When we think about Polish Romantic composers, the names of Frederic Chopin, Stanisław Moniuszko and Henryk Wieniawski probably come to mind first. Yet there were many more artists active in this era. This chamber music concert at the National Forum of Music will be an excellent opportunity to get to know the works of two lesser-known but noteworthy Romantics.

Composer, pianist and teacher Xaver Scharwenka was born in Szamotuły in 1850. He was one of the greatest pianists of his time, and even Ferenc Liszt admired his virtuosity. Although he was educated in Berlin and spent a large part of his life on concert tours around the world (he also gave concerts in the United States), when writing new works, he did not forget about his Polish roots. His cheerful, melodious Piano Quartet in F major is an early work, completed when the artist was twenty-six. It is maintained in a Romantic style, to which the Scharwenka remained faithful throughout his life. For this reason, his music was considered old-fashioned, and shortly after his death fell into oblivion. His accessible work is only now returning to the favour of performers and listeners.

We will never know how Juliusz Zarębski’s fate would have turned out and what kind of music he would have written if he had lived longer than thirty-one years. This composer belonged to the same generation as Leoš Janáček, Gustav Mahler, and Giacomo Puccini. Zarębski was born in Zhytomyr, now in Ukraine. He received an excellent education at Vienna Conservatory, where he studied composition and piano. His teacher and mentor was Liszt, who facilitated the publication of Zarębski’s new works. Zarębski, earning his living as a concert pianist, wrote most of his works for this instrument. His magnum opus was the visionary four-movement Piano Quintet in G minor, completed in the last year of his life, a work in which the composer was ahead of his time. The boldness of the musical language combined with communicativeness and a huge emotional charge make the work captivating and fresh even today.