John Ogdon

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Andrew Howard Ogdon (born January 27, 1937 in Mansfield Woodhouse , Nottinghamshire , † August 1, 1989 in London ) was an English pianist and composer .

Life

Ogdon started playing the piano at the age of 5. From 1945 he was a student of the Northern School of Music in the classes of Iso Elinson and Richard Hall . From 1947 on he attended the general education Manchester Grammar School. In 1953 he continued his piano and composition training at the Royal Manchester College of Music until 1957. His tutors were Claud Biggs and Thomas Pitfield . After graduating from college, he studied with Gordon Green , Denis Matthews and Myra Hess and with Egon Petri in Basel .

21-year-old Ogdon made a sensational debut at the Proms in London when he performed Busoni's Piano Concerto under the direction of Henry Wood . In 1959 Ogdon won 2nd place at the Liverpool Piano Competition, in 1961 he won first prize at the Liszt Competition in London and his international recognition was consolidated in 1962 with the first prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow , which he shared with Vladimir Ashkenazi .

Ogdon loved to push his eminent skills to the limit and took on such daunting tasks as recording the complete piano music of Rachmaninoff . He had previously recorded Scriabin 's ten piano sonatas . Ogdon's repertoire included works by over 80 composers; In addition to the "classics", he also focused on the hitherto unknown, e.g. B. Alkane and contemporary British composers.

Ogdon's constitution was always unstable, despite his imposing appearance. In 1973 she had a major breakdown, probably caused by schizophrenia or manic depression . Ogdon had to spend a long time in a London hospital. Between 1976 and 1980 Ogdon taught at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University Bloomington . After that he gave concerts again as a pianist - interrupted by attacks of illness - a. a. he played in 1983 for the opening of the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham. In January 1986 he performed on tour in Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad. In 1988 he released a 4 CD recording of Sorabji's Opus clavicembalisticum . Shortly afterwards, he died of pneumonia caused by undiagnosed diabetes .

The BBC made a film about the life of John Ogdon called Virtuoso . The basis was a biography co-authored by his wife, the pianist Brenda Lucas Ogdon, to whom he had been married since 1960. John Ogdon was portrayed by Alfred Molina .

In 1993, the London-based John Ogdon Foundation was established under the patronage of Vladimir Ashkenazi. The aim is to promote young pianists and to make Ogdon's compositional work known. The foundation awards young pianists the John Ogdon Scholarship Award, endowed with money, at irregular intervals .

In 2014, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his death , Sony Classical released an edition with all of Ogdon's recordings for RCA Records .

Compositional work

As a composition student in Manchester, Ogdon was part of the New Music Manchester Group, along with fellow students such as Birtwistle , Goehr and Davies . The almost 200 works by Ogdon include piano pieces, chamber music (including a string quartet) and a piano concerto. A symphony after Herman Melville and a comic opera remained unfinished.

Literature (selection)

Film (selection)

  • The South Bank Show. John Ogdon. Documentary (1989), 53:00 min., Director: Tony Knox, Production: LWT South Bank Show, Series: The South Bank Show , first broadcast on March 19, 1989 on Independent Television , UK.
  • Virtuoso. Biography (1989), 120 min., Director: Tony Smith, production: British Broadcasting Corporation and Ideal Communications Films and Television, first broadcast on February 12, 1989 on BBC Two .
  • John Ogdon - Living with Genius. Documentary (2014), 60:00 min., Director: Zoe Dobson, production: Back2Back, first broadcast: June 6, 2014 on BBC Four , UK. Synopsis by Rhinegold Publishing , excerpt from BAck2Back .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ - "John Ogdon - Rachmaninov". Retrieved on July 28, 2020 (German).
  2. ↑ Oliver Condy: John Ogdon: videos of an extraordinary pianist. In: Classical-music.com. British Broadcasting Corporation , June 4, 2014, accessed November 27, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Alain Pâris: Le Nouveau Dictionnaire des interprètes . Bouquins, 2015, ISBN 978-2-221-14576-0 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  4. ^ Will Crutchfield: John Ogdon, 52, a British pianist Who Championed the New, Dies. The New York Times , August 2, 1989, accessed November 25, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Wolfram Goertz : The smile of the quiet winner. Zeit Online , May 15, 2014, accessed November 25, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Ogdon, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ogdon, John Andrew Howard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English pianist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Mansfield Woodhouse , Nottinghamshire
DATE OF DEATH August 1, 1989
Place of death London