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Chopin
Ch
op
in
Text, selection of images and conceptMieczysław Tomaszewski
Graphic design Władysław Pluta
TranslationLindsay Davidson
EditorChristopher Cary, Joanna Kułakowska-Lis
Co-ordination of editorial work Joanna Kułakowska-Lis, Jakub Kinel
CollaborationMałgorzata Fiedor, Agnieszka Simonides
Editing of captions and list of illustrationsJoanna Kułakowska-Lis
DTPBOSZ, Jakub Kinel
Contemporary photographs Waldemar Panów, Zbigniew Panów, Wojciech Buss
Preparation of images for printingStudio Kolor
PrintingGorenjski Tisk, Kranj
Printed in Slovenia
PWM 20693© Copyright by Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne SA, Kraków 2009
© Copyright by BOSZ, Olszanica 2009
No part of this publication may be used with-out written permission from the publishers and the owners of the objects reproduced.
Exhibits and archival materials found in this book are drawn from the collections: Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina, Towarzystwo im. Fryderyka Chopina, Muzeum Fryderyka Chopina w Warszawie, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, Biblioteka Narodowa, Fundacja XX Czartory-skich, Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu, Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, Muzeum Historyczne Miasta Stołecznego Warszawy, Muzeum Lite-ratury im. Adama Mickiewicza w Warszawie, Fundacja im. Ciechanowieckich w Warszawie, Tate Galery, London, Musée Carnavalet, Paris (©Bridgeman/BE&W), Musée du Louvre, Paris (©RMN/BE&W)
Third edition, correctedPublisher BOSZ Olszanica, Poland, 2010Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne SAKraków, Poland, 2010
38-622 Olszanica 311 Office: 38-600 Lesko, ul. Przemysłowa 14tel. +48 13 469 90 00fax +48 13 469 61 88e-mail: [email protected] 978-83-7576-075-0 (BOSZ, jacket)ISBN 978-83-7576-084-2 (BOSZ, box)
31-111 Krakówal. Krasińskiego 11atel. +48 12 422 70 44fax +48 12 422 01 74e-mail: [email protected] 978-83-224-0908-4 (PWM)
L i s t o f C o n t e n t s 1 H o m e 6 2 R o o t s 2 4 3 V i l l a g e 3 6 4 W a r s a w 5 2 5 F i r s t w a n d e r i n g s 7 8 6 U p r i s i n g 1 1 6 7 P a r i s 1 4 2 8 T h e R o m a n t i c M o v e m e n t 1 6 0 9 T h e p i a n i s t 1 7 6 1 0 C o m p o s e r 1 9 0 1 1 S a l o n s 2 0 2 1 2 M e e t i n g i n M a r i e n b a d 2 1 8 1 3 M a j o r c a 2 3 2 1 4 N o h a n t 2 5 2 1 5 D i s s o n a n c e s 2 7 0 1 6 H o m e l a n d a n d F a i t h 2 8 4 1 7 L a s t y e a r s 3 0 0 1 8 L a s t d a y s 3 1 8 1 9 R e s o n a n c e 3 3 8 L i s t o f i l l u s t r a t i o n s 3 5 2
H o m e
The environment in which Chopin saw the light of day and developed was apparently a safe and welcoming nest, the atmosphere was saturated with agreement, peace and diligence; so those examples of simplicity, devotion and delicacy remained for him forever the dearest and sweetest
Franz Liszt, Chopin, 1852
1
Tekla Justyna Chopin, née Krzyżanowska, Fryderyk’s mother (1782–1861)
H o m e 8All sources – letters, diaries, memoirs and recollections – and different voices say the same thing: Fryderyk Chopin came into the world, grew up and stayed to the end of his days surrounded by a happy, loving fam-ily. Franz Liszt was right: Chopin’s family home was indeed an oasis of “agreement, peace and diligence.” Liszt’s opinion, as Chopin’s friend and first monographer, was given with undoubted truthfulness, confirmed by other accounts: “In an atmosphere of pure domestic virtues, religious tradition, merciful actions and severe modesty, his imagination developed like sensitive plants, that have never been exposed to the dust of big, bustling drove roads.”1
If, in respect of any composer, we could speak about “idyllic-angelic” childhood years, it would be in regards to Chopin. When discussing Justyna and Mikołaj Chopin’s home, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz coined the phrase “the singular home” and closed with this comparison: “This is one of the few examples of a family home in which its individual members are linked by an unusually strong relationship and attachment. Whilst Beethoven had to fight with his drunken father, and Bach, so early orphaned, was placed at the mercy and grace of his brother, Chopin was surrounded in his family nest by the sincere love of his mother, father and sisters.”2
At the time of his birth that “singular home,” filled with an atmosphere of love, stood in Żelazowa Wola; in a quiet place, far from the hustle of the world, next to the slowly flowing Utrata river, on the edge of the Kampi-noska Forest, on the ground of Sochaczewo district, in the Mazovia region, fifty kilometres from Warsaw.
