Maria Szymanowska

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Maria Szymanowska
Maria Szymanowska

Maria Szymanowska , b. Marianna Agata Wołowska (born December 14, 1789 in Warsaw , † July 25, 1831 in Saint Petersburg ) was a Polish piano virtuoso and composer.

Life

Józef Elsner taught Maria Szymanowska together with Antoni Lisowski and Tomasz Grem in piano and composition. She gave her first public concerts in Warsaw and Paris in 1810.

In 1810 she married the landowner Józef Szymanowski. Three children were born, but the marriage was unhappy. Her husband had no understanding of her musical work. In 1820 she divorced and devoted herself increasingly to composing piano pieces and chamber music. For the most part she only gave concerts to friends and visitors. Her famous piano cycle “Vingt Exercices et Preludes” and most of her songs also date from this period.

Her concert life began in Warsaw in 1822, which she had to contest despite the care for her three children. She was one of the first musicians who could make a living from her artistic profession. In the years 1823 to 1827 she undertook an extensive tour through Europe: Germany, England, France, Switzerland, Italy and Russia. Maria Szymanowska was probably the first pianist to play her pieces by heart in concert. In Berlin and London she played before the royal court, in Weimar for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . In 1828 she was offered a position as court pianist at the court of the Tsarina in Petersburg. She moved to Russia, where she also gave piano lessons at court. She ran a musical salon that was frequented by Polish and Russian artists and aristocrats, as well as by members of a student union to which her two Polish sons-in-law belonged. These are the poet Adam Mickiewicz who married her daughter Celina and the lawyer Franciszek Malewski who married her daughter Helena. Maria Szymanowska died of cholera in Petersburg at the age of 41.

Work and reception

Cenotaph in the Tikhvin Cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in Saint Petersburg

Szymanowska, who had toured all of Europe, set musical milestones in the cultural life of several countries. She was famous both for her compositions (from 1816) and for the way she performed as a soloist, in which, for example, she was probably the first to play her program by heart. Franz Liszt has been regarded as the first one generation later. The Polish lawyer and exile Franciszek Malewski described her as a “most extraordinary woman”, his friend Adam Mickiewicz as “the queen of sounds” and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe dedicated a poem to the “enchanting goddess of music”. Connoisseurs appreciated her brilliant, expressive presentation of the pieces. The literary critic Maurycy Mochnacki wrote in 1827: "She lets the piano speak and sing". From 1950 Maria Szymanowska's works were reprinted in the Polish Music Publishing House in Krakow , and at the end of the 20th century also in the USA. In Paris there is the Maria Szymanowska Society ; a scientific colloquium for the great European took place there for the first time in 2011 .

Compositions

The earliest known date of a composition by Maria Szymanowska is 1803. She wrote over a hundred compositions. Most of the most interesting pieces are piano pieces such as études, preludes, dances, etc. She composed over twenty songs with piano accompaniment and three chamber music works. Her compositions are described as "pre-romantic" and are characterized on the one hand by brilliant, virtuoso piano setting, on the other hand by profound expressiveness (romances), simplicity in form and text, with no polyphonies. Your motive developments mainly serve the singing (Poniatowska 1993). Polish and Russian scholars consider her an important precursor for Frédéric Chopin , especially in the use of the brilliant style , mazurkas, polonaise, nocturnes, etc. Chopin, a generation younger, had the same teacher as her: Józef Elsner. It has not yet been researched whether it will be a priority for the introduction of the nocturnus in Poland.

Goethe

  • to Ottilie von Goethe on August 18, 1823 from Marienbad: Madame Szymanowska, a female bumblebee with the easy Polish facility, made these last few days very pleasant for me; behind the Polish kindness stood the greatest talent, as it were, only as a foil or, if you like, the other way around. Talent would overwhelm you if it didn't make her grace forgiving.
  • writes on August 18, 1823 in his diary: Poems in the two albums accomplished and written. Madame Szymanowska came to see me. Curious about the content of the album.
  • To Eckermann on December 1, 1831: At first, as you know, I only had the elegy as an independent poem. Then Szymanowska visited me, who had been with me in Marienbad that summer and, with her charming melodies, awakened an echo of those youthful, blissful days in me.

literature

  • Isolde Weiermüller-Backes / Barbara Heller, piano music by women composers from the 17th to the 21st century, Düsseldorf 2003, p. 85

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ MUGI: Maria Szymanowska
  2. ^ MUGI: Concert tours .
  3. ^ MUGI: Reception .
  4. ↑ MUGI: style of play .
  5. ^ Maria Szymanowska, a great European
  6. ^ MUGI: Reception .
  7. ↑ See web link French biography.
personal data
SURNAME Szymanowska, Maria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Szymanowska, Marya; Wołowska, Marianna Agata (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish piano virtuoso and composer
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1789
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw
DATE OF DEATH July 25, 1831
Place of death St. Petersburg