Victor Vladimirovich Ewald[a] (27 November 1860 – 16 April 1935), was a Russian engineer, architect, and composer of music, mainly for conical brass instruments.
Brass players however, are indebted to him for something very different – a series of quintets which have become a staple of the repertoire and which represent almost the only, and certainly the most extended examples of original literature in the Romantic style.
Founded in 1861 by Anton Rubinstein, this institution was the first of its kind in Russia and it was here that Ewald received lessons in cornet, piano, horn, cello, harmony and composition.
Ewald’s cello teacher Karl Davydov encouraged him to immerse himself in practical music making of any sort whenever the opportunity arose.
This group, whilst all being amateur in the strict sense of the word, made, with the influence of a shared interest in indigenous folksong, a significant contribution to the development of a distinctive Russian national musical style which, for the majority of the 19th century had been almost entirely submerged by the Germanic tradition in both teaching and practice.
The musical focal point for Ewald and the Mighty Five, as well as others, was provided by what became known as the ‘Friday Evenings’ - weekly soirées for amateur performers and composers at the house of Mitrofan Petrovich Belaïev (timber merchant), which were initiated in 1888 and continued unbroken until his death in 1904.
[1] Belaïev’s importance in the development of the musical life of Ewald and all the other Friday Evening participants was considerable and went far beyond merely providing a venue for their activities.
After the death of his father in 1885, Belaïev set about encouraging the development of new music in a number of practical ways, such as: the founding of a publishing house (Edition M.P.
Both Bellon and Ewald wrote music that displayed the increased virtuosity and homogeneity possible as a result of developments in brass instrument design and manufacture in the second half of the 19th century.
Similarly, the likely preference of a tenor horn (similar to today’s euphonium and an instrument occasionally transposed as a soloist to the symphony orchestra, as in the first movement of Mahler's 7th Symphony), may have been the result of a wish on Ewald’s part to maintain the virtuosic potential, as well as tonal characteristics throughout his ensemble by sticking entirely to valved, conical-bored instruments.
The discovery of the other three works was due to the research of André M. Smith (a musicologist and former bass trombonist at the Metropolitan Opera, New York), who was given the manuscripts by Ewald’s son-in-law, Yevgeny Gippius in 1964.
A further nine years of investigation was necessary to authenticate the manuscripts, before the pieces were given their first modern performance during the 1974-75 season in a series of concerts by the American Brass Quintet at Carnegie Hall.
7) - c. 1912 The apparent confusion between the numbering and approximate date of composition of the quintets arises from another long-held misconception, also corrected by the studies of Mr. Smith.