Antoni Stolpe the Younger

Antoni Stolpe

Antoni Stolpe (born May 23, 1851 in Puławy , † September 7, 1872 in Meran ) was a Polish composer.

The son of the music teacher Edward and grandson of the composer Alojzy Stolpe studied in Warsaw with Karl August Freyer and Stanisław Moniuszko . At the age of fifteen he composed O salutaris Hostia for mixed choir and a quintet for strings and organ. Three concerts with his own works - including a concert overture , a sextet for piano and strings, a piano trio, Scena dramatyczna for cello and string quintet, piano etudes and an orchestral song based on Victor Hugo - provided him with the means for a study trip to Berlin in 1869.

Here he studied composition with Friedrich Kiel and took piano lessons at Theodor Kullak's Neue Akademie der Tonkunst , who made him head a piano class. His piano sonata in D minor was the only work to be published in Berlin during his lifetime . The last completed work was a sonata for violin and piano in Berlin. Sick of pneumonia, Stolpe returned to Warsaw in 1872. A spa stay in Merano was supposed to restore his health, where he died in September of the same year.

After the death of his father two years later, the composer's works, whom contemporaries such as Władysław Żeleński and Zygmunt Noskowski had regarded as a genius comparable to Chopin, were scattered and forgotten. It was not until 2001 that the musicologist Wróbel discovered Stolpe's variations for string quartet in the estate of Stanisław Golachowski and performed them at the Festival of Polish Chamber Music in Warsaw. The Pro Musica Camerata Foundation organized a performance of all of Stolpe's discoverable works at the Warsaw Chamber Opera , at which a three-part complete recording of his works was made under the title Antoni Stolpe - opera omnia .

source

• Radio Mariya - Antoni Stolpe - następca Chopina
• ANTONI STOLPE (1851-1872) - A FORGOTTEN COMPOSER