Otto Schwarz

Otto Schwarz (10 August 1876 – 1961) was a German travelling musician. He was the leader, or Kapellmeister, of a small band of mixed instruments and sometimes vocalists called the Bavarian String Band, which performed in England in the summer months between 1897 and 1914. The band performed mainly outdoors, and primarily in Harrogate, North Riding of Yorkshire, besides other towns. It played Victorian and Edwardian parlour music, as well as extracts from symphonies and operas. At certain charity events, Schwarz would donate the band's collection of the day to local causes, such as hospitals.

At the onset of the First World War, Schwarz and his players were interned and transported to the Isle of Man. Schwarz died in Hinzweiler in 1961.

Background Otto Schwarz was born on 10 August 1876 in Hinzweiler, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Before borders changed, Hinzweiler was in Bavaria, Germany. He was the son of bandleader Daniel Schwarz and Katharina Zink. On 20 November 1900 Schwarz married Amalia Merker, whom he had known from childhood in Hinzweiler. They had three children: Wilhelm, Berthold and Marianne.

Career Schwarz was a wandermusikant, bandleader, composer, church organist, and music teacher. In the 19th and early 20th century, money was collected from audiences at outside venues by bottling – walking around the audience during performances with a collecting-bottle or other receptacle. Schwarz performed from 1897 to 1914 in Harrogate, returning there from Germany during most summers. He rented many different terrace houses in the town for the band, for example in Bedford Row, Belmont Avenue, Valley Road, Strawberry Dale, Duchy Avenue and Valley Mount. On 23 June 1906 at the Wells House Hotel and Winter Gardens, Ilkley, Schwarz and his band were one of several playing at the hotel's 50th anniversary celebrations. In 1907 the band – described as the "Blue Bavarian Band" – performed "A brief, though artistically-rendered programme" at the Queen's Hall, Otley. They were on their way to Blackpool, where Schwarz's father used to perform. On 30 March 1908, the Bavarian String Band performed at the Queen's Hall, Otley: the march from Tannhäuser, a Suppé overture, a Strauss waltz, The Gondoliers, Troop March by Lutz, and a fantasia from Lohengrin. Monday 28 March 1910 was a day of "glorious weather", in which bands and other entertainments played across Harrogate, to attract visitors at the spa. Those on Prospect Hill in daytime, and at the Kursaal in the evening, were "regaled by Otto Schwarz's Bavarian Band". On 28 July 1904 and 3 August 1912, Schwarz and his band provided the music at the annual sports day of Clifton College, Harrogate, on Harrogate Cricket Ground, in front of a "large and fashionable assemblage of spectators".

Charity performances Schwarz was a philanthropist on a modest scale, in that he gave charity concerts for the benefit of poorer performers such as the Harrogate Glee Singers, and hospitals such as Harrogate Infirmary. This effort was repeated on 7 May 1905, when the Bavarian Band played another set on Hoad Hill for the same cause. "A substantial sum was realised". In 1907, Schwarz donated 8s 5d, half his band's takings at Blackpool on 3 March, to Driffield Cottage Hospital. His band was playing as (or perhaps with) the Blackpool Band on that occasion.

After a musician and friend of Schwarz – Wallace Henry Hartley – was drowned on the Titanic in 1912 while performing as its bandleader, The concert brought £4 , which Schwarz "handed over to the Lord Mayor of London".

Winter work For Schwarz, at home, there was work to be done on the farmland, but the musicians had extra work. On return to Germany for the winter, Schwarz would divide the summer's profits with the band, who had been paid basic wages during the tour. He would then prepare the band for the next season, purchasing new music sheets, practising with the band, and teaching apprentices. and the camp at Douglas had a prisoner of war orchestra. Historian Malcolm Neesam says, "Until the international calamity of 1914, Otto Schwarz and his band provided the town with musical entertainment at a very professional level, although their status as street entertainers meant that they seldom received the formal acknowledgement that their talents deserved".

The war has robbed Harrogate of one of the features of its daily life – its German band! For sixteen years now Mr Otto Schwarz and his brother Gustav have led a little company of musicians whose presence in the town has become as familiar to the residents and the visitors as The Stray itself. Now they are silent for the first time in that long period, and they have not blown a note since the day Germany declared the war in Russia. There is a pathetic ring about their story, and it seems to have touched the hearts of many Harrogate people, who greatly respect the Schwarz brothers, for it should be borne in mind that the little company is not quite the type of ordinary peripatetic German bands one comes across. They pride themselves upon being really good musicians, and they secure quite a number of private engagements from shows, school parties, dances and so on. This summer there were six in the band, and of the four besides the Schwarz brothers, one is a young married man, and the other three youths in their teens. Not one of them has served as a soldier in the German army, but as soon as the announcement came that Germany was at war the four younger musicians deemed it their duty to go to London and report themselves to the German consul. That put a sudden end to the band's performances. The services of the four patriotic young Germans were not required however. It was no good returning to Harrogate as there were obvious objections to a German band appearing in the streets. One did return a day or two later, and the other three have been staying in London in the hope of coming across some other means of earning their livelihood. But apparently no English employer cares to take on Germans just now., and so the trio have decided to return to Harrogate, where they are expected today. Mr Gustav Schwarz has no two opinions about this war. "The Kaiser is mad", he declared to one of our representatives today. "Whatever possessed him to do as he has done goodness only knows. The rank and file in Germany no more wanted to go to war with England than the people here wanted to go to war with Germany".

Compositions The Waves Roar (after 1902), a piece inspired by Schwarz's crossing of the English Channel in 1902. In 2011, Schwarz's grandson Daniel K. Schwarz published a biography of Otto Schwarz in English, the title of which incorporated the name of his composition, The Waves Roar.

The archives of Otto Schwarz are kept in the Westpfälzer Musikantenmuseum Mackenbach, and in the Musikantenland Museum, in Lichtenberg Castle near Kusel, Germany.