The focus of Chopin’s followers and
devotees in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries rested on his
usefulness for their causes, not on a full understanding of his musical
achievements. Thus, Fryderyk Chopin held
an elevated position in the national pantheon as a poet-prophet [wieszcz]
whose musical statements equaled in significance the poetic proclamations of
Adam Mickiewicz, expressing the true spirit of the nation. Jan Kleczyński (1837-1895), Zygmunt Noskowski
(1846-1909), Władysław Żeleński (1837-1921), Stanisław Przybyszewski (1868-1927),
Jarosław de Zielinski (1847-1922), Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941), Stanisław
Niewiadomski (1859-1936), and Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) were preoccupied
with demonstrating the ways that identified Chopin and his oeuvre as truly and
fully Polish. Their essays contributed to a Polish
tradition of constructing Chopin’s identity, a tradition that evolved through
distinct stages of Polonizing the composer, based on shifting definitions of
the essence of nationality.
In this essay I will trace the
evolution of nationalist views of Chopin’s musical and personal Polishness,
views of an increasingly all-embracing nature, connected to the Romantic idea
of the “Polish spirit” (primarily expressed in Chopin’s music) and to the
notion of the “Polish race” (exemplified by Chopin himself). The conceptual background for this evolution
is provided by ideas put forward by such European writers on nationhood and the
arts as a German Romantic philosopher and critic, Johann Gottfried Herder
(1744-1803), whose well-known idea of the “spirit of the people” i.e. Volksgeist,
influenced the texts by Kleczyński, Noskowski and Żeleński; and a French
philosopher and historian of social-Darwinist orientation, Hippolyte Taine
(1828-1893), whose theories of artistic expressions of the nation-race had an
impact on writings by Przybyszewski, Niewiadomski, Zielinski, Paderewski, and
Szymanowski. The gradual replacement of
the older German notion of the “national spirit” (Herder) with the more modern
notion of the “national race and milieu” (Taine) is evident in the
argumentation used in texts about Chopin’s place in Polish musical culture
until the outbreak of World War II.
Defining National
Traits
In the
process of depicting Chopin as Poland’s paradigmatic national composer, his
followers expressed their beliefs about national messages that Chopin
supposedly conveyed in his music.
Initially, their definitions of national identity, inspired by Herder’s
notion of the Volksgeist, envisioned it as a spiritual phenomenon,
centered on the experiences and productions of the Folk, i.e. the inhabitants
of the countryside enjoying spontaneously creative lives in a close connection
to nature, the pristine and enchanting fields and meadows of Poland. In this interpretative tradition, Chopin’s
music was valued not in and of itself; instead, its quality was construed as
stemming from its closeness to Polish folk song and the landscape. The Chopin essays, however, feature a wider
variety of arguments while explaining the composer’s Polish identity and his
significance for Polish culture. It will
be informative to briefly review the main criteria, or markers, for
ethnic/national identity that recur in Polish writings addressing the national
identity of Chopin and other composers and might be relevant to our discussion.
Selected Criteria for Defining the Polish
Identity of Composers
A. Biographic Criteria
(personal identity,
background, and choices, defined by self and others)
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1) “name” – Polish
forms of the first and last name
2) “family-of-origin” – Polish family background,
typically patrilineal and at times connected to the notion of the “Polish
race”
3) “psychosomatic identity” – being the embodiment of
Polish traits in the whole person, body and spirit (given, not self-defined)
4) “emotional and patriotic identity” – having a “Polish
heart” and displaying a deep attachment to Poland (chosen, self-defined)
5) “official identity” – with a Polish national identity
and citizenship
6) “native language” – using Polish as the native language
7) “community” –
engaged in the Polish community, through the place of residence, membership
in organizations, and charitable activities for Polish causes
|
B. Musical Criteria
(traits chosen by
the composers or ascribed to their works by others)
|
1) “language” – the use of Polish texts and titles in
works
2) “genre” – the use of Polish genres, e.g. the mazurka or
polonaise
3) “quotation” – citing from Polish folk music, national
songs or anthems
4) “style” – the presence of various melodic and rhythmic
elements definable as ‘Polish’, especially originating from Polish dances
5) “content” – Polish subjects in explicit (defined by the
composer) or implicit forms, the latter ‘heard’ by reviewers; themes borrowed
from Poland’s history, mythology, literature, religion and customs, climate
and geography, etc.
6) “spiritual content” – expressions of the “Polish
spirit” in general terms, or in the form of a predominant character trait
ascribed to the whole nation, such as “sorrow” [żal], or “arrhythmia”
7) “music
community” – Polish performance and programming contexts, e.g. festivals of
Polish music, concerts for Polish causes; the music being understood by Poles
alone
|
Both
categories of this list include issues that composers have a degree of control
over by consciously choosing to be Polish and compose Polish music filled with
national traits. Simultaneously, the
list of biographic criteria includes characteristics that pre-date the
composers’ birth and pre-define their identity as Poles in ways transcending
the intentions of the composers’ themselves.
