Tekla Bądarzewska

Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska's grave in the Powązki cemetery

Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska (* 1834 in Mława ; † September 29, 1861 in Warsaw ) was a Polish composer . The (false) dates of life 1838 to 1862 are also widespread.

Life

Bądarzewska married Jan Baranowski at a very young age. They had five children in their nine-year marriage. She died at the age of 27 and is buried in the Powązki cemetery . The "Bądarzewska" crater on the planet Venus is named after her.

“A Virgin's Prayer” ^{? / i} ,
MIDIplayback, 3:05 minutes, 13KB

She wrote a total of around 35 salon pieces for piano, of which “The Prayer of a Virgin” (“Modlitwa dziewicy”, “La prière d'une vierge”, Op. 3) became extremely popular, which on the one hand was due to its catchy melodic-harmonic course, but on the other hand is explainable because of its trivial title. As a counterpart to the prayer , Bądarzewska wrote the similarly structured answered prayer ("Prière exaucée").

Reception of a virgin's prayer

In its day, The Virgin's Prayer (first published in Warsaw in 1856) was possibly the most successful piano piece of all to date . It was reissued several times, including in Germany, England and France. At the end of the 19th century it was adapted for many different occupations.

The melody with an introduction , interspersed with trills and arpeggios , was seen by some as the epitome of kitsch .

In one of his early poems, Erich Kästner parodied the prayer of a virgin as the prayer of no virgin . Kurt Weill used the piece in the first act of his opera " Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny " as an example of the ironic exclamation: "This is eternal art!"

literature

Helmut Zeraschi : Musical purrs and snippets . New Music , Berlin (East) 1977, ISBN 978-0-00-555676-4 , "Thekla, the successfully praying virgin", p. 16-25 .

Web links

Commons : Tekla Bądarzewska - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Bądarzewska, Tekla
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska, Thekla Badarczewska
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Polish musician
DATE OF BIRTH	1834
PLACE OF BIRTH	Mława
DATE OF DEATH	September 29, 1861
Place of death	Warsaw