Chopin, Frédéric / orch. Scharwenka, Franz Xaver

Frédéric François Chopin – Andante and Polonaise, op. 22, arranged for orchestra by Xaver Scharwenka

[born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin]

(1 March 1810, Żelazowa Wola, Duchy of Warsaw [now a village 30 miles west of Warsaw, Poland] – 17 October 1849, Paris, France)

Theophil Franz Xaver Scharwenka
(6 January 1850, Samter, Prussia [now Szamotuły, Poland] – 8 December 1924, Berlin, Germany)

Original Composition: Grande polonaise brilliante for piano and orchestra (1830-31). Begun after his 2nd piano concerto (his final months in Poland), completed in Vienna
Additional Composition: Andante spianato in G major for solo piano (1834), added as an introduction to the Grande polonaise; joined to it with a horn fanfare
First performance of Chopin’s symphonic arrangement: Chopin introduced it at a Paris Société des Concerts Conservatoire benefit led by conductor François-Antoine Habeneck on 26 April 1835 (with the composer as soloist). He never orchestrated the Andante.
Publication of Chopin’s orchestration (with solo Andante):
Grande polonaise brilliante précédée d’un Andante spianato, op. 22. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel (5709), August 1836. Paris: Schlesinger (1926), July 1836. London: Wessel (1643., Ent. Sta. H.) May 1836
Reduced versions: Chopin reduced the whole polonaise to a solo piano arrangement in 1838, adding reductions of the short orchestral fanfares, where the piano would otherwise be silent.He performed the complete original piano solo part for the 2nd and final time for a benefit concert on 11 March 1838, in a reduced octet orchestration, at Rouen’s Hôtel de Ville, probably led by the violinist Antoni Orłowski, from the first violin desk.
Dedicated to: Madame [la Baronne] d’Est: Frances Sarah Kibble (1811-1890)
This Arrangement (Scharwenka): Andante and Polonaise, op. 22, Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1902. Plate Part B: 1762.
Orchestration: solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in B-flat, 2 bassoons, 2 horns in F, 2 trumpets in F, 2 timpani, and strings

French-Polish Connections
The life of composer Frédéric Chopin was divided evenly between the Polish Commonwealth (1810-30) and France (1831-1849). He was not a typical “nationalist” composer, as he did not take part in any political activities, but he did reference Polish musical rhythms (esp. the polonaise and mazurka) in his piano music. Biographies of the composer have been notoriously inaccurate, as many legends date back to Franz Liszt’s and Carolyn Sayn-Wittgenstein’s early biography (see Adam Harasowski’s The Skein of Legends around Chopin, Glasgow, 1967). …

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