Talk:Wilhelm Backhaus

Original Research

The section on Backhaus' recordings seems an uneasy blend of the useful and objectionable. The notable recordings and a general description of the characteristics of Backhaus' playing seem worthy of inclusion, but personal reviews of his recordings, without any sort of substantiation, do not. I don't want to purge the section ruthlessly; does anyone have any critical reviews that would be of use in salvaging this section? Alexrexpvt (talk) 21:51, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Heart attack on stage

Some webpages mention that he had a heart attack on stage during that last recital in Ossiach, and that's why he stopped Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 18 and played only three miniatures as a farewell to his public. Isn't that true? Can we verify it with impartial sources? Because it's a great story. --Leonardo T. Oliveira (talk) 23:18, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

The, or a, Backhaus recording of the Brahms Op39 waltzes (he recorded a number of individual waltzes at different times) is said by Arych Oron (who gives a date of 1939 on the Bach Cantatas website) to run for 17 not 13 minutes. The Music and Arts transfer of the the EMI 1936 recoding does, according to the notes, run for 13 mins and 10 seconds. But surely this information is irrelevant. What might be more relevant is that Backhaus was, in two groups of sessions in 1932 and 1936, the first pianist to record as a connected project, a series of selected smaller Brahms piano works to form a rounded picture of the composer's work in the genre, a recording format not originated in the decade, but previously employed almost exclusively for the works of Beethoven in his centenary year of 1927.

Delahays (talk) 18:23, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Delahays, I agree that it is peculiar to mention the duration of a recording. I added some of the context you provided. Not finding a source for the unusual format of his early Brahms recital-like recordings, I just entered the simple fact that they were made. David Couch (talk) 23:49, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Piano Roll Recordings

One should not forget that the youthful Backhaus recorded well over 120 perforated music rolls, particularly for the firm of Ludwig Hupfeld, located in the pianist's home city of Leipzig. By the time of the September 1912 roll catalogue for Hupfeld's Claviola (the name used in the English-speaking world for the firm's 73-note Phonola), Backhaus's rolls included just over ten complete concerto recordings, namely Beethoven 3 and 5, Sterndale Bennett 4, Grieg (both complete and solo-part-only versions), Mendelssohn 1 and 2, Reinecke, Rubinstein 4, Tchaikovsky 1, and the Weber Konzertstück. There was also a roll of the Allegro Scherzando from the Second Concerto by Camille Saint-Saëns.

It is possible to date Backhaus's roll recordings. but only up to a point, since his contracts and dated fee receipts are not to be found in the Hupfeld papers at the Saxon State Archive, unlike those of many other pianists who recorded for the company. Hupfeld's recording programme, initially for its 73-note Phonola rolls, began with music played by the Liszt pupil, Alfred Reisenauer, whose contract was dated 6 June 1905. The roll numbers and surviving fee receipts are a clue to the dates of the rolls, but it is not quite that simple. At the start, the initial pianists were allocated batches of 50 roll numbers, beginning at 12001, which was assigned to Reisenauer. Harold Bauer began at 12051, Backhaus at 12101, Arthur Friedheim at 12151, and so on. Friedheim's first fee receipt is dated and signed by him on 5 October 1905, which tends to imply that Backhaus's earliest recordings began somewhere between Reisenauer's and Friedheim's, meaning the period between early June and early October 1905.

Backhaus's full version of the Grieg Concerto appeared on rolls 12124 to 12126, and, given that he was such a prolific pianist, 26 rolls in one day's recording session would have been quite feasible, and in any case false notes could easily have been edited out by hand, which would have saved time. So the most likely date of this first-ever recording of the Grieg Concerto is the autumn of 1905, which places it four years before Backhaus's abridged acoustic version.

The relevant roll catalogue is entitled: 73 - Hupfeld - Music Rolls - General Catalogue - Claviola - September 1912, published (for the English-speaking market) by Ludwig Hupfeld Aktiengesellschaft and printed by Breitkopf and Härtel (both in Leipzig).

I'd be very grateful for advice on how to add the necessary footnotes.Pianola (talk) 22:44, 25 May 2025 (UTC)