Zarębski was born and died in Żytomierz, the remotest eastern frontier of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. His lifespan was that of Schubert: 31 years. A brilliant pianist, he studied in the conservatories of Vienna and St. Petersburg, and finally became a pupil and friend of Liszt. In 1880, he began to teach a piano masterclass at the Brussels Conservatory. His short life was filled with concert tours; he wasted much time promoting Mangeot’s two-keyboard piano which, in the end, proved to be a disappointment. He composed little, mostly pieces for or including piano. His were original works, indeed excellent for a composing pianist. Yet even among his very best, Quintet in G minor is amazing, and there is nothing to match it in the music of the latter half of the 19th century except quintets by Brahms and Dvořák.
It is in fact an overpowering impression that there exist mysterious ties between this work and Schubert’s String Quintet in C major. Both compositions were created in the final year of the lives of equally prematurely deceased artists. Further similarities could include those in the design of certain motives (the scherzos!), or in the idea to continue the second theme of the first movement in the successive parts of the cycles. Some explanation might be found in that, during his studies in Vienna, Zarębski remained in touch with Josef Hellmesberger, the first performer of Schubert’s masterpiece. Clearly, however, Zarębski’s musical language is proper to his own times more than half a century later – or even, at times, more advanced than that. It does not lack full-tone relationships, chords exposing fourths and seconds, even pentatonics. All this leads to looser functional relationships, yet through diatonics – as in Dvořák or Noskowski – rather than through chromatics – as in Wagner or Liszt.
• The seriousness and the weight of the first movement – Allegro – is defined by the onset of a unison theme in strings, at the same time the leitmotif of the whole. Its Slavic combination of singing qualities and power is strongly contrasted with the second theme (in piano) of seeming French provenience, so light it is and scherzando. The first does not relent, however, and dominates till the very end, creating high tension, especially in the development. This is possible thanks to its initial motif of a falling fifth, useful in polyphony and, at the same time, imparting on the entire movement a deliberate and gloomy.
• The main melody of the second movement – Adagio – that follows an introduction seemingly suspended in the air in quiet, rolling trills, relates to the second theme of the previous part. Yet the scherzando climate is no longer upheld, and it departs towards singing qualities or even earnestness and rapture. The atmosphere can be described as erotic and intimate, a clear result of the fragile and lucid texture; this can be best heard in the central and somewhat more mobile fragment.
• Scherzo is absolutely unbelievable. It pivots around a dissonant staccato chord in strings, repeated in a punctuated, gallop-like rhythm, over which the piano throws a cappriccio a crystal-clear motif played in octaves. It brings to mind Dvořák’s later scherzo in his “New World” Symphony – the more so as both are based on a pentatonic scale. There is so much virtuosity here and many brilliant ideas of texture, with pizzicato, flageolets and all manner of articulation in strings, with the piano joining them in fascinating combinations. Trio restores for a while the “erotic” aura of the slow movement – and an affinity of structure with Schubert’s Quintet.
• The sonata-form Finale begins with a surprise: the motif of the preceding Scherzo. The main theme appears after a while; it is seemingly light and undemanding, yet its joyful impetus is arrested, time and again, by serious episodes, reminiscent of motives of the preceding movements. The theme of the first returns at the end – this time, devoid of its melancholy – to close the piece in a mood of triumphant transport. It is a delightful peculiarity of this movement that whenever the listener feels a musical idea to be exhausted, the composer always finds a way to attract his attention once again.
Quintet was first performed in Brussels on 30 April 1885, by the composer and his friends, professors of the Conservatory there, including violinist Jenő Hubay and cellist Joseph Servais.

Maciej Negrey