Vladimir von Pachmann or Pachman (27 July 18486 January 1933) was a 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:...

 of Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n-German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 ethnicity, especially noted for performing the works 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"....

, and also for his eccentric on-stage style.

Biography

Pachmann was born in Odessa

Odessa

Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 as Vladimir Pachmann. The von

Von

In German, von is a preposition which approximately means of or from.When it is used as a part of a German family name, it is usually a nobiliary particle, like the French, Spanish and Portuguese "de". At certain times and places, it has been illegal for anyone who was not a member of the nobility...

or later de as a nobiliary particle

Nobiliary particle

A nobiliary particle is used in a family name or surname in many Western cultures to signal the nobility of a family. The particle used varies depending on the country, language and period of time. This article is dedicated to explain how noble families of different countries identify themselves by...

 was most probably added to his name by himself. Three of his brothers serving as officers in the Imperial Russian Army did not use the particle, as might be expected.

His father was a professor at the University of Odessa and a celebrated amateur violinist who had met Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

, Weber

Carl Maria von Weber

Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....

 and other notable composers 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...

. He was his son's only teacher until he turned 18, at which time he went to Vienna to study music at the Vienna Conservatory, studying piano with Josef Dachs

Josef Dachs

Josef Dachs was an Austrian pianist and music teacher.He received his music education by Simon Sechter and Carl Czerny. He worked as a concert pianist and premiered many works....

 (a pupil of Carl Tausig

Carl Tausig

Carl Tausig was a Polish virtuoso pianist, arranger and composer.-Life:Tausig was born in Warsaw to Jewish parents and received his first piano lessons from his father, pianist and composer Aloys Tausig, a student of Sigismond Thalberg. His father introduced him to Franz Liszt in Weimar at the...

) and theory with Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner

Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...

. He gained the Conservatory's Gold Medal and made his concert debut in Odessa in 1869, but until 1882 he only appeared in public infrequently, spending his time in further study. He then toured throughout Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and was acclaimed as a top player of his era. His programmes consisted almost exclusively of the works 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"....

, with only an occasional movement by Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

, Scarlatti

Domenico Scarlatti

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He is classified as a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical style...

, Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

 or Henselt

Adolf von Henselt

Adolf von Henselt was a German composer and pianist.-Life:Henselt was born at Schwabach, in Bavaria. At the age of three he began to learn the violin, and at five the piano under Frau von Fladt...

.

In Denmark he was appointed a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog

Order of the Dannebrog

The Order of the Dannebrog is an Order of Denmark, instituted in 1671 by Christian V. It resulted from a move in 1660 to break the absolutism of the nobility. The Order was only to comprise 50 noble Knights in one class plus the Master of the Order, i.e. the Danish monarch, and his sons...

.

Pachmann was one of the earliest to make recordings of his work, beginning in 1906 with recordings for the Welte-Mignon

Welte-Mignon

M. Welte & Sons, Freiburg and New York was a manufacturer of orchestrions, organs and reproducing pianos, established in Vöhrenbach by Michael Welte in 1832.-Overview:...

 reproducing piano and in 1907 for the gramophone

Phonograph

The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...

.

He was also famous for gestures, muttering, and addressing the audience during his performance; the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica judiciously characterized it as the "playfulness of his platform manner", while critic James Huneker

James Huneker

James Gibbons Huneker was an American music writer and critic.Huneker was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano in Europe under Leopold Doutreleau and audited the Paris piano class of Frédéric Chopin's pupil Georges Mathias. He came to New York City in 1885 and remained there...

 called him the "Chopinzee", and George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

 reported that he "gave his well-known pantomimic performance, with accompaniments by Chopin."

In April 1884 Pachmann married the Australian-born British pianist Maggie Okey (Annie Louisa Margaret Okey, 1865-1952), who was later known as Marguérite de Pachmann. They did concert tours of Europe together and had three sons - Victor, who died in infancy, Adriano and Leonide (called Lionel). The marriage ended after seven years.

Vladimir de Pachmann died in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 in 1933, aged 84.

Further reading

• Mark Mitchell, Vladimir de Pachmann: A Piano Virtuoso's Life and Art (Indiana University Press, 2002) ISBN 0-253-34169-8. This book has been withdrawn by Indiana University Press and the remaining copies destroyed because it "does not sufficiently acknowledge the intellectual debt it owes to Mr. [Edward] Blickstein's prior labors" http://www.library.gsu.edu/news/index.asp?view=details&ID=12563&typeID=62.
• Francesco Pallotelli: Vladimiro de Pachmann. Rom: Novissima, 1916

External links

• Extensive collection of links to online material relating to Pachmann
• Allan Evans Three essays on Pachmann (1996, 1997)

• Arthur Symons ed Ates Orga Pachmann and the Piano (1903, 2000)

Recordings

• Piano Rolls
• The Welte-Mignon mystery, 4. Dead or alive. Stuttgart: Tacet, 2006.