Leon Wardanian

The composer Leon Wardanian is a great mystery. The only published and known information is the fact that his piano pieces op.3 and op.4 were published by the renowned Berlin publishing house Schlesinger in 1921 resp. 1922. His name leads to an Armenian origin and that was maybe the reason for the publication because there was virtually nothing known about Armenian music in Germany in the 1920s and he could fill up the "oriental gap". The journal "Neue Musik Zeitung" published an article "Die Klaviermusik der letzten Jahrzehnte" (The piano music of the recent decades) by the eminent pianist Walter Georgii in 1925 that said:

"Our knowledge of Romanian, Greek, and Turkish music is also in a poor state. A young Armenian named L. Wardanian has published piano pieces with Schlesinger. While the "Two Poems op.4" (1922) desperately try to sound modern, "Walzerepisode" and "Sommernacht" op.3 (1921) are more impressive as rather superficial, yet pleasing and not too impersonal music. Due to their wide fingering and rich leaping technique, they require a skilled player."

In my possession is the autograph manuscript of the "Fantasia (quasi Sonatina) for piano op.2" by Leon Wardanian. The work is dedicated to the distinguished pianist Leonid Kreutzer. The work was very likely composed in 1920/21. And the small opus number might indicate a birth year of Leon Wardanian around 1900, but no further information could be found about him. The multiple references to Berlin - the publishing house Schlesinger and the fact the Leonid Kreutzer became piano professor in Berlin in 1921 - let me think that Leon Wardanian was based in Berlin at that time and maybe was a student of the Akademische Hochschule für Musik, but neither the address book of Berlin nor the lists of enrolled students show the name Leon Wardanian.