Selmar Janson

Selmar Janson was born in eastern Prussia[http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth147862/m1/2/ Brownville Daily Herald, 28 November 1908] in 1881, the son of Herman Janson. He began to play the piano at age 4, and gave his first concert in Berlin at age 8.[http://mtr.arcade-museum.com/MTR-1907-44-22/MTR-1907-44-22-24.pdf The Music Trade Review, c. 1907]

His teachers included Sally Liebling, Eugen d'Albert, Xaver Scharwenka, Hans Pfitzner and Philipp Rüfer (1844–1919).[http://tera-3.ul.cs.cmu.edu/NASD/4dcb85c3-9fee-4c83-9e6d-fe6ce5522b59/China/disk2/20050331-070/31006459/HTML/00000013.htm Bulletin of the Carnegie Institute of Technology] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304023435/http://tera-3.ul.cs.cmu.edu/NASD/4dcb85c3-9fee-4c83-9e6d-fe6ce5522b59/China/disk2/20050331-070/31006459/HTML/00000013.htm |date=2016-03-04 }}[https://books.google.com/books?id=_O9SSZk7SVUC&dq=selmar+janson&pg=PA60 Rembert G. Weakland, A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop]

He toured Germany with great success, and repeated this in many concerts after coming to the United States. In a notice in the Brownsville Daily Herald (Brownsville, Texas) of 21 November 1908, Janson, whose visit there was under negotiation, was described (perhaps somewhat hyperbolically) as "one of the most famous pianists and composers in the world today, being classed in the same rank with Paderewski and Joseph Hoffmann". At that time he was described as a German pianist.[http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth147856/m1/6/ The Portal to Texas History]

That same year he became the head of a music school in Wichita, Kansas, at age 26.[http://mtr.arcade-museum.com/MTR-1908-46-20/MTR-1908-46-20-07.pdf The Music Trade Review] He took up residence in Pittsburgh in early 1911, and made a favourable impression there.[https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19110604&id=fxUbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4kgEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3555,909602 The Pittsburgh Press, 4 June 1911] In December 1912 he recorded several piano rolls for the QRS Company. In 1914 he appeared as soloist under the baton of Walter Damrosch in Pittsburgh.[https://newspaperarchive.com/indiana-evening-gazette/1914-01-09/ Indiana Evening Gazette, 9 January 1914]

Selmar Janson taught at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh for many years. By far his most prominent and successful student there was Earl Wild, who studied with him from the age of 12. Under Janson, Wild learned Xaver Scharwenka's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, which Janson had studied directly with the composer, his own teacher. When, over 40 years later, Erich Leinsdorf asked Wild to record the concerto, he was able to say "I've been waiting by the phone for forty years for someone to ask me to play this".[https://archive.today/20120707230004/http://etd.ohiolink.edu/send-pdf.cgi/Arder%20Debora.pdf?osu1232546711 Debora Arder, The Piano Teaching of Earl Wild]

Other students of Janson's included Louis Crowder (1907–1998),[http://www.lib.umd.edu/PAL/IPAM/IPAMcrowder.html University Libraries][https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19351221&id=iJBRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=KWkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3424,3074557 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 21 December 1935][https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1915&dat=19980804&id=L5ZGAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dPgMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3218,587406 The Day, 4 August 1998] Paul Scherr, Leonard Sharrow, Ruth Scott Clark (1912–2009),[http://www.pallc.net/ruth/about.htm pallc.net] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120908051335/http://www.pallc.net/ruth/about.htm |date=2012-09-08 }} and Annette Roussel-Pesche (1914–1997; whose other teachers included Alfred Cortot, Nadia Boulanger, Pierre Fournier and Georges Dandelot).[http://media.clarion.edu/beyond/alumni_news/alumni_news_7-97/stories/AnnetteRousselPeschedies.html Media Clarion][https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19420503&id=e_UaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dEwEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3629,1563369 The Pittsburgh Press, 3 May 1942] Margaret H. Leisering (1911–1996)Katherine Leisering from Margaret Leisering's personal and biographical papers.

In around 1935, Janson offered the seven-year-old Byron Janis a scholarship, but Janis's mother insisted, over the objections of the rest of the family, many of whom lived in Pittsburgh, that he be sent to New York to study with Adele Marcus and the Lhévinnes.[https://books.google.com/books?id=NGEKYIIAWRgC&dq=selmar+jansen&pg=PA28 Byron Janis, Maria Cooper Janis, Chopin and Beyond: My extraordinary life in music and the paranormal]

In addition to teaching, he also participated in chamber music concerts in a piano trio known as the Brahms Trio.{{cite web |url=http://pjn.library.cmu.edu/books/CALL1/CRI_1928_073_008_12281928/vol0/part0/copy0/ocr/txt/0037.txt |title=Brahms Trio|accessdate=2012-06-01 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://archive.today/20120712143720/http://pjn.library.cmu.edu/books/CALL1/CRI_1928_073_008_12281928/vol0/part0/copy0/ocr/txt/0037.txt |archivedate=2012-07-12 }}

Janson married Julia A. Elliot (1907–1975) and they had a child. He died in 1960, aged 79.

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Category:1881 births

Category:1960 deaths

Category:German classical pianists

Category:American classical pianists

Category:American male pianists

Category:20th-century male pianists

Category:American piano educators

Category:Carnegie Mellon University faculty

Category:20th-century American male musicians

Category:Emigrants from the German Empire to the United States