Although the future author of Fantasy on Polish Themes lived here no longer than the first six or seven months of his life (later he merely glanced there a few times in passing visits), it is a special place on earth, as his birthplace, and has become permanently associated with his name. For those to whom Chopin’s music is close and dear it has become a focus for nostalgic pilgrimages and visits.
Chopin’s parents met in Żelazowa Wola, fell in love, and in 1806 mar-ried in nearby Brochów. The village had belonged for a mere eight years to the Skarbek family. The family was marked for a strange and quite specific turn of fate – the stuff novels are made from. The owner of Żelazowa Wola,
Mikołaj Chopin, the future composer’s father (1771–1844)
9Count Kacper Skarbek, captain of the National Cavalry, a playboy and reveller, married Ludwika, the daughter of a Toruń banker called Jakub Fenger to escape from his debts. The dowry was insufficient, the debts grew, and the count saved himself by escaping abroad, leaving a brave wife with five children in Żelazowa Wola. Her distant cousin and friend, Justyna Krzyżanowska, who had probably already been orphaned, assisted her in running the estate; probably orphaned, as genealogists researching her in detail have found the family line broken.3 We know nothing about Chopin’s grandparents on the maternal side, Jakub Krzyżanowski and Antonina of the Wołomińska line, except that they existed, and that they gave birth to a daughter, Tekla Justyna, on 14 September in the year 1782 (in Izbica Kujawska, which belonged to the Skarbeks). On the day that she married the six years older Mikołaj Chopin, the 24-year-old Justyna had only no-table, noble features, the traces of which are still visible in the portrait by Ambroży Mieroszewski painted 24 years later, and nothing more.
Mikołaj Chopin appeared in Żelazowa Wola in the year 1802 as gov-ernor and tutor to the young Skarbeks, abandoned by their thoughtless father. He was free; he had just finished educating two young ladies, the Łączyński girls from nearby Kiernozia. One of them, Maria, immediately found a husband, and as Madam Walewska charmed Napoleon not only by her beauty, but also with her subtlety and ability in speaking French. The education of the young Skarbeks resulted first and foremost with the character of Count Fryderyk. In the history of Polish culture he features as a scholar, historian and writer; in Chopin’s biography as his godfather4, and the person after whom the composer was named. Their fates entangled again: Fryderyk’s son, Józef, married the lady whom Chopin had intended to wed, Maria Wodzińska (only to be divorced shortly thereafter). Another of Mikołaj’s pupils, Michał, the heir to Żelazowa Wola, committed suicide.
Until recently, the history of Chopin’s father’s family was full of mys-tery and uncertainty. Thanks to toilsome research, mainly by Gabriel La-daique,5 many, but not all, of the mysteries have been explained and many uncertainties clarified. Finally, the once popular hypothesis about the Polish roots of Mikołaj’s family that went to Lorraine with Stanisław Leszczyński has been rejected. Although through contact with a group
Justyna Izabela Chopin (1811–1881), the composer’s sister, later wife of Antoni Feliks Barciński, mathematics teacher
Ludwika Marianna, eldest sister of Fry-deryk (1807–1855), married Józef Kalasanty Jędrzejewicz, professor of law and adminis-tration
H o m e 1 0of former participants of the Confederation of the Bar Mikołaj Chopin found himself (in 1787) in Poland, settled and ‘polonized’, the French origins of his family are not subject to any doubt.
