the Composer. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 291. ISBN 0253312701.
- ^ Liner notes to Oryx Romantic 1824, recording by Hugo Steurer
Sources[edit]
- Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed (1954), ed. Eric Blom, Vol IV, p. 880
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