The American conductor who based New York’s Younger Individuals’s Live shows preceded Leonard Bernstein by two generations

His funeral was attended by all the best musical names of his time, together with Toscanini, Barbirolli, Heifetz, Menuhin and Mengelberg. Excessive society was represented by Astors, Vanderbilts and a number of others. But you’ve most likely by no means heard of Ernest Schelling.

Born in 1876 in Belvidere, New Jersey, Schelling gave his premiere as a pianist on the age of 4 within the Philadelphia Academy of Music.

Dressed like a bit of Mozart, in a purple velvet swimsuit with collar and sleeves of lace, he appeared earlier than a big viewers. For encouragement, as he went out on the stage, he was given a gold piece. He had a raised stool and a specifically constructed pedal. He performed the primary three sonatinas by Clementi, however in the midst of the ‘Impromptu’ of Heller, his gold piece fell to the ground and rolled towards the footlights. In these days, there was no electrical energy. The footlights have been fuel flames. Little Ernest jumped from the stool and ran after his treasure. Stooping to choose it up, his lace sleeves caught hearth. The flames have been shortly snuffed out by the grasp of ceremonies, and Ernest, with full composure, returned to the piano and completed his program.

Schelling’s childhood consisted of infinite training and performing for the royalty of Europe. His academics included the Chopin pupil Georg Mathias, Isidor Philip, Moritz Moszkowski, Theodor Leschetizky and, from 1898 to 1900, Ignacy Jan Paderewski. Schelling toured Europe and the Americas within the years main as much as World Struggle I. Hearken to his 1916 Duo-Artwork recording of the Liszt Sonata, and also you’ll hear unbelievable tempos with absolute command.

Schelling printed one transcription, the Prelude to Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. The sophistication and ingenuity of the writing for the piano make it a perfect companion to Liszt’s well-known transcription of the tip of Tristan, the Liebestod. For instance, Wagner’s orchestra performs the measures under as melody with homophonic chords. Schelling captures its fluid nature with dreamlike arpeggios that alternate between triplets and quadruplets, at all times improvising their form.

You possibly can choose the creativity of the transcription in Paderewski’s 1930 recording:

Paderewski performs the Prelude to Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde,
transcribed for piano by Ernest Schelling.

Schelling’s compositions are characterised by comparable passagework. Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra premiered his most well-known work, A Victory Ball, which was recorded by Willem Mengelberg in New York and steadily carried out by John Philip Sousa and his band. His music was additionally programmed by a lot of the main conductors of the day, together with Max Fiedler, Felix Mottl, Karl Muck, Arthur Nikisch, Hans Richter and Frederick Inventory. His violin concerto was written for Fritz Kreisler and likewise performed by Efrem Zimbalist and Mischa Mischakoff. His music has fallen from favour, although.

All this was the background to probably the most impactful a part of his life. On the age of 48, he picked up the baton for the primary time with the intention to lead a brand new collection for the New York Philharmonic, Younger Individuals’s Live shows (YPCs). Schelling wasn’t the primary to conduct a youth live performance; that distinction went to Carl Barus and the Philharmonic Society of Cincinnati on July 4, 1858. Theodore Thomas, Walter Damrosch, Stokowski and others continued this custom in a half-dozen American cities, and philanthropist Robert Mayer introduced the apply to London.

Schelling’s collection was notable for its vitality and scale. From 1924 till his loss of life in 1939, Schelling carried out 295 YPCs with the New York Philharmonic. As well as, he established a collection and carried out 179 concert events with 13 different orchestras, together with Boston, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, Philadelphia, Baltimore and New Haven, in addition to Utrecht and Rotterdam in Holland. A lot as Bernstein broadcast YPCs on CBS Tv, Schelling carried out concert events for CBS Radio.

Schelling developed color slides to accompany his talks from the rostrum. An entertaining speaker, he might play the piano together with his again to the instrument or play a melody with an orange in hand. Applications of 75 to 90 minutes consisted of brief items, demonstration solos by musicians and an viewers sing-along with the orchestra. Following the live performance, college students stuffed out questions supplied in notebooks. Prizes have been awarded on the final live performance of every season for the very best notebooks.

“Uncle Ernest,” as Schelling was known as on the concert events, was usually recognised on the road by one of many 200,000 college students who in the end attended his packages. Paper airplanes or different disturbances have been uncommon on the concert events. Why was he in a position to talk with kids so nicely?

Thomas Hill, the writer of a 1970 doctoral dissertation on Schelling, wrote, “In later life, those that knew Ernest Schelling most intimately felt that his affinity for youngsters and the nice quantity of effort which he put into his concert events for them to the detriment of his profession as pianist and composer have been partially attributable to his barren childhood. He needed to be with kids and of service to them.”

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