Hans Sitt (Jan Hanus Sitt) was a Hungarian
violinist, violist, teacher, conductor, and composer born (in Prague) on
September 21, 1850. When he was born,
Brahms had not yet even begun to make a name for himself – when he died,
Stravinsky had turned the musical firmament upside down. Although Sitt was a prolific composer, he is
better remembered – if at all - as a teacher.
Unfortunately, he had no outstanding students who would have turned him
into a legend. Louis Zimmermann was probably
his most famous pupil. Sitt’s father was
a violin maker, a luthier. Sitt entered
the Prague Conservatory (Czechoslovakia) at age 11 and studied with Moritz
Mildner and Antonin Bennewitz, among others.
He graduated in 1867, at age 17 and almost immediately was engaged as
concertmaster of the Breslau Opera Orchestra in Wroclaw, Poland – Wroclaw is
one and the same as Breslau. It is about
120 miles northeast of Prague. Sitt
stayed for six years and then served as concertmaster of an orchestra in
Chemnitz (Germany) for another six years.
Chemnitz is about 60 miles northwest of Prague and 35 miles south of
Leipzig, Germany. Sitt enjoyed a very brief
career as a touring virtuoso and served as conductor of several orchestras in
Europe – I don’t know which orchestras – including some in France and Austria. In 1883 (some sources say 1884) he began his
teaching career at the Leipzig Conservatory.
It was here that he was invited to be part of the Brodsky Quartet as a
violist, with Ottokar Novacek on second, Adolph Brodsky on first, and Leopold
Grutzmacher on cello. He left the
conservatory in 1921. He had been there
almost forty years. From 1885 to 1903 he
conducted the Bach Society Chorale in Leipzig.
His violin studies – although not as well-known as the Kreutzer or
DeBeriot or Rode books - are still in use today. He was one of the first to systematize the
study of scales – in thirds, sixths, octaves and tenths. He composed six violin concertos, two cello
concertos, three viola concertos, many concert pieces for violin, viola, or
cello, and a few chamber music works. One
of his piano trios is available here. He
probably played a very fine violin but I don’t know what that was. Sitt died on March 10, 1922, at age 71.
Christian August Sinding was a Norwegian violinist and composer born on January 11, 1856 (Brahms was 23 years old.) The love of art and culture ran in his family and he was immensely popular before the Second World War. He first studied music in Oslo before going to Leipzig, Germany, where he studied at the conservatory under Salomon Jadassohn. One of his other violin teachers was Henry Schradieck. In 1920, he came to the U.S. to teach at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. He wrote a large number of short piano pieces and songs, one of which he is best remembered for (Rustles of Spring, 1896.) Sinding later spent much of his life in Germany. He also wrote a suite for violin which Heifetz used to play very often. A recording of it is posted on YouTube. Among his larger works are three symphonies, three violin concertos, a piano concerto, choral works, and an opera (The Holy Mountain, 1914.) For political reasons, his music is seldom heard today, not even in Norway. You can read the complex story about that situation (his black listing) at other sites if you care to. Sinding died on December 3, 1941, at age 84.
Johan Svendsen (Johan Severin Svendsen) was a Norwegian violinist, conductor, and composer, born on September 30, 1840 (Brahms was 7 years old.) He was very popular and successful in his day. Svendsen first studied with his father (what else is new?) and was working as an orchestral musician by the time he finished his secondary school education. At that time, he also undertook occasional tours as a violinist. A wealthy patron who heard him on one of these tours, financed further study for him at the Leipzig Conservatory from 1863 until 1867. There, he studied with the famous violinist Ferdinand David and the composer Reinecke. After turning his almost undivided attention to conducting, he worked in England, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Norway. Eventually, he was engaged as the Theatre conductor in Copenhagen, Denmark, on or about the year 1871. He was barely 31 years old. There he stayed until his death. His most famous composition (which is seldom heard nowadays) is his Romance for Violin from 1881. He was popular as a composer almost from the start, having achieved recognition with his very first composition - the string quartet from 1865. He composed three symphonies, a violin concerto, a ballet, and an assortment of chamber music. It is said that the original score to his third symphony was destroyed in a fire before having been published. It has therefore never been heard by anyone other than Svendsen. I have never heard anything of his aside from the Romance for Violin. Svendsen died on June 14, 1911, at age 70 (Richard Strauss was 47 years old, Igor Stravinsky was 29, and Jascha Heifetz was 10.)
August Wilhelmj (August Emil Daniel Ferdinand Viktor Wilhelmj) was a German violinist, composer, and teacher born on September 21, 1845 (Brahms was 12 years old.) Today, he is remembered for his arrangement (for violin and piano) of J.S. Bach’s Air from the second movement of his third orchestral suite. He has also been called the German Paganini. He gave his first concert at the age of eight in Wiesbaden and, after Liszt recommended him, he studied with Ferdinand David (concertmaster of the Gewandhaus Orchestra) at the Leipzig Conservatory from 1861 to 1863. For another year, he studied with Joachim Raff in Frankfurt (1864.) In 1865, at age 20, he began his concert career, making a number of world tours. He was the concertmaster at the Bayreuth Festival in 1876 when the first performance of Richard Wagner’s Ring took place. He first played in the U.S. on September 26, 1878, at Steinway Hall on 14th Street (New York.) That concert was a resounding success. From 1886 to 1894 he taught in Dresden, and then he was appointed professor of music at the Guildhall School of Music in London in 1894. It has been said that he possessed a broad, powerful, rich tone and that is probably true since he was over six feet tall - an unusual height for a violinist.* Wilhelmj was also said to play in a very expressive and sensitive style. He played on many different violins but his favorite was one by Stradivari dated 1725, which he acquired in 1866 and which now bears his name. When he retired, he sold that violin to one of his pupils. One of his American pupils was Nahan Franko, concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for many years (1883-1907) and the first American to conduct at the Met (1904.) Wilhelmj’s compositions range from chamber music – which nobody bothers to play anymore - to arrangements of other composers’ well-known pieces, to cadenzas for violin concertos. Wilhelmj died on January 22, 1908, at age 62 (Heifetz was 7 years old.)
*Arnold Steinhardt, Erick Friedman, Karl Halir, and Arthur Judson are/were also very tall.