Furthermore, the composers’ lives and music may be depicted as far more
Polish than those originally intended, especially when viewed from a posthumous
perspective of “late grandchildren” who have the freedom of interpreting the composers’ biographical background and
achievements without taking into account their wishes. This openness to fanciful and arbitrary interpretations
characterizes particularly the criteria of family-of-origin, psychosomatic
identity and community in the area of biography, and the criteria of style,
community, content, and spiritual content in the domain of music.
The essays
about Chopin have provided partial and contradictory answers to the following
questions: Was Chopin a Polish composer?
Was Chopin a purely Polish composer, without a trace of French
identity? Was Chopin’s music entirely
Polish and if so, why? What Polish
traits did Chopin capture and express?
What is the definition of being Polish in music? Numerous thematic threads have been
intertwined in these texts that could be given a collective subtitle of “How
Polish was Chopin?” On the basis of scattered references in Chopin’s letters we
might note that the composer’s self-definition during his years in Paris was as
an exiled Pole. Moreover, Chopin seemed to believe in
distinct national emotional and personality traits, pointing to the essential
character differences separating a Slav from a Scandinavian or a Spaniard.
Yet, Chopin’s personal beliefs in this matter
were immaterial for the authors of texts about him, texts that straddle the
areas of music aesthetics, music biography and national ideology. These narratives follow a twisted path
through the list of criteria: the issue of Polonizing Chopin’s name came to the
forefront of discussions in the 1930s (though it was initiated at the end of
the 19th century; see the comments on Niewiadomski’s essays), while the
awareness of the presence of a vaguely defined “Polish spirit” in Chopin’s
music permeated the literature of this subject from its inception (see my
comments about essays by Przybyszewski, Noskowski, and Paderewski, and chapter
10 in this collection). Relying on the
criteria described above to provide a general framework for conceptualizing the
Polishness of Chopin’s music, I will follow a roughly chronological
trajectory. This approach will allow me
to highlight the appearance of significant concepts and interpretations, in
particular, the charged notion of the “Polish race.”
The Rise and Fall of the “Polish Race”
The
tendency to circumscribe the national identity to common genetic origin and
shared personality traits and define art as an expression of such narrowly
described features increased in the Western world towards the end of the 19th
century. Europeans and Americans
habitually described spiritual essences of their nations in terms of their
shared genetic heritage. Such
descriptions permeate the aesthetic writings of Hyppolyte Taine which greatly
influenced generations of Polish music critics and historians. The concept of race itself was developed much
earlier in Germany (by Johan Blumenbach, 1752-1840) and France (by Joseph
Arthur de Gobineau, 1816-1862). From its inception, it served to provide
arguments about the supposed inequality of the world’s peoples and the
superiority of Europeans, or, in particular, the French or the Germans. Different genealogies were compiled for
various national races and their hierarchies reflected the nationalistic and
political views of the writers.
The term
“Polish race” referred to people of inherited Polish ethnicity, i.e. those who
were born to Polish parents, who, in turn, were children of Polish parents,
etc. The chain of origin extended
indefinitely back in time to the nation’s mythical birth from several Slavonic
tribes who “dwelt from time immemorial” on the vast plain “between the Baltic
sea and the Carpathian mountains.” One could be Polish only when sharing the
Polish genes; this heritage was thought to engender common psychological and
spiritual traits of the Polish nation.
These racial definitions of Polishness were found in self-definitions
proclaimed in Poland and abroad, as well as in descriptions offered by
outsiders. Jakob Riis saw “the thrifty Polish race”
(1890) among impoverished emigrants to America; James W. Gerard mused about the
great future of “the splendid Polish race” in its own, independent country
(1918).
A fascinating genealogy of the “Slavic or
Slavonic race” precedes an account of musical achievements of the “Polish race”
in a 1902 essay by an émigré composer and pianist, Jaroslaw de Zielinski
(1847-1922). The Slavic race includes Poles, Czechs,
Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Servians, Croatians, Carinthians, Illyrians, and
Vends, but excludes the “Muscovites,” who claim to be Great Russians
but—according to Zielinski—in reality are a Tartar race. In this narrative, the Slavs’ history unfolds
as a struggle against their neighbors in the south—Byzantine, and the
west—Germanic. The Germans, in addition
to frequent military confrontations, crowded Poland as craftsmen, merchants,
and teachers, thus having the opportunity to wreak havoc with national identity
by prejudicing “their pupils against the Polish language.” The theory that Poland had two enemies,
Russians and Germans, stemming from the historical facts of Poland’s partitions
by Russia, Prussia and Austria at the end of the 18th-century, is
given here a racial justification.
Similarly to Zielinski, Charles Phillips (1923) rhapsodized about the
perennial “racial competition”—based on the principle of the “survival of the
fittest”—between the races of the German (i.e. Teuton who was “steady,
powerful, ponderous, self-righteous, self-satisfied, static”) and the Pole
(“dynamic, flexible, un-self-satisfied, self-critical, idealistic and tenacious
of his ideal”).
Before it disappeared, though, the “Polish race” played an
increasingly more prominent role in constructing the Polish identity of Chopin
and his music. In 1923 Charles Phillips
ended his list of positive characteristics of the “dynamic and idealistic”
Pole: “Chopin is an example.” Let us begin the examination of this topic
with a review of national traits associated with Chopin’s music.