Some newly discovered details of the family history may be quite as-tonishing. For example, the Chopin family does not come from Lorraine, but from the Alpine region of Dauphiné. Chopin’s paternal grandfather, Françoise (after whom the composer was given his middle name), was engaged for years in smuggling, especially of tobacco before he settled in Marainville, undertaking work as a wheelwright and wine-grower. Apparently his trail led from the Mediterranean to Lorraine.6
In the only remaining letter from Mikołaj to his parents, written in Warsaw in September 1790,7 he speaks of his eagerness to return to Marainville. What persuaded him to stay in Poland, take part in the Kościuszko Uprising, become a professional tutor, and finally, a teacher and professor of French, is still today unknown. Similarly unknown is what Fryderyk knew about the facts and circumstances of his father’s and grandfather’s life. Why, when living in France, did he make no effort to visit his French family?
Family life buzzed in the four walls of the Chopins’ annex in Żelazowa Wola, and shortly thereafter in the professor’s apartment in the Saski Palace in Warsaw: happy and joyful, as noted by diarists. Naturally, the father led the way. He was a man of the Enlightenment, a rationalist and pragmatist, a little stiff, but loved, but not without distance. “My dearest Papa!” wrote the eight-year-old Chopin on St Nicholas’ Day, “it would be so much easier for me to say what I feel if I could express myself with musical tones …”8 In the future, father and son would take different viewpoints. Despite the greatest respect and dedication, it was impossible to convince Chopin neither to political loyalty, nor to ‘fitting in’ nor, to use his father’s constantly repeated principle, ‘to save a penny for a black hour!’ But his death, in the spring of 1844, caused Chopin a severe psychological trauma. Memories remained of idyllic moments when Mikołaj played melodies such as Malbrough s’en va-t-en guerre on the flute or violin.
Justyna Chopin filled the house by humming songs from a repertoire currently being reconstructed. Apparently she was particularly keen
Emilia Chopin (1812–1827), the youngest of the Chopins, highly talented; died of tuberculosis
1 1about the romance of Laura and Filon “Już miesiąc wzeszedł, psy się uśpiły…” (“Already the moon has risen and the dogs are sleeping …”). In her free time, between the household chores, she would sit down and play the piano for the children to dance. In the memoirs she is seen as the soul of the house, as a person with simply “an extraordinarily sweet character.” To her, it seems, we owe thanks for some traits of Chopin’s character, an openness to all that is poetic and spiritual. In the Paris years she kept an eye on him from afar. “Dear Fryderyk, what can I say to you on your birthday and name day? Always one thing, that I ask for Divine Providence, and beg every day for the blessing of your body and soul, for without it everything is nothing.”9
Chopin was lucky that he grew up surrounded by sisters. The youngest of three, Emilia, who participated in playing with him and in artistic activities, passed away early. Of the two remaining, one-year-younger Izabela and three-years-older Ludwika, the latter was closer to him. They understood each other in the blink of an eye. There are signs that as a child she was the first to introduce him to the world of music; in later years she became his confidante. Both sisters established their own families, but lived in awe at the phenomenal talent of their brother. They almost lived his life. “Not a day goes by,” wrote Izabela, “without us thinking and speaking of you several times; our comfort – to cuddle a sweet thought about you.”10
All of Chopin’s letters say the same thing: the sense of family became the anchor of his life. He uncompromisingly gave as much as he received. While in Paris or in Nohant, waiting for a letter from home was added to his repertoire of daily activities. Nostalgia for home and country seeped into the pages of his musical manuscripts.
