Pancho Vladigerov
Encyclopedia
Pancho Haralanov Vladigerov ˈpantʃo xaraˈɫaŋov vɫadiˈɡɛr̩ov (or Wladigeroff, or Vladiguerov, or Vladigueroff; ) (13 March 18998 September 1978) was a Bulgaria
n composer
, pedagogue, and pianist
.
Vladigerov is arguably the most influential Bulgarian composer of all time. He was one of the first to successfully combine idioms of Bulgarian folk music and the West European art music tradition. Part of the so-called second generation of Bulgarian composers, he was among the founding members of the Bulgarian Contemporary Music Society (1933), which later became the Union of Bulgarian Composers. Vladigerov marked the beginning of a number of genres in Bulgarian music, including the violin sonata and the piano trio. He was also a very respected pedagogue; his students include practically all notable Bulgarian composers of the next generation, as well as the pianist Alexis Weissenberg
.
, Switzerland
, but lived in Shumen
. His mother Dr. Eliza Pasternak was a Russian Jew and a relative of the famous writer Boris Pasternak
. His father Dr. Haralan Vladigerov was a Bulgarian lawyer. Pancho Vladigerov played the piano and composed since early age. In 1910, two years after his father's early death, Vladigerov and the rest of his family moved to Sofia where Pancho started studying composition with Dobri Hristov
, the most distinguished Bulgarian composer of his generation.
Pancho's maternal grandfather, Leon Pasternak, a Russian Jew who left Odessa and settled in Zurich a few years before Pancho's birth, was a very influential figure on Pancho's musical developement and later success. The grandfather, a mathematician by profession, champion chess player, and an amateur musician and composer, used to play the violin with Pancho and his twin brother. Based on a Jewish tune his grandfather thought him, Vladigerov composed in 1950 his great symophony, the "Jewish Poem", Opus 47. This symphony received in 1952 the highest honor given by the Bulgarian Government to an artist,
the Dimitrov Prize, and earned him the admiration of his fellow musicians:
"A work like this is written only once in a hundred years."
Dmitri Shostakovich
exclaimed.
In 1912 Vladigerov's mother managed to obtain a governmental scholarship for her children to study in Berlin
where Pancho and his twin brother, the violinist Luben Vladigerov, were enrolled at the Staatliche Akademische Hochschule für Musik
(now part of the Berlin University of the Arts
), which was under the auspices of the Academy of Arts
. Pancho Vladigerov studied music theory and composition with Paul Juon
and piano with Karl Heinrich Barth
. In 1920 he graduated from the Academy after having studied piano also with Leonid Kreutzer
, composition with Friedrich Gernsheim
and Georg Schumann
. He twice won the Mendelssohn Prize
of the Academy (in 1918 and 1920).
After his graduation Vladigerov became music director at Deutsches Theater
in Berlin and worked with the famous theatre director Max Reinhardt
. In 1932, after much hesitation, he decided to return to Sofia where he was appointed professor in Piano, Chamber Music and Composition at the State Academy of Music, which is now named after him.
Vladigerov composed in a variety of genres including an opera (Tsar Kaloyan, to a libretto by Nikolai Liliev and Fani Popova-Mutafova), ballet, symphonic music, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, chamber music including string quartet, trio (violin, cello and piano), works and transcriptions for violin and piano and numerous opuses for solo piano, 38 transcriptions of instrumental pieces for instrument and piano, 13 late transcriptions of his earlier works for two pianos, fifty folksong concert arrangements for voice and piano/orchestra, 20 songs for voice and piano, ten choral songs with piano/orchestra, incidental music
for the performances of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna
, and the National Theatre in Sofia.
Vladigerov gained considerable fame in Europe in the 1920s when many of his pieces were published by Universal Edition
in Vienna and released on LPs by the German recording company Deutsche Grammophon
before being performed throughout Europe and the USA. As pianist and composer he toured most of the European countries performing mainly his own works. In 1969 he was awarded the Herder Prize
by the University of Vienna
. The Bulgarian recording company Balkanton released an edition of his stage and symphony music in four sets of seven LPs each; however, very small portion of his works is currently available on CDs.
