Ernst Ludwig
18??-1915
Documents associated with this person:
Distinguished Viennese piano teacher, professor in the Ausbildungsklasse for piano at the Vienna Conservatory (= Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst) from 1883 to 1914. His address in 1905 was Vienna III, Streichergasse 3.
Ludwig and Schenker
Schenker studied piano with him at the Conservatory in the years 1887/88, 1888/89, and part of 1889/90. Schenker had much for which to thank him, as his encomium (diary, March 14, 1915) makes clear: The fortunate circumstances of his life were in part also fortunate circumstances of my own. Originally wealthy, inclined toward education and indeed an educated man himself, in contrast to other musicians and others he had the leisure and will to take me under his wing when I entered the Conservatory on an imperial scholarship. It was he who paid attention to my compositions, introduced me to [Julius] Epstein (who from time to time provided me with financial support), in short, it was he who within his circle actually provided me with my first better-paying pupils. He passed the Eisslers over to me, introduced me many years later also to [Irene] Graedener, whose son I was to teach. -- On this day of his death, I cannot shake from my mind the thought, paradoxical as it may seem, that Ludwig would have been far more fortunate in life if, when making recommendations, instead of teachers such as Jadassohn and Graedener he had chosen me to lead [people] to art! But how is one to dictate to Nature, which has decreed the ordering of generations in one immutable way, that something go in precisely the opposite direction! By the time my Harmonielehre and Kontrapunkt came out, it was far too late for him to enjoy the blessing of the truth.
Schenker arranged for Ludwig to receive complimentary copies of his arrangement of Handel organ concertos from UE in 1905 (OC 52/17) and Harmonielehre from Cotta in 1906 (OJ 1/5, p. 27), but not of Kontrapunkt or other publications.
Correspondence with Schenker
Only one calling card (undated) from Ludwig to Schenker is known to survive (OJ 12/45).
Sources:
- Federhofer, Hellmut, Heinrich Schenker nach Tagebüchern und Briefen ... (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1985), pp. 5-7
- Tittel, Ernst, Die Wiener Musikhochschule ... (Vienna: Lafite, 1967)