Wilhelm Fitzenhagen

Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Fitzenhagen (15 September 1848 – 14 February 1890) was a German cellist, composer and teacher, best known today as the dedicatee of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme.

Fitzenhagen was born in Seesen in the Duchy of Brunswick, where his father served as music director.

[3] Fitzenhagen's playing at the 1870 Beethoven Festival in Weimar attracted the attention of Franz Liszt, who had formerly served as music director there.

[1] Fitzenhagen became regarded as the premier cello instructor in Russia and equally well known as a soloist and chamber music performer.

Fitzenhagen may have felt justified by these efforts by the audience reaction after a performance at the Wiesbaden Festival in June 1879, writing to Tchaikovsky, "I produced a furore with your variations.

[6] When cellist Anatoliy Brandukov approached Tchaikovsky just before the full score was published in 1889, he found the composer "very upset, looking as though he was ill.

[1] The variations are still played in Fitzenhagen's sequence to the present day, despite the subsequent discovery and restoration of the composer's original order.

These include four concertos, a suite for cello and orchestra, a string quartet and numerous salon pieces.