Jan Nepomucen Bobrowicz

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(Feliks) Jan Nepomucen Bobrowicz - in his works also Jan N. de Bobrowicz (born May 12, 1805 in Krakow , † November 2, 1881 in Dresden ) was a Polish composer , guitar virtuoso and publisher.

Life

Bobrowicz was born in Kraków in May 1805 and baptized Feliks Jan , but never used his first name. His parents Jan and Marianna came from Kovno . Since they belonged to the nobility, Bobrowicz later published under the name de Bobrowicz . Father Jan was a member of the Society of Friends of Music in Krakow and was temporarily responsible for organizing their concerts.

Little is known about Bobrowicz's early musical education; according to his own statements, he began playing guitar at the age of three. He presumably went to Vienna from 1816 to 1818 to take guitar lessons with Mauro Giuliani (probably the most important guitar virtuoso of his time) and composition lessons with Carl Czerny (a student of Ludwig van Beethoven and teacher of Franz Liszt ) or Johann Nepomuk Hummel (at times as court conductor of the Prince Esterhazy direct successor to Joseph Haydn ).

Jan Nepomucen joined the Kraków Music Society around 1822 . In Krakow he had his first public appearances and was active as a composer from 1821 to 1830.

In 1829 Bobrowicz entered the Senate Service in Cracow as a secretary and was actively involved in the November uprising of 1830/31 as a lieutenant in the cavalry . After the end of the uprising, Bobrowicz, an officer who had meanwhile been decorated with the mark of bravery, went to Prussia with the defeated troops of General Rybiński . From there he tried, like many of his compatriots, to get to Western Europe and in early 1832 crossed the border to the Kingdom of Saxony under the name Tamulewicz , but had to stay in Leipzig because of an illness, where he became head of the "Foreign Library". Since he had entered the country illegally and under a false name, he was under constant surveillance by the Saxon police authorities and was even imprisoned for some time in November 1834. In the meantime, as a guitar virtuoso, who in 1833 had even been referred to as “Chopin's guitar”, and a composer, he had achieved nationwide recognition. Several publishers brought out his works from 1826. He managed to get a job at Breitkopf & Härtel . The Härtel family supported Bobrowicz again and again, for example by writing to the security authorities, in which he was certified political neutrality and disinterest in political matters. These representations were obviously intended to reassure the authorities; Bobrowicz was indeed a committed advocate of the Polish national cause.

Bobrowicz worked as a teacher, concert performer and composer. In his concerts, however, he usually did not play his own works, but classics by Paganini , Giuliani, Hummel or Moscheles , often in arrangements by Giuliani.

In 1836 or 1837 Bobrowicz married Friederike Victorie Henriette Petit from a merchant family who immigrated from France. The couple had four sons (Feliks Oskar (1838), Jozef Władysław (1840), Jan Adam Stanisław (1843), Karol Klemens Mirosław (1848)) and four daughters (Zofia Helena (1841), Wiktoria Maria Wanda (1842), Aleksandra Jadwiga Malwina (1844), Maria Kazimiera (1846)).

In 1848 Bobrowicz was naturalized and opened his own publishing business, the Librairie étrangère , in which hundreds of works, mainly Polish literature, were published in the following years. However, the business was not successful, so that Bobrowicz moved to Dresden in 1858, where he continued to work as a publisher and died of a stroke in 1881 at the age of 76 .

Compositions

Bobrowicz's first surviving composition is Op., Published in 1826 by F. Piller in Lvov . 6. The last surviving edition appeared in 1837 by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig (Op. 30). Overall, the compositional work includes:

  • 17 compositions with opus numbers (Op. 6 to Op. 30)
    • including: Grand Polonaise , Op. 24
  • 5 compositions without opus numbers (arrangements or translations)
  • 15-25 lost works (missing opus numbers)

Most of his guitar works are written as a theme with variations . Ophee describes his composition as a combination of Giuliani's technical qualities with Chopin's harmonic language .

literature

  • Constantin von Wurzbach : Bobrowicz, JN . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 22nd part. Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1870, p. 486 ( digitized version ).
  • Matanya Ophée: Introduction. In the S. (Ed.): 6 Variations. Ed. Orphée, 1984.
  • Matanya Ophee: Chopin sur la Guitare. Jan Nepomucen Bobrowicz and his Grand Polonaise op. 24. In: Guitar & Laute 10, 1988, Issue 4, pp. 29–37.
  • Hanna Batorowska: Jan Nepomucen Bobrowicz polski wydawca i księgarz w Saksonii w czasach Wielkiej Emigracji . Diss., Krakow 1992
  • Jan Oberbek: Jan Nepomucen Bobrowicz, Chopin of the Guitar. Bielsko-Biała , undated
  • Krzysztof Komarnicki: Introduction. In: Robert Coldwell (Ed.): JN de Bobrowicz Selected Works . 2 volumes; DGA, 2005 ( Preview Volume 1 , Preview Volume 2 ).
  • Albert Sowinski: Les Musiciens Polonais et Slaves [...]. Paris 1857 (quoted by Matanya Ophee, 1988, p. 29). Digitized version: Les Musiciens polonais et slaves, anciens et modern , accessed on October 29, 2016.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The biographical information comes mainly from the presentation by Komarnicki (2005)
  2. ↑ Sowinski (1857).
  3. ↑ Sowinski (1857).
  4. ↑ Sowinski (1857).
personal data
SURNAME Bobrowicz, Jan Nepomucen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bobrowicz, Jan Nepomucen de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish composer and guitar virtuoso
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1805
PLACE OF BIRTH Krakow
DATE OF DEATH November 2, 1881
Place of death Dresden