Czesław Marek

Czesław Marek (1891–1985) was a Polish composer, pianist, and piano teacher who settled in Switzerland during World War I.

Born in the town of Przemyśl in Eastern Galicia, near Lwów (now Lviv in Ukraine), Marek studied in that city and then later in Vienna, where he became a private pupil of Theodor Leschetizky.

He was appointed to a Piano professorship in Lwów in 1914 but three months later the German invasion of Galicia and their battles with the Russian armies forced Marek and his parents to flee to Prague, where he was assisted by Alexander Zemlinsky.

In January 1915 he travelled to Switzerland and settled in Zürich, where he became friendly with Busoni and married the violinist Claire Hofer.

Posthumous interest in Marek's music has grown; recordings of the majority of his works were issued on compact disc in the late 1990s (on the Guild label) and are now also available digitally.