Oswald Henrique Oswald

Henrique José Pedro Maria Carlos Luis Oswald (April 14, 1852 – June 9, 1931) was a Brazilian composer and pianist.

Biography

Oswald was born in Rio de Janeiro. His father was a Swiss-German immigrant and his mother from Italy. The family name was changed from "Oschwald" due to concerns of discrimination. In 1854 the Oswald family moved to São Paulo. His mother taught music privately to aristocrats and by age twelve he had his first recital. In São Paulo, he also studied with Gabriel Guiraudon. His "farewell recital" occurred at age 16, after this he went to study in Europe.

He studied in Europe then spent several years in Florence. In 1902 he won a piano composition competition sponsored by Le Figaro with a piece Il neige!.. ('It snows'). He then left his family in Europe (they moved to Brazil much later) and from 1903 to 1906 directed the Instituto Nacional de Música in Rio de Janeiro. He also served as Brazilian consul in both The Hague and Genoa.

He died in 1931, just several days after his birthday festivities.

Works

Further information: List of compositions by Henrique Oswald

Oswald's best-known compositions today are numerous small pieces for piano (usually arranged by him into small collections). However, he was a prolific composer of chamber music: his list includes a violin sonata, 2 cello sonatas (Op. 21 and Op. 44), 3 piano trios, 2 piano quartets (Op. 5 and Op. 26), a piano quintet (Op. 18), 4 string quartets (Op. 16, Op. 17, Op. 39, Op. 46) and a string octet. For orchestra he wrote a suite, a sinfonietta and a symphony. There are also two concertos by him, one for piano, another for violin. Concerning vocal music, he composed three operas (La Croce d’oro, Il Neo and Le Fate), a mass and a requiem. By the time of his death, his major works remained unpublished, a fact that contributed much to the neglect of his for half a century.

His work fell into disfavor after the "Semana de Arte Moderna" manifesto, but has experienced something of a revival recently. In late 1970s Brazilian musician José Eduardo Martins began his struggle to revive Oswald's output. In the last 30 years he published some compositions of him and recorded many of his major works along with piano miniatures. Among his recordings is Oswald's Piano Concerto in an originally arranged chamber version (piano with string quintet). Another Oswald pioneer is pianist Eduardo Monteiro, whose thesis was dedicated to this composer. He recorded some works of him, most notably the Andante and Variations for piano and orchestra in a performing version prepared by the pianist himself. In Europe Oswald is known much less. A CD of his piano works was issued in 1995 by Marco Polo. It was followed in 2014 and 2015 by a Naxos and a Grand Piano CDs. His Piano Concerto was recorded for Hyperion's Romantic Piano Concerto series (Vol. 64, paired with one by Alfredo Napoleão). A good part of Oswald's chamber music was collected in one CD set for the first time by ArsBrasil ensemble.