“I always have one foot with you – one foot in the next room – where the Lady of the House is working,” he wrote in summer 184511 from the hospitable manor house in Nohant where the slowly flowing Indre River could be seen from the window, which reminded him of the Utrata. In autumn of the following year the state of his spirit was expressed in an even more nostalgic tone: “I would like to fill my letter with the best news, but I do not know anything except that I love you and love you. I play a little, write some.”12
The Skarbeks’ Manor House in Żelazowa Wola; wood engraving by Ignacy Chełmicki according to a sketch by an unknown author. The Chopins lived in the left annex after their marriage in 1806; and there Fryderyk entered the world
H o m e 1 2Norwid, ideally versed in the music of Chopin, summed up his un-
derstanding of art in one sentence: “What do you know about beauty? Its shape is love.”13
In conclusion, a few more words about Chopin’s birthday.It is certain that Chopin was born in 1810, in the village of Żelazowa
Wola in Mazovia, on the banks of the River Utrata, on the rim of the Kampinoska forest, 54 kilometres west of Warsaw.
It has not been possible to determine to this day, however, on what date it happened. According to the official entry in the baptismal records at the parish church in Brochów, Chopin came into the world on February 22. According to his own statement in letters and the family tradition, it was March first. The first date is supported by the weight of the document and the authority of Chopin’s father, who reported his son’s birth; the second, by his mother’s memory. Thus, in the biography of the composer both dates have been recorded and co-exist – each one wondering at the other’s presence.
1 Franz Liszt, Chopin (Paris 1852), Kraków 1960, p. 123. 2 Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, Chopin, Kraków 1955, p. 16. 3 Andrzej Sikorski, Piotr Mysłakowski, Rodzina matki Chopina. Mity i rzeczywistość,
Warsaw 2000. 4 Pamiętniki Fryderyka hrabiego Skarbka, edited by P. Mysłakowski, Warsaw 2009. 5 Gabriel Ladaique, Les ancêtres paternels de Frédéric François Chopin, Lille-Paris 1987. 6 Compare A. Sikorski, P. Mysłakowski, Rodzina matki Chopina, op. cit., pp. 16–17. 7 From the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Facsimile of the letter in:
Krystyna Kobylańska, Chopin w kraju, Kraków 1956, pp. 2–3. 8 Chopin congratulatory scroll (home made greeting card) from 6 Dec. 1818. 9 Justyna Chopin to her son, Feb. 1848. 10 Izabela Barcińska, to her brother, 16 Oct. 1842. 11 Chopin to his family, Nohant 18–20 July 1845. 12 Chopin to his family, Nohant 11 Oct. 1846. 13 Cyprian K. Norwid, Promethidion, 1851.
1 3
Fryderyk Franciszek’s baptismal certificate. The child was christened on 23 April 1810 in St Roch’s Church in Brochów, the certificate was written by Józef Morawski, the Vicar of Brochów parish. Fryderyk was held for the christening: Franciszek Grembecki in the place of Fryderyk Skarbek and Countess Anna Skarbek
Fryderyk Skarbek, economist, novelist, professor at Warsaw University, Fryderyk Chopin’s godfather
Anna Skarbek (1793–1873), Fryderyk Skar-bek’s sister, Fryderyk Chopin’s godmother. In 1820 married Stefan Wiesiołowski in this church in Brochów. According to records she remained in good relations with the Chopins
H o m e 1 4
Fortified church in Brochów, contemporary view
Illustration of the church in Brochów
1 5
Weir in the area of Brochów
Mazovian landscape
H o m e 1 6
Haystacks in the meadows in the area of Żelazowa Wola
Żelazowa Wola, the park around the Skarbeks’ Manor House
1 7
Interior of the Manor House reconstructed and furnished after the war, does not attempt to be a reconstruction of the the appearance from Chopin’s time, but rather to give an impression of the atmosphere and style of the era of the future composer
The Manor House in Żelazowa Wola where Fryderyk Chopin spent the first few months of his life, today a museum dedicated to the composer
H o m e 1 8
Napoleon Orda, Żelazowa Wola, illustration in Album of Historical Views of Poland. At the end of 1810 the Chopins, together with small Fryderyk and the not much older Ludwika moved to Warsaw, leaving the Skar-beks’ Manor House