Vladigerov's music has been admired by such diverse personalities as Richard Strauss
, Dmitri Shostakovich
, and Aram Khachaturian
. It has been performed by artists such as Alexis Weissenberg
, David Oistrakh
, Emil Gilels
and, most recently, Marc-André Hamelin
; however, he still remains a largely unknown name except in his home country.
Vladigerov's most performed and emblematic work is unquestionably Vardar Rhapsody, also known as Bulgarian Rhapsody. Originally written for violin and piano, it was later orchestrated and arranged for various instruments. A fiery patriotic work, it has become, in the words of an admiring critic "the Bulgarian equivalent of Chopin
's Polonaise in A Major".
Pancho Vladigerov died in 1978 in Sofia
. His house at No. 10, Yakubitsa, has been transformed into a museum. His son Alexander Vladigerov (1933–1993) and grandchildren Pancho Vladigerov Jr., Alexander Wladigeroff, and Konstantin Wladigeroff have become respected musicians in their own right.
An international music competition held in Shumen
since 1986 is named after Vladigerov. In the autumn of 2006 Pancho Vladigerov Jr. founded The Intellectual Legacy of Pancho Vladigerov Foundation. Its main aim is to preserve, protect and popularise Pancho Vladigerov's tangible and intangible heritage.
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
n composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, pedagogue, and pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
.
Vladigerov is arguably the most influential Bulgarian composer of all time. He was one of the first to successfully combine idioms of Bulgarian folk music and the West European art music tradition. Part of the so-called second generation of Bulgarian composers, he was among the founding members of the Bulgarian Contemporary Music Society (1933), which later became the Union of Bulgarian Composers. Vladigerov marked the beginning of a number of genres in Bulgarian music, including the violin sonata and the piano trio. He was also a very respected pedagogue; his students include practically all notable Bulgarian composers of the next generation, as well as the pianist Alexis Weissenberg
Alexis Weissenberg
-Early life and career:Born into a Jewish family in Sofia, Weissenberg began taking piano lessons at the age of three from Pancho Vladigerov. He gave his first public performance at the age of eight. After escaping to what was then Palestine in 1945, where he studied under Leo Kestenberg, he went...
.
Biography
Vladigerov was born in ZürichZürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, but lived in Shumen
Shumen
Shumen is the tenth-largest city in Bulgaria and capital of Shumen Province. In the period 1950–1965 it was called Kolarovgrad, after the name of the communist leader Vasil Kolarov...
. His mother Dr. Eliza Pasternak was a Russian Jew and a relative of the famous writer Boris Pasternak
Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian language poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russia, Pasternak's anthology My Sister Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language...
. His father Dr. Haralan Vladigerov was a Bulgarian lawyer. Pancho Vladigerov played the piano and composed since early age. In 1910, two years after his father's early death, Vladigerov and the rest of his family moved to Sofia where Pancho started studying composition with Dobri Hristov
Dobri Hristov
Dobri Hristov was one of the major Bulgarian composers of the 20th century. He wrote mainly choral music, as well as some church music and music for the orchestra....
, the most distinguished Bulgarian composer of his generation.
Pancho's maternal grandfather, Leon Pasternak, a Russian Jew who left Odessa and settled in Zurich a few years before Pancho's birth, was a very influential figure on Pancho's musical developement and later success. The grandfather, a mathematician by profession, champion chess player, and an amateur musician and composer, used to play the violin with Pancho and his twin brother. Based on a Jewish tune his grandfather thought him, Vladigerov composed in 1950 his great symophony, the "Jewish Poem", Opus 47. This symphony received in 1952 the highest honor given by the Bulgarian Government to an artist,
the Dimitrov Prize, and earned him the admiration of his fellow musicians:
"A work like this is written only once in a hundred years."
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
exclaimed.
In 1912 Vladigerov's mother managed to obtain a governmental scholarship for her children to study in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
where Pancho and his twin brother, the violinist Luben Vladigerov, were enrolled at the Staatliche Akademische Hochschule für Musik
(now part of the Berlin University of the Arts
Berlin University of the Arts
The Universität der Künste Berlin, UdK is a public art school in Berlin, Germany, one of the four universities in the city...
