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Click here to download the sheet music for Valse Gaiete

Click here to download the sheet music for Hungarian Rhapsody 

Thanks to Doug Back for making this available

He first took up the banjo at age eight under the tutorship of James Watson, also from Glasgow.

His first public appearance was at the Langside Hall on January 7th 1910 when Jan played an arrangement of Home Sweet Home, Honolulu Cakewalk and an Intermezzo by Masquin.

At the age of fifteen, he joined  "The West End Boys Banjo Trio" billed as "Voices on Strings". The trio toured Scotland with Success, featuring such numbers as "Come Back To Erin", "Stars and Stripes" and "King Cotton March", the vocal lines being played on the third and fourth stings to arrangements by James Watson.

It was in Watson's studio that the young Jan was introduced to Joe Morley, Leopoldo Franca and Reginald Martheau (the French pianist who later became Jan's accompanist for some years). Before the celebrities Jan played Kowalski's Marche Hongroise, Paderewski's Minuet and Husarenritt. The usually reticent Joe Morley commented: "He's got my speed, Oakley's tone and Cammeyer's touch."

Wein undertook numerous engagements at clubs, dinners, concerts etc, undertaking sometimes twenty per month. His first broadcast from the B.B.C.'s Galsgow studios was in 1923, playing Cammeyer's "Sonnet" and "Marche Hongroise" by Kowalski. He also broadcast from studios in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and later in London.

Wien is said to have played before many of the crowned heads of Europe, including King Albert of the Belgians and King Manoel of Portugal.

Wien's arrangements of the classics are said to have earned him the title of "The Magician of the Banjo". Although he is said to have composed and arranged "hundreds" of pieces for the banjo, including a concerto, very few reached publication because of their "extreme difficulty" - some that did are "Gypsy Revels", "Race to the North" and "March Vivacite".

Wien also made a limited number of acoustic recordings, all to  very high standard.  

Click here to download Valse Gaiete

Click here to download Hungarian Rhapshody

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