Mother’s favourite song. Chopin included it in the Fantasia in A major on Polish Themes for piano and orchestra
1 9
Name day wishes written by Fryderyk for his mother 16 June 1817
Saski Palace – location of the Warsaw Lyceum and the Chopins’ apartment
A card made by little Fryderyk for his father on the occasion of his name day, 6 December 1816
H o m e 2 0
Mother’s letter to Fryderyk from February 1848
Grave of the Unknown Soldier – only this arcade of the Saski Palace survived after the destruction of the second world war
2 1
R o o t s
Poland has given him a knight’s sense and its historical suffering, France – lightness, elegance and charm, Germany – romantic depth
Heinrich Heine, X Letter from Paris, 1838
2
Wojciech Żywny, Chopin’s first teacher
2 6R o o t sHeine tried more than once to capture the phenomenon of Chopin in words. He always used superlative tones. As a listener – almost excessively sensitive – he grasped something in the music that had escaped from the writings of others. It was he who first noticed and pointed out that Chopin can not be classified as he had been, as a pianist-composer of the masses, like Thalberg, Liszt, Moscheles and Kalkbrenner. “He is not only a virtuoso,” he announced in his next, the tenth Letter From Paris, “he is also a poet, and his music reflects the poetry that lives in his soul. He is a poet of sounds (Tondichter) and nothing can equal the pleasure which he gives us when sits at the piano and improvises.”1
And then follows a moment of speech in which Heine seems to deny the intuition which dictated the phrase concerning the triple provenance of Chopin’s music. He writes: “Therefore he is neither a Pole, nor French-man, nor German; he betrays origins of a higher order, he has sensitivity that comes from the realm of Mozart, Raphael, Goethe, and his real homeland is the dreamy kingdom of poetry.”2
Between the two positions there is, in fact, no conflict; they agree with and complement each other. The first speaks about the triple gen-esis, the second about being tuned into a higher, universal resonance. And even though you can argue with the poet about the details of his concept, about its incompletion, the fact of multilateral provenance is incontestable.
Similarly, although in a different manner, Robert Schumann saw the multifaceted nature of Chopin’s music. Its origins were drawn from the spirit of the work of particular composers – Beethoven, Schubert and John Field. Beethoven was to weave courage into Chopin’s soul, Schu-bert was to stir the tenderness in his heart, and finally, John Field was to give fluency to Chopin’s fingers.3
Everything rhymes a bit too easily here for Schumann’s intuition to be completely accurate. Chopin did not need to look outside of his country, its history and customs, to find daring spirit or sensitivity of heart. And he was born with fluency in his fingers. It is amazing, but in the art of piano playing he had no real teacher. His only professional teacher was a violinist rather than a pianist.
Ludwig van Beethoven, Sonata F minor op. 7, known as “Appassionata” (fragment)
Beginning of Prelude I in C major BWV 870 Jan Sebastian Bach from Das Wohltemperierte Klavier
Lacrimosa dies illa from the Requiem in D mi-nor KV 626 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (fragment)
2 7Wojciech Żywny, colourful beyond description, appeared in Chopin’s
life at the moment when, as a child, his unprecedented talent and unique sensitivity to music were identified. On the basis of not completely certain information it is possible to ascertain that he lived in Warsaw from 1811 and made contact with the Chopin family five years later, and had such close contact that he was almost a member of the family. He taught not only Chopin the piano, but also his sisters and friends from the board-ing house founded by his father for high-born youth. He was constantly present in letters, always with humorous overtones. A Czech by birth, his Czech accent was amusing, he constantly used snuff and wore yellow wigs reminiscent of Bach’s times.
