ERNEST SCHELLING is a curious, highly talented figure from the times around the turn of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, a marked presence in the fashionable society and subsequently playing an important educational role in the 1930s in New York. He is the initiator and conductor of  the Young People’s Concerts of the New York Philharmonic from 1924 to 1939, which was earned him the nickname Uncle Ernest.

Remarkably, he was among the pupils of some legendary pianists, including Moritz Moszkowski and Ignacy Jan Paderewski.  Descending from a Swiss-English American family with traditions in music,  he began to gain experience as concert performer since he was four years of age, and at seven was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire, subsequently studying in Stuttgart and Berlin. Prior to the First World War, he was active as concert performer in Europe, engaging mainly in Chopin repertoire and was a frequent performer in the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Later he occupied a mansion of his own on the shores of Lake Geneva near Paderewski’s residence. World War I launched him in the career of a diplomat and an intelligence officer, serving in the capacity of adjutant to the military attaché at the American Legation in Bern. Two factors occasioned the latter development: the influence of Paderewski, who besides a pianist, was subsequently active as a statesmen; and the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, torpedoed in the English channel by a German submarine because of ammunition carried on board. Among the casualties were the family of the pianist and composer Enrique Granados, as well as other friends of Schelling and Paderewski.

In honour of Paderewski, Schelling organized and named after him a competition in 1914, on the eve of World War I.

In 1924, he returned to the United States and continued to perform. In the 1930s, he directed the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.