Scharwenka is becoming better-known now as a composer. He was - in his day - renowned as a pianist (and man) of extreme culture. There seems to be some disagreement about the level of Liszt's involvement in his formation. The way I read events was that he was already performing in public and was a largely finished artist before he ever met Liszt. He did indeed visit Liszt on occasion, and Liszt enjoyed hearing him play for him. It doesn't appear that the relationship was one of master-pupil though.
Scharwenka left a number of acoustic records, some of which are already here on RU-vid. I am uploading a few of his piano rolls of the larger-scale repertoire. This a Welte Mignon roll of numbers 1-8 of Schumann's Kreialeriana, released in 1905.
The original file came courtesy of Christopher Neave, derived from his Welte Mignon Vorsetzer, optimised for this playback on a Yamaha Grand Disklavier by Ian Williamson.
5 май 2020
