Theophil Franz Xaver Scharwenka (6 January 1850 – 8 December 1924) was a German pianist,[1] composer and teacher of Polish descent.

His paternal ancestors originally came from Prague, then moved to Frankfurt on the Oder in 1696 - probably for reasons of faith - and settled thereafter in Samter.

Although he began learning to play the piano by ear when he was 3, Scharwenka did not start formal music studies until he was 15, when his family moved to Berlin and he enrolled at the Akademie der Tonkunst.

[3] In 1881 Scharwenka organized a successful annual series of chamber and solo concerts at the Singakademie in conjunction with Gustav Holländer and Heinrich Grünfeld.

In 1886, he conducted the first in a series of orchestral concerts devoted to the music of Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt and Ludwig van Beethoven while continuing to tour extensively and play his works in collaboration with other artists such as the conductor Hans Richter and the violinist Joseph Joachim.

[5] Among pianists who received some instruction from him were José Vianna da Motta, Fridtjof Backer-Grøndahl and Selmar Janson.

[6] Sometime in the very early 1900s he conducted Felix Mendelssohn's G minor Concerto, at which the composer and pianist Marthe Servine made her debut.

It was originally written as a solo piano fantasy, but Scharwenka was dissatisfied, and reworked it with orchestra into this form.

82 (1908), was premiered on 18 October 1908 in the Beethovensaal, Berlin, with Scharwenka's student Martha Siebold as the soloist and the composer himself conducting.