Wertheim - Wariacje na temat własny
Published in 1911
Pianist: Paweł Pawlik
0:00 - Theme
1:21 - Var I: Un poco animato
2:33 - Var II: Allegro con brio
3:37 - Var III: Molto meno mosso
5:25 - Var IV: Andantino semplice
6:32 - Var V: Allegro con fuoco
7:44 - Var VI: Andante molto tranquillo
8:55 - Var VII: Allegretto quasi tempo di Mazurka
10:14 - Var VIII: Maestoso
11:22 - Var IX: Allegro deciso
12:12 - Molto maestoso, poco ad libitum
12:49 - Finale: Maestoso, tempo di Polacca
Juliusz Wertheim (1880-1928) was a well known member of the Warsaw music community. He was a critic, pedagogue, conductor, and a composer. Despite his own achievements, he is perhaps best remembered through his critical interactions with Karol Szymanowski. While Wertheim praised Szymanowski's early works, he did not receive the Polish Mystic's later works so warmly. Wertheim himself emulated the romantics Schumann, Brahms, and Wagner while pushing the envelope toward the post-romanticism characteristic of the Young Poland Movement. Szymanowski, however, leaped beyond the current to produce a cutting-edge, innovative musical language foreign to the more conservative Wertheim.
In terms of formation, Wertheim's own father was the half-brother of the famous Polish virtuoso-composer Karl Tausig whose influence can be detected in Wertheim's piano works. He studied piano first with Rudolf Strobl in Warsaw and then with Karl Heinrich Barth (who was also Tausig's teacher) and Moritz Moszkowski in Berlin where he studied composition with Heinrich Urban. Later, he returned to Warsaw where he enrolled in the Warsaw Musical Institute and studied composition under Zygmunt Noskowski while also consulting with Józef Śliwiński and Aleksander Michałowski.
After graduating from the institute with a gold medal, he began his life as both a critic and a performer. Wertheim travelled Europe giving concerts both at the piano and with the baton, and later, he became the newly established Warsaw Philharmonic's second director. Additionally, he taught classes in instrumentation and conducting at the Warsaw Conservatory and wrote for "The Polish Courier," "The Theatrical Courier," and "Epoch".
Information from: polskabibliotekamuzyczna.pl/e... and pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliusz...