the Villa d’Este outside Rome, where Liszt was staying as a guest of Cardinal Hohenlohe.
Having discovered the hour at which Liszt usually practised, they crept stealthily to the
window of the room in which they knew him to be at work, and eavesdropped outside.
To their intense disappointment, stay as long as they could, they heard nothing but scales.
The scale of B major, which uses a mix of white and black notes, is the easiest scale to
play physiologically. Chopin recognised this and started his pupils off on this scale. The
scale of C major, because it uses only white notes, is actually the most difficult scale to
play physiologically.
Bach, Mozart and Scarlatti were Chopin’s favourite composers. Scales abound in Mozart
and Scarlatti yet curiously there are very few actual scales in Chopin’s piano works. In
his Fantasy in F minor opus 49 Chopin writes a downwards scale covering the whole of
the keyboard of his day. He also writes two-handed upward scales in his Polonaise in A
flat major opus 53 and in his etude opus 25 no. 12 in A minor. There is an extended
passage towards the end of his Impromptu in F sharp major in which Chopin uses scales
up and down the upper part of the keyboard with a delightful accompaniment in the left
hand. There are, of course, countless instances where Chopin uses ornamental and other
passages based on scales.
SCHARWENKA
Xaver Scharwenka (1850-1924), Polish-German composer, pianist and teacher, was born
on 6 January 1850 and died on 8 December 1924.
He studied music in Berlin under Theodor Kullak, and toured as a concert pianist from
- In 1877 he premièred what was to be his most popular work, a piano concerto. In
1881 he founded his own music school in Berlin, and from 1891 to 1898 directed his
Scharwenka Music School in New York City. In addition to his activities as a composer,
pianist, and founder of a music school, he also organised a series of concerts focussing
mainly on works by prominent composers of the century such as Beethoven, Berlioz and
Liszt. Scharwenka’s compositions are little played today, though some of his shorter
pieces are sometimes heard. His ‘Methodik des Klavierspiels’ was published in Leipzig
in 1907.
He was a famous interpreter of Chopin, and was renowned for the beauty of his piano
tone. Works by Scharwenka include an opera (‘Mataswintha’), a symphony, four piano
concertos, as well as chamber music and numerous piano pieces.
Xaver Scharwenka met Liszt at fairly regular intervals during the 1870s and 1880s and
often travelled down to Weimar to mix in Liszt’s circle. He attended Liszt’s
masterclasses at Weimar in 1884 but does not seem to have performed at them. He was
some years older than the other performers. He is sometimes described as a Liszt pupil.