A contemporary of Mozart, he brought a deeper-reaching tradition to Poland: Bach. He made Bach’s music – at least the Wohltemperierte Klavier – the foundation and Bible of Chopin’s musical thinking. With-out Bach’s preludes and fugues there would not be Chopin preludes and etudes. He travelled to Majorca with a volume of the Wohltemperierte, he played “Bach and only Bach” to prepare for his concert performances, and advised his students to do the same. One of his reliable students, Fryderyka Müller, declares that one day he played her 14 preludes and fugues from memory4. There are many indications that this unusual cult shows Chopin – and his school – dependent upon “kind Żywny, always in an old wig.”5
Chopin studied with Żywny for six years, between the sixth and the twelfth year of his life, when Józef Elsner took over his care. The dedication to the Polonaise in A-flat major (WN 3) thanked his teach-ers for their teaching. A few years later in answering a Viennese critic, amazed at the level of education of this young virtuoso from Warsaw, he politely said: “With Mr Żywny and Mr Elsner the biggest ass would learn [something].”6
Amongst the music gods of Olympus for Chopin, Mozart came after Bach. And after Mozart, Beethoven. The author of the Variations op. 2 on La ci darem la mano considered Don Giovanni and the Requiem absolute masterpieces, which he had heard and seen staged in Warsaw. He never missed any opportunity to hear them again. According to Karol Mikuli,
Józef Elsner (1760–1854), composer, peda-gogue, rector of the Conservatory and Main Music School. Chopin attended lessons with him from his thirteenth year of life
2 8R o o t shis teacher “played Bach first and foremost, but it is hard to say whom he liked more – the former or Mozart. He performed the works of both of them in an equally incomparably great manner.”7 Chopin shared his devotion to Mozart with Pauline Viardot, and above all, Eugène De-lacroix. The painter noted the content of discussions with Chopin about the author of Don Giovanni. One day he wrote “Mozart never makes mistakes!” According to Liszt (which seems improbable) for Chopin, Mozart opened the romantic era with his final works. In the opinion of Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, “Chopin was Mozart’s heir.”8
The roots in Beethoven’s music do not reach so deeply. Chopin had both admiration and distance for the author of the Appassionata. Although he sat through the 9th Symphony several times – in Paris, Aachen, Lon-don – in discussions with Delacroix he did not stray far from criticism. He did not value all of Beethoven’s works equally. He played some of Beethoven’s sonatas with pleasure, but in the opinions of experts, not in the Beethovenian manner – he Chopinised them.9 However, if we look at the matter from the perspective of compositional poetry, if it were not for Beethoven there would not be any Chopin sonatas, ballads or scherzos.
Bach, Mozart and Beethoven – each influenced the development of Chopin’s idiom in their own way and to their own extent. His idiom was so much his own despite multilateral provenance. This multilateralism was not exhausted through the impact of three great predecessors. Before they appeared in the ears, and shortly after in the fingers of “the child promising to replace Mozart,” there was already music of another sphere and rank: Polish popular song. This already filled the acoustic spaces of the manor house in Żelazowa Wola, and then in the Saski Palace. It was rich and varied in themes, mood and character; from children’s lullabies to Romances, from carols to singing patriotic songs. Chopin reached back to this repertoire – embedded in youthful ears and imagination – when he was overwhelmed by nostalgia. For example when he confided in a late letter home; “the evening I spent at home, playing, engrossed in songs from the Vistula …”10 Traces of popular songs can be found from the early years: in reminiscences, allusions, quotations. Examples include: “Już miesiąc zeszedł” in Fantasia on Polish Themes, notes from
Title page of the first edition of Vingt Exer-cices et Préludes by Maria Szymanowska
Aleksander Kokular, Portrait of Maria Szy-manowska, circa 1825; Maria Szymanowska (née Wołowska), born in 1789, pianist and composer; she gave concerts all over Europe, and towards the end of her life was the court pianist for the Empress in St. Petersburg
Michał Kleofas Ogiński (1765–1833), composer, aristocrat, involved in the independance movement, participant in the Kościuszko Uprising, creator of popular polonaises
2 9
Konstancja Dmuszewska in the title role in Karol Kurpiński’s opera, Jadwiga
3 0R o o t sthe carol – Lulaj-że Jezuniu in the trio of Viennese Scherzos in B minor, or the motive heard in the song Tam na błoniu błyszczy kwiecie which forms the basis of the Mazurka in E minor composed on Majorca.
Chopin’s music has more roots in two areas very close to those previ-ously mentioned; the area of contemporary Polish music surrounding him, and a special area – historical song.
Although not researched methodically, one can easily imagine and reconstruct the repertoire that reached the ears and was written into the memory of the child and youth. This consisted mainly of songs, ditties and dances: polonaises by Michał Kleofas Ogiński, mazurkas by Jan Stefani and Maria Szymanowska, dumkas and polonaises by Karol Kurpiński, sweet songs and Polish dances by Józef Elsner…. These were not the peaks of artistry, rather more functional music than high art, but they had a clear character that could be called the Polish idiom. If we believe the diarists, some of them were sung or played to accompany joyful dancing by Chopin’s mother Justyna.
