Adolf Waterman (1886-1966)
Pianist and composer Adolf Waterman was born in Rotterdam as third child in a musical family. At a young age he had music lessons with Bernard Zweers, Johan Sikemeier and Bernard Diamant. At the wish of his father, an accountant, he went around 1904 to Budapest in order to start his career in a trading firm. There he continued his piano studies with Aladar Berényi and Stefan Thomán.
After his return in Holland in 1906 he made his debut in Arnhem with Beethoven’s Concerto Nr. 4. In 1912 he settled in Berlin, where he was active as a pianist and studied composition with Hugo Kaun. His Piano Concerto in D minor was performed in Berlin in 1917. In 1927 he organized a concert in the Berlin Beethovensaal, the programme of which included his Violin Sonata op. 11, Viola Sonata op. 19, piano works and songs.
Shortly before or after the Nazi party seized power in 1933 Waterman, being of Jewish descent, moved to Paris. Here his second wife Annie van den Bergh died in 1938. In May 1940 Waterman fled through Spain, Portugal, South-Africa and the Dutch Indies to Australia.
Except for a brief stay in Holland after 1945, Waterman spent the rest of his life in the United States and later Monaco, where he died in August 1966. No further details are known about his life after 1945; circumstances seem to have obstructed a further career in music.
A small number of piano works and songs have been published by French and German publishers, such as the songs ‘Heures d’été’ (1927), the ‘Sonatine’ (1937) and ‘Sept préludes’ (1928) for piano.
