Scherber, Martin

Preface

Scherber, Martin – Symphonie Nr. 1 in D-Moll

(born Nuremberg, January 16, 1907 – died Nuremberg, January 10, 1974)

(1938/rev. 1952)
I Moderato (p. 1) – Slightly slower, striding (p. 8) – Calmer (p. 10) – A Tempo (p. 14) – Calmly flowing (p. 21) –
II Measured (p. 33) – Calm (p. 35) – Fast (p. 44) – Firm tempo, not too slow (p. 50) – A little calmer (p. 52) – Calmato (p. 59) – Slower (p. 64) – Beginning calmly, gradually becoming more fluent (p. 66) – Animato (p. 71) –
III Leisurely (p. 81) – A tempo, starting slowly (p. 83) – Smoothly flowing (p. 85) – Calm (p. 87) – Slightly slower (p. 89) – A tempo, calm (p. 92) – Leisurely (p. 95) – Flowing, accelerando (p. 100) – Alla breve (p. 103) – accelerando (p. 106) –
IV Calmer, slower (p. 109) – Somewhat more animated (p. 122) – ritenuto (p. 124) – A tempo, moderato (p. 126)

Preface
Martin Scherber was a decided loner. Little is known about his career. He was born in Nuremberg on January 16, 1907, the third and youngest child of the double bass player Bernhard Scherber. At the age of five he was already playing the violin and began to imitate what he heard on the piano. He showed great reluctance to learn in reading music and acquired remarkable skills in piano improvisation at an early age. He began composing at the age of thirteen. As a pianist he was first taught by the Viennese opera conductor Karl Winkler (1899-1964), who served as répétiteur at the Nuremberg City Theater from 1919-23, and by Maria Kahl-Decker (b. 1881). He made his first public appearance as a pianist in Nuremberg in 1922, and his first performance of his own compositions in 1923. In 1925-28 he studied conducting at the Akademie der Tonkunst in Munich, majoring in conducting with Hugo Röhr (1866-1937) and Heinrich Knappe (1887-1980), and also piano with Franz Dorfmüller (1887-1974) and composition with Gustav Geierhaas (1888-1967). He then went to the then Sudeten German town of Aussig an der Elbe (now Ústí nad Labem) in 1929 as a répétiteur, where he soon rose to the position of conductor and choir director. After his contract ended in 1933, he did not apply for any further positions and has since worked as a private music teacher in his hometown of Nuremberg. The experience of the theater business and of sacrificing himself for superficialities, for cheap music, had caused any interest in him – if it had still existed in rudiments until then – to be in the limelight to fade for the rest of his life. During the war he served as a soldier. After the war, he remained out of the public eye and devoted himself to teaching and composition.

Already as a young man he intensively studied Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and in this way came into contact with the writings of Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), the founder of anthroposophy. Steiner’s teachings were to have a lasting influence on him and give him orientation in his search for enlightenment. His relationship with anthroposophical institutions was marked by an inner distance, but at the end of his life he bequeathed the autograph scores of his three symphonies to the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, the stronghold of anthroposophy. …

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