The area of the second repertoire mentioned above existed and was fixed in Chopin’s consciousness and memory in a different way. Niemcewicz’s Śpiewy historyczne (Historical Songs), set to music as a patriotic gesture by thirteen composers of his time became property of the nation. Published for the first time in 1816, they immediately began to function as a history of the homeland shown through words, songs and images. They were sung and memorised by everyone, including at Mikołaj Chopin’s board-ing house. “At dusk, in our spare moments from learning,” remembered one of the participants,11 “we told of accidents from Polish history such as the death of King Warneńczyk or Żółkiewski, battles fought by our leaders, etc., – and young Chopin played it all on the piano… more than once we cried listening to that moving music, and Żywny got excited about his playing.”
Fate had it that a few years later, in Paris, Chopin came to improvise on these songs in front of Niemcewicz himself. One may believe that some reflection, some echo of these early improvisations on these pa-triotic themes was called upon later, when Chopin’s music had already reached its peak. Perhaps without these improvisations on Niemcewicz’s
A. Molinari, Karol Kurpiński, 1825; Kurpiński (1785–1857), composer and peda-gogue, was conductor and later director in the National Opera in Warsaw; he conducted during the first performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto in F minor
Litwinka by Karol Kurpiński; inspired Chopin to compose the Fantasia in F minor op. 49
3 1songs we would never have the Fantasy in F minor? Maybe the roots of the idea for the Polonaise-Fantasy in A-flat major lie there?
1 Heinrich Heine und die Musik, ed. Gerhard Müller, Leipzig 1987, p. 106. 2 Heinrich Heine und die Musik, op. cit., p. 107. 3 Robert Schumann, Schriften über Musik und Musiker, ed. Josef Häusler, Stuttgart 1982, p. 91.
Statement from 1836. 4 Statement by Friederike Müller-Streicher, compare Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, Chopin
w oczach swoich uczniów, translated by Zbigniew Skowron, Kraków 2000, pp. 178–179. 5 See Chopin’s letters to Jan Białobłocki from 27 July 1825 and to Tytus Woyciechowski
from 9 Sep. 1828. 6 Chopin to his family, Vienna 19 Aug. 1829. 7 Karol Mikuli, Introduction in F. Chopin’s Pianoforte-Werke, Leipzig 1879 F. Kistner. 8 J. J. Eigeldinger, Chopin w oczach swoich uczniów, op. cit., p. 34. 9 Wilhelm von Lenz, Die grossen Pianoforte-Virtuosen unserer Zeit aus persönlicher
Bekanntschaft. Liszt, Chopin, Tausig, Henselt, Berlin 1872. 10 Chopin to his family, Paris 15 Apr. 1847. 11 Eustachy Marylski, Z pamiętników, in Ferdynand Hoesick, Słowacki i Chopin,
Warsaw 1932, p. 90.
