Blacher, Boris
Several well-known composers have had unusual upringings.
Henk Badings was born and raised in Bandung, until at the age of ten he was orphaned and sent to the care of an unsympathetic uncle in the Low Countries.
Hans Pfitzner was born in Moscow where he spent his first two years.
John Fernström was born at Yi-Chang, not far from Wu-Han, and spent there most of his first ten years.
Olav Valen, as the son of missionaries, spent five years of his childhood in Madagascar.
As for Blacher, he was born in north-eastern China (Manchuria).
The year of his birth was 1903.
His parents were German-speakng Balts.
The place of his birth was New Chwang, now part of the large city of Ying-Kow. Chwang was originally established as one of the many Treaty Ports opened under the Treaty of Tian-Jin in 1858. After the treaty had been signed, the British found that the river near Chwang was too shallow for their ships, so instead, the treaty port was unilaterally moved to an area thirty miles downstream, and thus it gained the tag "New".
Manchuria had come under strong Russian influence with the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway through Harbin to Vladivostok. Then there were the Russo-Japanese war in 1904–1905 and the Russian revolution after 1917. I do not know how these events affected Blacher's childhood. He is said to have "spent his first years in China and in the Asian parts of Russia". I can find no details about which places, how many places, or when he was where.
His education: I really have not the faintest idea of how he was educated. He could have attended Russian-speaking schools, German-speaking schools English-speaking schools,
Japanese-speaking schools, Manchu-speaking schools or Mandarin-speaking schools.
In 1919, aged sixteen, he moved to Harbin, still in Manchuria but I do not know how far that is from where he was before. Presumably he was sent there to attend a better school.
Harbin, now a very large city, is popular with Hong Kong people, who go there in the winter to see the ice carvings and the snow.
After finishing school in 1922, aged nineteen, Blacher found his way to Germany proper for the first time, not a straightforward journey one would think, and remained there.
His mature compositions, mostly light and airy, include:
A symphony (1938)
Two piano concerti (1947, 1952)
A violin concerto (1948)
A viola concerto (1954)
A cello concerto (1964)
Five strimg quartets (1930, 1940, 1944, 1951, 1967)
Three piano sonatas (1943, 1943, 1951)
and a great deal else.
Several well-known composers have had unusual upringings.
Henk Badings was born and raised in Bandung, until at the age of ten he was orphaned and sent to the care of an unsympathetic uncle in the Low Countries.
Hans Pfitzner was born in Moscow where he spent his first two years.
John Fernström was born at Yi-Chang, not far from Wu-Han, and spent there most of his first ten years.
Olav Valen, as the son of missionaries, spent five years of his childhood in Madagascar.
As for Blacher, he was born in north-eastern China (Manchuria).
The year of his birth was 1903.
His parents were German-speakng Balts.
The place of his birth was New Chwang, now part of the large city of Ying-Kow. Chwang was originally established as one of the many Treaty Ports opened under the Treaty of Tian-Jin in 1858. After the treaty had been signed, the British found that the river near Chwang was too shallow for their ships, so instead, the treaty port was unilaterally moved to an area thirty miles downstream, and thus it gained the tag "New".
Manchuria had come under strong Russian influence with the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway through Harbin to Vladivostok. Then there were the Russo-Japanese war in 1904–1905 and the Russian revolution after 1917. I do not know how these events affected Blacher's childhood. He is said to have "spent his first years in China and in the Asian parts of Russia". I can find no details about which places, how many places, or when he was where.
His education: I really have not the faintest idea of how he was educated. He could have attended Russian-speaking schools, German-speaking schools English-speaking schools,
Japanese-speaking schools, Manchu-speaking schools or Mandarin-speaking schools.
In 1919, aged sixteen, he moved to Harbin, still in Manchuria but I do not know how far that is from where he was before. Presumably he was sent there to attend a better school.
Harbin, now a very large city, is popular with Hong Kong people, who go there in the winter to see the ice carvings and the snow.
After finishing school in 1922, aged nineteen, Blacher found his way to Germany proper for the first time, not a straightforward journey one would think, and remained there.
His mature compositions, mostly light and airy, include:
A symphony (1938)
Two piano concerti (1947, 1952)
A violin concerto (1948)
A viola concerto (1954)
A cello concerto (1964)
Five strimg quartets (1930, 1940, 1944, 1951, 1967)
Three piano sonatas (1943, 1943, 1951)
and a great deal else.
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