Biography
Born in Moscow on March 6, 1872, as Pavel Yuon to Swiss parents, Paul Juon grew up with a father who held a minor post as a government insurance official. He attended German schools in the city until his marked musical aptitude led him to enroll at the Moscow Conservatory in 1889, where he studied composition with Anton Arensky and Sergei Taneyev and took flute lessons. One of his classmates was Rachmaninov, a year younger, who first applied the label Russian Brahms to Juon. Juon continued his training at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin under Woldemar Bargiel, a Brahms colleague and half-brother of Clara Schumann. After a brief return to Russia he accepted an invitation from violinist Joseph Joachim to join the Hochschule faculty, remaining there until his retirement to Switzerland in 1934. His students formed an international roster that included Stefan Wolpe, Nikos Skalkottas, and Werner Richard Heymann. Juon died in Vevey, Switzerland, on August 21, 1940.
His catalog contains extensive chamber music, four symphonies, three violin concertos, a triple concerto, art songs, and the opera Aleko, completed in 1896. Prolonged residence in Germany did not erase the pronounced Russian character of his scores, which often display folkish melodic turns without ever quoting actual folk melodies, much like Tchaikovsky. He remained faithful to classical three- and four-movement designs, thereby justifying Rachmaninov’s epithet. After decades of neglect following his death, Juon’s music reentered the repertoire in the 1990s and 2000s, spurred in part by Swiss recording firms. Violinist Charles Wetherbee and pianist David Korevaar recorded his three violin sonatas in 2019.
His catalog contains extensive chamber music, four symphonies, three violin concertos, a triple concerto, art songs, and the opera Aleko, completed in 1896. Prolonged residence in Germany did not erase the pronounced Russian character of his scores, which often display folkish melodic turns without ever quoting actual folk melodies, much like Tchaikovsky. He remained faithful to classical three- and four-movement designs, thereby justifying Rachmaninov’s epithet. After decades of neglect following his death, Juon’s music reentered the repertoire in the 1990s and 2000s, spurred in part by Swiss recording firms. Violinist Charles Wetherbee and pianist David Korevaar recorded his three violin sonatas in 2019.
Albums