Young Fryderyk’s playing is listened to by boys from the Chopins’ boarding house; pic-ture by A. C. Gow, A Musical Story by Chopin
Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz (1758–1841), poet, adjutant to Adam Kazimierz Czarto-ryski, active participant in the Stronnictwo Patriotyczne (Patriotic Party), President of the Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk (Society of the Friends of Science), his Historical Songs became a textbook for subdued Poland; already as a child Chopin improvised on these themes
3 2R o o t s
Title page of Niemcewicz’s Historical Songs, published in 1816 “with music and draw-ings” and a page with music of the song Jan Kazimierz. The music for the songs was com-posed by thirteen contemporary Polish com-posers, including Franciszek Lessel, Karol Kurpiński and Maria Szymanowska
Illustration to Duma about Stefan Potocki from the Historical Songs
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V i l l a g e
If you see Szafarnia, Płonne, Gulbiny, Radomin, Ornówek, mention my name…
Chopin to Jan Białobłocki, 20 June 1826
Your fields left me a kind of longing…
Chopin to Tytus Woyciechowski, 21 August 1830
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Exposition in the Museum of the Mazovian Village in Sierpc
3 8V i l l a g e“I am not created for the village,” Chopin complained in a letter to his family written in Nohant in the summer of 1845.1 A few days earlier, from the same Nohant, he sent one of his friends in Paris these words of delight: “The village is so beautiful, that I would feel sympathy for you shut away in the city, if it weren’t Paris.”2
He was split into two. On one side, he was a person of the city, not the village. But from the other side, perhaps especially as a person of the city, he was under the influence of the sentimental image of village life and gave in to the romantic aura: “Beautiful village, nightingales, larks,”3 charmed by Mrs Sand’s rural estate he tried to tempt Wojciech Grzymała to visit. But when those days of bad weather came – rain, thunder and gales – his fragile nature said no. Then, as George Sand noted, “all his poor nerves were scattered.”4
13-year-old Chopin’s first full and deeper experience of village life met with unbounded enthusiasm, fascination with a different way of living and astonishment with exotic folklore. This took place in 1824 in Szafarnia, a small village lost among the fields and forests around Dobrzyń, a point where the regions of Mazovia, Pomerania and Kuyavia meet. It was his first real vacation, spent amongst friendly people known and close to him – the family of a friend, a pupil of noble extraction from his father’s boarding house.
A series of letters sent from Szafarnia to family is compulsory reading; in playful form, they parody a newspaper of the capital. The “Szafarski Couriers” allow us to follow every stage of the city dandy’s wonder at the village. Everything was new: country air and village bread, domestic fauna and horse riding, and above all – songs, dances and customs, strangely enticing outlandishness and crudeness.
At the beginning the observer’s viewpoint dominated: “In Obrowo it was Harvest Home,” reported the “Szafarski Courier” of August 24. “The whole village gathered before the Manor House and sincerely rejoiced, especially after the vodka, and squealing lasses sang a well known ditty, a semitone out of tune:
Before the House the ducks in mudAnd our Lady all in gold”
Interior of a house in the museum in Sierpc
3 9Hearing “the village Catalani sitting on the fence, singing something full throttle,” when passing by Nieszawa was enough to activate the collector of folklore. Three pennies sufficed to persuade the girl to allow him to an-notate words of the “mazureczek”:
“Hark behind the hillocks there, / how the wolf dances, And still yet he has no wife / because he so worries. “
Finally, the newcomer from the city allowed himself to be embraced by the magic of the village fete, to be drawn in and absorb it entirely. Playing, dancing and singing together with the others, into the night, until they dropped. And he reported everything in nearly perfect detail in a letter from Szafarnia. His relation of events is worth quoting, at least in parts: “We were sitting at dinner finishing the last dish, when in the distance we heard a choir of untuned descants, first old wives gaggling through their noses, then with lasses fulsomely squealing mercilessly a semitone higher, accompanied by one three-stringed violin, which played an alto response after every strophe, standing somewhere behind them.” Each couplet ‘took a dig’ at somebody. Two digs were taken at dandies from the capital:
“A green bush before the Manor / Our Warsaw lad is like a dog. Mayflies stand before the barn / Our Warsaw lad is nimble.”
At the end “the jumping, waltz and obertas began and to encourage the farmhands who were standing silently keeping time I took Miss Tekla [Borzewska] as first couple in the waltz; Mrs Dziewanowska at the end. Later everyone was so enthused that we danced till we dropped in the courtyard…” And Chopin, with enthusiasm, “I grabbed a dusty bow and when I started to play the bass, I rasped so noisily that everyone came to look…” And as a city person, he didn’t omit to note, “The night was beautiful, the moon and the stars were shining…”5
Szafarnia, when it comes to Chopin’s relationship with Polish villages, is not alone. It was surrounded by an entire constellation of hamlets, vil-lages and small towns once called, not without reason, “Chopin’s district.”6 In 1824 and 1825 it was only a point of departure for trips throughout the region, a melting pot for Mazovian-Kuyavian-Pomoranian folklore, and not just folklore. Chopin found himself there, invited by the Dzie-wanowski family, known for an honourable role in the Napoleonic epopee.
