Charles Huerter: From the Olden Times
Phillip Sear plays a pastiche classical minuet from 1919 by the American composer Charles Huerter (1885-1974).
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I usually write my own short biographies of composers I play, but Syracuse Library have done such an excellent job here: http://bit.ly/1mmkYIk - that I shall take the liberty of quoting it verbatim:
"Charles Joseph Huerter (1885-1974), composer, pianist, and teacher, was born in Brooklyn, New York. After receiving piano instruction from his father and completing his secondary education in New York City and Geneva, New York, he entered Syracuse University, where he studied piano under Joseph C. Seiter and Adolf Frey and composition with William Berwald. He continued his musical studies at the Royal Academy at Charlottenburg in Berlin with composer Paul Juon. Also in Europe he studied piano with Karl Heymann.
As a composer he wrote some two thousand works, including piano pieces and exercises, songs, and compositions for violin, violoncello, solo performers, choral groups, and orchestra. Using his own texts for many of his songs and choral works, he had more than 700 published titles. His songs were used in the motion pictures"The Sea Hawk," the original version of "The Jazz Singer," and the original "Beau Geste."
A fifty-six-year resident of Syracuse, New York, for many years he taught piano and composition there and early in his career served as an organist and choirmaster.
This piece reminds me somewhat of the theme from the rejected final movement of Beethoven's 1793 Wind Octet in E flat used by Fritz Kreisler for his 'Rondino on a theme of Beethoven'.
My thumbnail shows a detail from 'A Rococo Interior with Gentlemen Playing Chess' by Eugène Fichel (1826-95).
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Played by Phillip Sear
http://www.psear.co.uk (Email: [email protected]
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