Ignatz Waghalter

Ignatz Waghalter (15 March 1881 – 7 April 1949) was a Polish-German composer and conductor. Early life Waghalter was born into a poor but musically accomplished Jewish family in Warsaw. His eldest brother, Henryk Waghalter (1869-1961), became a renowned cellist at the Warsaw Conservatory. Wladyslaw (1885-1940), the youngest Waghalter brother, became a noted violinist. Waghalter made his way to Berlin at 17. There, he first studied with Philipp Scharwenka and then came to the attention of Joseph Joachim, the great violinist and close friend of Johannes Brahms. With the support of Joachim, Waghalter was admitted into the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin, where he studied composition and conducting under the direction of Friedrich Gernsheim. Career Waghalter's early chamber music revealed an intense melodic imagination that was to remain a distinctive characteristic of his compositional work. An early String Quartet in D Major, Opus 3, was highly praised by Joachim. Waghalter's Sonata for Violin and Pianoforte in F Minor, Opus 5, received the prestigious Mendelssohn-Preis in 1902, when the composer was only 21.