), which was under the auspices of the Academy of Arts
Akademie der Künste
The Akademie der Künste, Berlin is an arts institution in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in 1696 by Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg as the Prussian Academy of Arts, an academic institution where members could meet and discuss and share ideas...
. Pancho Vladigerov studied music theory and composition with Paul Juon
Paul Juon
Paul Juon was a Germanised Russian composerHe was born in Moscow, where his father was an insurance official. His mother was German, and he went to a German school in Moscow. He entered the Moscow Conservatory in 1889, where he studied violin with Jan Hřímalý and composition with Anton Arensky...
and piano with Karl Heinrich Barth
Karl Heinrich Barth
Karl Heinrich Barth was a noted German pianist and pedagogue.-Biography:He was born in Pillau, East Prussia . His teachers included Hans von Bülow, Hans von Bronsart and Carl Tausig. All three were leading musicians of the era and had close associations with Franz Liszt...
. In 1920 he graduated from the Academy after having studied piano also with Leonid Kreutzer
Leonid Kreutzer
Leonid Kreutzer was a classical pianist.Kreutzer was born to a family of German Jewish parents. He was a highly influential piano teacher at the Berlin Academy of Music , together with Egon Petri...
, composition with Friedrich Gernsheim
Friedrich Gernsheim
Friedrich Gernsheim was a German composer, conductor and pianist.Gernsheim was born in Worms. He was given his first musical training at home under his mother's care, then starting from the age of seven under Worms' musical director, Louis Liebe, a former pupil of Louis Spohr...
and Georg Schumann
Georg Schumann (composer)
Georg Alfred Schumann was a German composer and director of the Berlin Singakademie.-Biography:Schumann was born at Königstein, Germany, October 25, 1866. He was the son of Clemens Schumann and the older brother of Camillo Schumann...
. He twice won the Mendelssohn Prize
Mendelssohn Scholarship
The Mendelssohn Scholarship refers to two scholarships awarded in Germany and in the United Kingdom. Both commemorate the composer, Felix Mendelssohn, and are awarded to promising young musicians to enable them to continue their development.-History:...
of the Academy (in 1918 and 1920).
After his graduation Vladigerov became music director at Deutsches Theater
Deutsches Theater
The Deutsches Theater in Berlin is a well-known German theatre. It was built in 1850 as Friedrich-Wilhelm-Städtisches Theater, after Frederick William IV of Prussia. Located on Schumann Street , the Deutsches Theater consists of two adjoining stages that share a common, classical facade...
in Berlin and worked with the famous theatre director Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt
----Max Reinhardt was an Austrian theater and film director and actor.-Biography:...
. In 1932, after much hesitation, he decided to return to Sofia where he was appointed professor in Piano, Chamber Music and Composition at the State Academy of Music, which is now named after him.
Vladigerov composed in a variety of genres including an opera (Tsar Kaloyan, to a libretto by Nikolai Liliev and Fani Popova-Mutafova), ballet, symphonic music, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, chamber music including string quartet, trio (violin, cello and piano), works and transcriptions for violin and piano and numerous opuses for solo piano, 38 transcriptions of instrumental pieces for instrument and piano, 13 late transcriptions of his earlier works for two pianos, fifty folksong concert arrangements for voice and piano/orchestra, 20 songs for voice and piano, ten choral songs with piano/orchestra, incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
for the performances of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, and the National Theatre in Sofia.
Vladigerov gained considerable fame in Europe in the 1920s when many of his pieces were published by Universal Edition
Universal Edition
Universal Edition is a classical music publishing firm. Founded in 1901 in Vienna, and originally intended to provide the core classical works and educational works to the Austrian market...
in Vienna and released on LPs by the German recording company Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
before being performed throughout Europe and the USA. As pianist and composer he toured most of the European countries performing mainly his own works. In 1969 he was awarded the Herder Prize
Herder Prize
The Herder Prize, established in 1963 and named for Johann Gottfried von Herder, was a prestigious international prize dedicated to the promotion of scientific, art and literature relations, and presented to scholars and artists from Central and Southeastern Europe whose life and work have improved...
by the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
. The Bulgarian recording company Balkanton released an edition of his stage and symphony music in four sets of seven LPs each; however, very small portion of his works is currently available on CDs.
