Scharwenka, Franz Xaver

Theophil Franz Xaver Scharwenka – Symphony in C Minor, Op. 60 (1882)

(b. Samter near Posen on 6th January 1850 – d. Berlin on 8th December 1924)

Arrangement: 2 fl, 2 ob, 2 cl (Bb), 2 bn, 4 hn (F), 2 tpt (F), tb, timpani, strings

Performance duration: ca. 40 mins.

Preface (Uta Swora, 2019 / Translation: Sabrina Stolfa)
Xaver Scharwenka is another example of those musicians whose relative obscurity today bears no relation to the renown they enjoyed in their own time.Hardly more than an unknown master today, in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth century, he was not only one of the best-known composers but also attained national and international success as a pianist, which made him a celebrity. His numerous performances took place in the concert halls of London, Vienna, Amsterdam, Moscow, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and New York, in addition to his native Berlin and other major German cities. Scharwenka’s biography provides a deep insight into his work as composer and pianist, and furthermore, shows his successful efforts as music educator and editor.

Born in Samter near Posen, he moved to Berlin with his family when he was fifteen. He made his compositional debut there and simultaneously performed as a soloist at the Berlin musical society for the first time in 1869. Four years previously, he had taking up the study of piano, counterpoint and composition under Theodor Kullak at the Berlin Academy for Music, where he also met and became friends with the composer Moritz Moszkowski. In the same year, Scharwenka’s “Polish National Dances”, op. 3, were published by Breitkopf & Härtel – a work that brought him great success in his own lifetime and remains one of his best-known compositions today. He spent the following two decades performing across Germany and Europe, meeting and becoming friends with famous personalities from across the music world, which in turn influenced his own work as a composer. He met Franz Liszt in 1870 and a few years later dedicated his first piano concerto to him. This was initially performed in Berlin in 1875. Equally significant was his meeting with Johannes Brahms during a holiday on the island of Rügen in 1876, which led to a lasting and musically fertile friendship. Among his other relationships with soloists and composers, the most notable are those with the pianist Hans von Bülow, with cellist Heinrich Grünfeld, with the violinists Joseph Joachim and Pablo de Sarasate, and with composers Eugen d’Albert, Peter Tschaikowsky, Richard Strauss, Anton Rubinstein and Camille Saint-Saens. ..

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