Emil von Sauer plays Chopin Etude in C minor op 25 "Ocean" (1940)

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Emil von Sauer plays Chopin Etude in C minor op 25 "Ocean" (1940)

Sauer was born in Hamburg, Germany on 8 October 1862 as Emil Georg Conrad Sauer. He studied with Nikolai Rubinstein at the Moscow Conservatory between 1879 and 1881. On an 1884 visit to Italy he met the Countess von Sayn-Wittgenstein, who recommended him to her former paramour, Franz Liszt. He went on to study with Liszt for two years, but did not for some time consider himself a Liszt pupil. In an 1895 interview, he even denied it: "It is not correct to regard me as a pupil of Liszt, though I stayed with him for a few months. He was then very old, and could not teach me much. My chief teacher has been, undoubtedly, Nicholas Rubinstein." In his later years, however, Sauer realized the influence of Liszt on himself and on music in general.

From 1882 Sauer made frequent and successful tours as a virtuoso pianist; his performing career lasted until 1940. He premiered in London in 1894 and New York in 1899. In 1901 he was appointed head of the Meisterschule für Klavierspiel at the Vienna Academy. Sauer left this post in April 1907 but returned to it in 1915. Some of his pupils continued on to successful concert or other significant music career.

In 1917, Sauer was raised to the peerage by the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, which added the nobiliary particle "von" to his name. He was also awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society of London.

Emil von Sauer was married twice. Angelica Morales (Sauer), his second wife, carried on his legacy in teaching. Sauer had two sons with Morales — Julio and Franz.

He died in Vienna, Austria on 27 April 1942, aged 79.

Sauer’s playing was elegant and polished, aristocratic, refined and beautiful. He possessed a great dignity and taste that infused all his recordings. His first discs were made in Spain around 1923 for Regal and include Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12. When he had played this work to Liszt at their first meeting, the composer was delighted and Sauer received a kiss on the forehead. An abridged Carnaval Op. 9 of Schumann gives us the rare opportunity of hearing Sauer in an extended work, whilst his exquisite tone quality is heard in Liszt’s transcription of Mendelssohn’s Auf Flügeln des Gesanges. Recordings made for the German Vox company around 1925 are again all of the highest quality, particularly Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 15. The extraordinary fact is that not only did Sauer have the technique to play anything, he retained this technique right to the end of his career; he was already sixty when his first discs were made. If La Campanella of Liszt sounds slow by today’s standards one should remember what Sauer said concerning this: ‘You should have heard how Liszt played Campanella: with what generosity he attacked the octave passages… and with what refinement he played the bell. How different appear to me the Campanellas that I hear today, which always seem to aim at breaking speed records.’ Although evident in the acoustic discs, the electrical Odéon recordings from 1928 allow us for the first time to accurately hear Sauer’s glorious tone. The middle section of Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu Op. 66 is ample evidence of this, whilst Chopin’s Waltz Op. 42 and his own Concert Étude Espenlaub are given exemplary performances. The six sides he made for Pathé around 1930 include his own arrangement of the Scherzo from Mendelssohn’s music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a glorious Chopin Étude Op. 25 No. 7. Between 1938 and 1941 Sauer recorded for Columbia. Both Liszt piano concertos are given stately, noble readings conducted by Weingartner; some Chopin études and a couple of Schubert’s Moments Musicaux are all extremely fine, but the last disc he made in 1941 at the age of seventy-nine is one of the glories of the gramophone. It is of Liszt’s Étude d’exécution transcendante No. 9 Ricordanza. A daunting work to play effectively at any age, Sauer’s lifetime of experience seems distilled into this performance. Poetry, elegance, poise, expression are all here. As the great pianist Josef Hofmann once said, ‘Sauer was a truly great virtuoso.’

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