Adagio et scherzo

At the age of eleven, Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) was already performing publicly as a cellist in his home town of Cologne, and in order to perfect his cello playing, his father brought him to Paris in 1833, where he was accepted into the world-famous conservatory as a child prodigy by Cherubini himself. As a foreigner, he was unable to graduate there, as the statutes did not allow it, but before he became the inventor and king of the Opéra bouffe with works such as Orphée aux enfers, La Belle Hélène and La vie parisienne he had a brilliant international virtuoso career as the „Liszt of the cello“. Offenbach composed for his own use, for the salons and for the European imperial and royal courts, and he played with the great virtuosos of his time – Liszt, Rubinstein, Flotow… Of the numerous works he composed for his instrument, many remained unpublished or had been released in small editions that were long out of print. With the Adagio and Scherzo from 1845, OEK is publishing another rarity and an exceptional work in terms of genre history from Offenbach's pen as a scientific first edition, which was made possible by the discovery of the original set of parts, from which Offenbach and his collaborators - including the legendary Alexandre Batta - gave the first performance of the work on 19th April at the Salle Herz in Paris. A treat for accomplished cellists!