James Kwast
RomanzeWikipediaJames Kwast (23 November 1852 – 31 October 1927) was a Dutch-German pianist and renowned teacher of many other notable pianists. He was also a minor composer and editor.
Jacob James Kwast was born in Nijkerk, Netherlands, in 1852. After studies with his father and Ferdinand Böhme in his home country, he became a student of
Carl Reinecke at the Leipzig Conservatory, and had later studies in Berlin under
Theodor Kullak, and Brussels under
Louis Brassin and
François-Auguste Gevaert. He settled in Germany in 1883, initially as a teacher at the Cologne Conservatory, and later at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt and the Klindworth-Scharwenka (1903–06) and Stern conservatories in Berlin.
He participated in the first performance in England of
Brahms’s Piano Trio in C minor, with Carl Fuchs and Carl Deichmann.
He died in Berlin in 1927, aged 74.
His reputation as a teacher reached far and wide. The list of his students includes:
He wrote a piano concerto and various piano pieces, as well as piano transcriptions of
Bach organ works. He edited the keyboard works of
Joseph Haydn.
He later married a pupil of his, Frieda Hodapp, who was a successful pianist. She was the dedicatee of
Max Reger's F minor Concerto, which she premiered in 1910, and the soloist in the first Berlin performance of Busoni's Concertino, BV 292. She also premiered Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Telemann, Op. 134, on 14 March 1915 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. The work was dedicated to her husband.
His brother was the conductor Jan Albert Kwast (Quast).