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Anton Strelezki: Arléquinade

383 views · Published 20 August 2014 · 1:53 · Indexed 24 October 2026

Channel: PSearPianist · 2014 · Music

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Phillip Sear plays a 1907 'danse esquisse' by the English composer 'Anton Strelezki'
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Anton Strelezki (and Stepan Esipoff) are pseudonyms of Arthur Bransby Burnand, born in Edmonton, London in 1858 (one of ten children of a well-off Lloyds underwriter—a sister was alive until 1965), and died in Lambeth in 1907. However, there seems to be some confusion over this, as, per Alan Walker's biography of Liszt, Strelezki was apparently his pupil in 1869 (when he would have been only 11), and Walker gives his real name as Theophilus Burnand. Indeed, a book of 'Personal Reminiscences of Chats with Liszt' was published under the Strelezki name. Arthur did have an uncle called John Theophilus Burnand, but he was a City clerk. Clara Schumann also had a friend called Theophilus Burnand with whom she dined in the 1880s, and I have read that 'Strelezki' studied with her at the Leipzig Conservatory. 

Interestingly, Burnand (if it was he) gave recitals in Philadelphia (1887), Milwaukee (1888); and in Croydon and Hastings (a Chopin-only programme) all under the Strelezki name in 1890 and 1891.  In a report of his Hastings concert, he is described as court pianist to the Queen of Roumania - which would have been Queen Elizabeth, aka the writer Carmen Sylva.  This position was also held by Moritz Rosenthal at one time!  There is a fascinating description of the man in 1889 here: https://tinyurl.com/yyrg393t  - but is this really a description of a 30 year old?  In The Croydon Advertiser reported on a concert given by him in February 1990 at the Beethoven House there (and mentioned his real name as being 'Arthur Burnand') - this was soon after his reported marriage in Madrid in December 1898 to the Baroness Mercedes Porteous (Pall Mall Gazette).  Baroness Porteous provided lyrics to Strelezki's 1886 song 'Dreams', and I believe that Charles Ives also set this text.  

Burnand seems to have appeared more than once at the Old Bailey in London ( https://tinyurl.com/yxr4kcvq and https://tinyurl.com/yxj6f24a ) which may account for the lack of live concert reports after the early 1890s.  

The 'Harlequinade' was a British comic theatrical genre, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "that part of a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts" (Wikipedia).  The genre—derived from the 'commedia dell'arte', died out in the 1930s.

Thumbnail image created with Wombo Dream ( t.ly/zhJa ).
#britishmusic #harlequin 
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