Leo Weiner

Scherzo op. 1

To date, the accepted knowledge has been that the first completed surviving composition with an opus number by Leó Weiner was the Serenade, Op. 3 (1906). This strange situation arose because Weiner subsequently destroyed the Scherzo, written for string quintet and arranged for orchestra (1905), to which he had given the significant number Op. 1, and he did not complete the Passacaglia for piano, Op. 2 (1904). In 2024, however, an enigmatic manuscript by Weiner came to light that is most probably a piano reduction for four hands of the Op. 1, which was believed to have been destroyed. Evidence for this hypothesis includes the type of music paper used, traces of five-part writing, remarks made on the Op. 1 in the contemporary press, and above all, the fact that in style, melodic idiom, and gesture, the work shows kinship to contemporary compositions by Weiner. The original string quintet version of the Scherzo was performed in public in 1905, while Weiner was studying at the Budapest Academy of Music, and the orchestral version, along with the Serenade, was premiered in October 1906 by the Budapest Philharmonic Society Orchestra and was received enthusiastically. Published for the first time 120 years after it was written, the drifting and sparklingly witty Scherzo gives an insight into the youthful workshop of Leó Weiner, whose career began with a meteoric rise.