The Benno factor

When Benno Scherek moved to Dunedin in 1880 it was great news for the city’s music connoisseurs, reports Toitū Otago Settlers Museum curator Peter Read.

In 1880, local music lovers were ecstatic. French-born violinist Camilla Urso, one of the finest violinists of the Victorian era, had come to town. With her were pianist Auguste Sauret, soprano Jennie Sargent, contralto Agnes Palma, and pianist and musical director Benno Scherek.

After a string of performances at the Garrison Hall, there was more great news for the city’s music connoisseurs. Scherek had decided to quit the tour and take up residence in the city. Thus, in the winter of 1880 he could be found offering his services as a music teacher here, conducting the chorus and orchestra of the Dunedin Choral Society, performing with the Private Motett and Glee Society, and headlining a soiree musicale in front of a packed house at the Temperance Hall.

One of his fellow musicians at these and subsequent performances was pianist Miss Georgiana Tewsley; and in June 1881 25-year-old Tewsley and 26-year-old Scherek were married at St John’s Roslyn Anglican Church.

Speaking of churches, these were places where the talents of an organist and conductor such as Scherek could also be put to good use. In 1880, the Prussian maestro was prevailed upon to conduct a grand fundraising concert in aid of the St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Cathedral Building Fund, for example. And when the position of organist at All Saints’ Episcopalian Church became vacant in 1884 who better to fill the gap than Scherek?

Scherek again played a significant part in the festivities that marked the opening of St Joseph’s Cathedral on February 14, 1886. He wielded his conductor’s baton to direct a chorus of 60, an orchestra of 15, a harpist and an organist (Mrs Scherek).

His contribution was acknowledged with the presentation of a carved baton. Inscriptions on the baton read: "Herr Benno Scherek. A souvenir of the opening of St Joseph’s Cathedral, Dunedin, February 14, 1886. Sit laus plena sit sonora sit jucunda sit decora" [Let our praise be full, let it resonate, let it be pleasing, let it be glorious]. That baton remained in the possession of the Scherek family for more than 50 years, before being donated to the museum in 1939.

A few days after the opening of the new cathedral it was announced that the church’s regular organist had resigned his post, and that Scherek had been appointed in his place.

By this time the Schereks were a family of four — son Max having been born in 1882 and daughter Paula in 1883. A sister for Max and Paula arrived in 1887, but died the following year. Not long after her death, Scherek returned to touring, as conductor of the Amy Sherwin Opera Company. After eight years of calling Dunedin home, Scherek was gone.

The rest of the family stayed behind for a bit. Mrs Scherek took her husband’s place on the organ stool at St Joseph’s and continued to teach. Then she and the children headed off to join Scherek in Australia, where a further child, Jeffreys, would be born.

Unsurprisingly, the Scherek children seem to have inherited a talent for music from their parents. While the boys became pianists, Paula took up the violin. The eldest of the siblings, Max, would become a professional musician like his father. In 1902 he went to Europe and spent four years studying music in Leipzig. Then, in 1906, Max Scherek returned to settle in his hometown of Dunedin. A new era of Scherek influence on the local music scene had begun. It would last more than 40 years, until his death in 1949.  

The baton thus symbolises two generations of producing music which lived up to the motto inscribed upon it.  

"Sit laus plena sit sonora sit jucunda sit decora."