Vladigerov's music has been admired by such diverse personalities as Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
, and Aram Khachaturian
Aram Khachaturian
Aram Ilyich Khachaturian was a prominent Soviet composer. Khachaturian's works were often influenced by classical Russian music and Armenian folk music...
. It has been performed by artists such as Alexis Weissenberg
Alexis Weissenberg
-Early life and career:Born into a Jewish family in Sofia, Weissenberg began taking piano lessons at the age of three from Pancho Vladigerov. He gave his first public performance at the age of eight. After escaping to what was then Palestine in 1945, where he studied under Leo Kestenberg, he went...
, David Oistrakh
David Oistrakh
David Fyodorovich Oistrakh , , David Fiodorović Ojstrakh, ; – October 24, 1974, was a Soviet violinist....
, Emil Gilels
Emil Gilels
Emil Grigoryevich Gilels was a Soviet pianist, widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.His last name is sometimes transliterated Hilels.-Biography:...
and, most recently, Marc-André Hamelin
Marc-André Hamelin
Marc-André Hamelin, OC, CQ, is a French Canadian virtuoso pianist and composer.Born in Montreal, Quebec, Marc-André Hamelin began his piano studies at the age of five. His father, a pharmacist by trade who was also a pianist, introduced him to the works of Alkan, Godowsky, and Sorabji when he was...
; however, he still remains a largely unknown name except in his home country.
Vladigerov's most performed and emblematic work is unquestionably Vardar Rhapsody, also known as Bulgarian Rhapsody. Originally written for violin and piano, it was later orchestrated and arranged for various instruments. A fiery patriotic work, it has become, in the words of an admiring critic "the Bulgarian equivalent of Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
's Polonaise in A Major".
Pancho Vladigerov died in 1978 in Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
. His house at No. 10, Yakubitsa, has been transformed into a museum. His son Alexander Vladigerov (1933–1993) and grandchildren Pancho Vladigerov Jr., Alexander Wladigeroff, and Konstantin Wladigeroff have become respected musicians in their own right.
An international music competition held in Shumen
Shumen
Shumen is the tenth-largest city in Bulgaria and capital of Shumen Province. In the period 1950–1965 it was called Kolarovgrad, after the name of the communist leader Vasil Kolarov...
since 1986 is named after Vladigerov. In the autumn of 2006 Pancho Vladigerov Jr. founded The Intellectual Legacy of Pancho Vladigerov Foundation. Its main aim is to preserve, protect and popularise Pancho Vladigerov's tangible and intangible heritage.
External links
- Pantcho, Pantscho or Pancho - spelling suggestions invoked out of his archives.
- A biography of Pancho Vladigerov (including work list and selected bibliography) at the Union of Bulgarian Composers website
Recent Recordings
- Yana Burova and Veselina Tchakarova - Rhapsody Vardar and Chant, GegaNew - 2006
- Colours of Bulgaria: Piano Pieces by Pancho Vladigerov - Dimiter Terziev, Arktos Recordings 2000, MP3 Version 2008
- Pancho Vladigerov: Bulgarian Rhapsody Vardar, Traumspielsuite, Bulgarian Dances - Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Horia Andreescu,Classic Produktion Osnabrück [CPO] Records 2007
- Pancho Vladigerov: Chamber Music - Rudolf Leopold, Endre Hegedus, Katalin Hegedus, Raluca Stirbat, Édua Amarilla Zádory, Hungaroton 2006
- Bulgarian Impressions: Vladigerov - Complete Works for Piano Duo - Genova/Dimitrov, CPO Records 2000
- Pancho Vladigerov: Compositions - Bulgarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Alexander Vladigerov, Gega Records 1999
- The Legacy of Pantcho Vladigerov - Krassimira Jordan, pianist, Albany Records 1998