An Obvious Schemer

Here's Joseph Marx in 1963, a year before he died, in his apartment on Traungasse in Vienna. One visitor to the blog this week said of Marx that he 'didn’t compose much music in the last 20 years of his life and after 1945 he seemed more concerned with scheming to thwart those he disagreed with rather than promoting his own body of work'. Another wrote by email that 'this is the big problem of getting Marx a fair hearing in Austria – too many people still recall his awarding himself and various acolytes Austria’s State Prize while denying it to such important figures as Wellesz and Krenek – not to mention Schoenberg! But Marx was an obvious schemer […] he knew how to keep in with whatever power held sway.' Can we look beyond these scheming, contradictory facets of Marx's personality when we listen to his music? Find out tomorrow live at Wigmore Hall or on BBC Radio 3.

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