Historical Events of April 8
8 April
** 1879 – birth of Robert Haven Schauffler (Brno, then the Austro-Hungarian Empire) d.1964
An American based writer, cellist, athlete …. and war hero! He published biographies of Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann, poetry, and a series of books celebrating American holidays (aimed at Americans contemplating a holiday, either at home or abroad).
Towards the end of the First World War, he joined the large American Expeditionary Force who were fighting on the Western Front. His efforts, along with thousands of his comrades, helped to bring about the end of the war and he was wounded, winning the Purple Star. Schauffler was a musician before becoming a writer and he studied the cello under the tutelage of a number of notable musicians.
** 1892 - Alwin Schroeder gave an important cello recital at Bumstead Hall (Atlanta, USA) in his first season in America, playing a dense programme with German works by Reinecke, Sitt and Klengel with Nikisch at piano, and the Busoni Kulsatelle variations (10 short variations on a Finnish folk-song, likely a U.S. premiere) with the composer as pianist. The programmed opened with the Brahms Second Cello Sonata in F Major, Op.99 – this was Schroeder's first Boston cello recital, and the Brahms was a Boston premiere, and possibly even the first performance of the work in the US. In spite of warm words from the Boston Musical Herald "...a work which, especially when so splendidly interpreted, needs no second hearing to be appreciated, rich, noble, melodious" there is no evidence that Schroeder ever played the work again, and neither the Busoni!
** 1922 – cellist Emanuel Feuermann performed in a recording session the Chopin Nocturne in Eb Major (again!) and the cellist's own arrangement of Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen where he played the first half only.
** 1956 - Ernest Bloch starts writing his Suite for Solo Cello No.2
** 1968 - first performance of Bernd Alois Zimmermann - Cello Concerto
soloist - Siegfried Palm / Sinfonieorchester des SWF, conducted by Ernest Bour (Strasbourg, France)
** 1969 - birth of Richard Bamping (Manchester, England)
cellist, orchestral principal cello in Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra & London Soloists’ Chamber Orchestra
** 1978 – on the 6th, 7th, 8th and 11th of this month, cellist Lorne Munroe performed as invited soloist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Jochum), in the Avery Fisher Hall (New York)
** 1979 - in a chamber music concert at the Banbury and District Musical Society (Deddington Church, England) the Richard Hickox Orchestra performed with invited cello soloist Julian Lloyd Webber.
** 1991 – premiere recording of Lyell Cresswell’s Cello Concerto (written 1984), featuring cello soloist Roman Jablonski, with the CSR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Bernas. The orchestra also recorded vocal soloist works on the recording dates, which started 8th April and finished the 13th April of 1991.
