Ludwig Scharwenka
Ludwig Scharwenka was a German composer and music teacher. He was born in 1847 in Szamotuły, the son of an architect. His mother was Polish, and his father’s ancestors had moved from Prague to western Poland. From 1858, he lived with his family in Poznań.
After completing secondary school, Scharwenka studied composition with Richard Wüerst and Heinrich Dorn at the New Academy of Music in Berlin, where he began teaching composition and music theory in 1868. In 1881, he joined the Scharwenka Conservatory founded by his brother Franz Xaver. He led its New York branch in 1891–1892 and conducted American premieres of his works. Back in Berlin, he headed the combined Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatory until his death. His students included Tor Aulin, Ignaz Waghalter, José Vianna da Motta, Oskar Fried, and Ernst Viktor Wolff.
In 1880, Scharwenka married violinist Marianne Stresow, who later taught at the conservatory and performed his music. Their son was composer and organist Walter Scharwenka. Ludwig Scharwenka became a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts in 1901. He died of a heart attack in Bad Nauheim in 1917.
A prolific composer despite his teaching commitments, Scharwenka wrote the opera Roland, three symphonies, symphonic poems, and chamber, choral, and piano music. His Violin Concerto, Op. 95 (1895), was especially popular. His symphonic poem Spring Waves, Op. 87 (1891), drew on Ivan Turgenev’s novella of the same name. His choral works included Autumn Celebration and Sakuntala, based on Kalidasa’s play. In his obituary, Walter Niemann singled out Scharwenka’s piano music and placed it in the Romantic tradition of Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Chopin. Max Reger dedicated his Seven Fantasy Pieces, Op. 26, to Scharwenka.