There is only anecdotal evidence of how the composer Hans Schaeuble discovered music. He evidently learnt the piano at an early age: he was writing out pieces of music even in his childhood. For his years in Lausanne, there are copious accounts of his attendance at concerts by the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Ernest Ansermet, which led him to the conclusion that he should be a composer himself. Against the wishes of his parents, particularly his stepfather (his father having died in 1922), he prepared himself for a course of study in music. From no later than 1927 until the end of 1930, he studied piano with Karl Adolf Martienssen and composition with Hermann Grabner at the Landeskonservatorium in Leipzig. Schaeuble moved to Berlin on 15 or 16 December 1930. He was now a freelance composer and remained so until the end of his life; he never held any official position.

The Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra, op.50, of 1967 is Schaeuble’s fifth work for piano and orchestra. His first essay in the form dates from 1931, his first year in Berlin: the Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra, op.9, which remained unperformed. The Concertino for Oboe and String Orchestra, op.44, of 1959 is the first of three wind concertos that Schaeuble composed in succession between 1959 and 1962. On 9 September 1956 he wrote his first note about preliminary studies; on 11 November 1956 he signed off on his Serenade in B flat for String Orchestra, op.42. Although the piece appears to have been a commissioned work, there is no record of any performances.