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Born: July 25, 1905 - Vienna, Austria
Died: September 3, 1998 - Lima, Peru |
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The Austria-born, piano clarinet and recorder player, arranger, and music teacher, Hans Lewitus, began piano lessons at age six, and music became a lifelong passion. While studying law he also went to the Conservatory of Music of Vienna, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in clarinet in 1930. From then on music became his career.
In 1936, Hans Lewitus was recruited by the renowned violinist Bronislaw Huberman to become one of the founding members of the Palestine Orchestra (which later became the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra). He played as principal clarinetist for the orchestra, which was originally led by the distinguished conductor Arturo Toscanini. After playing with the PO for two years, Professor Lewitus was invited by Theo Buchwald to join the National Symphony Orchestra of Peru as principal clarinetist and one of its original members in 1938.
Hans Lewitus spent the rest of his life in Lima, where, in addition to his position with the National Symphony Orchestra of Peru he was appointed as Professor of clarinet at the National Conservatory of Music in Lima. Professor Lewitus distinguished musical career included traveling to Caracas in 1971 with Chabuca Granda, a beloved Peruvian folk composer and singer, as the director of her orchestra for the Festival Internacional de Onda Nueva. He also composed a mazurka and directed the music for her work "La Limeñísima.” The theater director Ricardo Roca Rey asked him to compose incidental music for the production of Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors, and he also composed the incidental music for Crossing Niagara, an acclaimed work by the Peruvian playwright and director, Alonso Alegría. Over the years he accompanied many international soloists on the piano.
Upon his retirement from the National Symphony Orchestra, Hans Lewitus began playing recorder and devoted himself to teaching privately piano, clarinet, and recorder. He also arranged Geistliche Lieder (sacred songs) of J.S. Bach for recorder quartet, published by B. Schott's Söhne. In 1980, Professor Lewitus’s arrangements of Latin American folk music for recorder were published by Otto Heinrich Noetzel Verlag. In 2009 his son, Ricardo, published Lima Romántica and Oda a Chabuca, music written for piano.
In 2017 Ricardo produced his father´s first CD, "Latin Music for Recorders". Arrangements for clarinet duos and trios of Slavik folk dances and revised by his student Jose Luis Eca, were published in 2018 under the auspices of the National University of Music, Lima. |