Musical Evocations of Polish History and Landscape
The quest
for Polish subjects in Chopin’s solo piano works (Musical Criterion 5: content)
is a recurring topos in 19th-century responses to his
music. Romantic writers provided
fantastic descriptions of historical subjects hidden in purely instrumental
compositions. For instance, Marceli
Antoni Szulc envisioned the Polonaise Op. 53 in A-flat major as an image of a
national procession of hetmans and voivodas, colorfully costumed in precious
garb of Polish 17th-century noblemen (see also Kleczyński’s
interpretation of this piece in chapter 10). Writing in this vein, Stanisław Tarnowski
(1837-1871) sought a connection between Chopin’s compositions and Polish
poetry. Not surprisingly, he found a
direct patriotic inspiration in numerous pieces, including the Preludes Op. 24,
many Mazurkas, and the Funeral March from the Sonata in B-flat minor. Tarnowski saw the latter work as a “funereal
conduct of the whole nation watching its own funeral.”
A similar
patriotic vision is captured on a late 19th-century postcard depicting pianist
Ignacy Jan Paderewski—a foremost Chopin interpreter of his time (see Figure
1). Here, a solemn procession of Polish
kings and noblemen arises above bluish light emanating from the keyboard;
Paderewski’s outstretched hands and intensely focused face indicate that these
great heroes of the past have been brought to life by his music. This image reveals the role that music played
in the cultivation of Polish culture and identity after Poland’s loss of
sovereignty. The postcard also
illustrates a statement from Ignacy Jan Paderewski’s famous speech of 1910 that
Chopin’s compositions truly contain “the spirit of the land of his fathers, the
spirit of his nation." Paderewski thus described a ghost-filled
scene evoked by Chopin’s music: “Finally . . . spectres fulfill their shadowy
rights. What ghost was that? Whose
spirit there went past? Was this Żółkiewski? Or Czarniecki’s noble shade?”
While the
Polish character of Polish dance genres, such as mazurkas and polonaises, could
not be doubted (Musical Criterion 2: genre), these works themselves have been
taken to a second level of Polishness by being read as programmatic
representations of Polish landscape and village scenes (Musical Criterion 5:
content). Fifty years after the
composer’s death, Zygmunt Noskowski took for granted a thesis that “Chopin’s
melodies are poetic transformations of the sights that the master absorbed in
his youth . . . From many a mazurka one can guess the color and light filling a
landscape that the master saw with the eyes of his soul while writing his
beautiful poem.” Noskowski proceeded to associate particular
images with individual mazurkas, impromptus, sonatas, and ballades. The Impromptu in F-sharp Major was assigned
the most elaborate program. Noskowski
interpreted this work as an extended “Sunday-in-a-village” scene, replete with
“the voices of church bells calling to the service” over summer fields “covered
with newly ripened wheat, gently swaying under a slight breeze.” The commentator concluded: “Nature in its
entirety is praying in this moment... and the holiday sentiment pervades
everything.” Thus, in Noskowski’s
nationalistic/religious interpretation of Chopin’s piano compositions, a
pastoral idyll arises from the music that perfectly captures the serenity of a
people united with their land. The music
is important—and Polish—because it portrays the landscape of Poland and the
religious moods associated with it.
The language of description used by Polish composers and music critics in the 19th and early 20th centuries often employs figures of speech equating folk song with field flowers. The trope that Chopin’s folk-inspired music is, as it were, permeated with “the fragrances of delicate flowers of Polish meadows” first appears in Józef Sikorski’s article of 1849. Sikorski discussed the national traits of Chopin music (seen in the use of genre, style and quotation; Musical Criteria 2-4) and his inspiration with Polish folk songs. For Sikorski, these songs were elevated, charming and simple, while remaining as fleeting and ineffable as the “fragrance of a violet.” This synaesthetic reference articulates a widespread belief that folk music belonged to the utopia of cultivated nature, the idyllic and serene “national garden of Eden.”
The language of description used by Polish composers and music critics in the 19th and early 20th centuries often employs figures of speech equating folk song with field flowers. The trope that Chopin’s folk-inspired music is, as it were, permeated with “the fragrances of delicate flowers of Polish meadows” first appears in Józef Sikorski’s article of 1849. Sikorski discussed the national traits of Chopin music (seen in the use of genre, style and quotation; Musical Criteria 2-4) and his inspiration with Polish folk songs. For Sikorski, these songs were elevated, charming and simple, while remaining as fleeting and ineffable as the “fragrance of a violet.” This synaesthetic reference articulates a widespread belief that folk music belonged to the utopia of cultivated nature, the idyllic and serene “national garden of Eden.”
Folk art as
nature might be an environmental trope, rather than a national one, however in
the Polish context it has strong nationalistic overtones. Through the 19th century Poles were a nation
without sovereignty over its territory, a nation reduced to the status of an
ethnic minority in three different countries.
Since they lived under a constant threat from the occupying nations and
struggled to regain ownership and control of their land (the Prussians being
particularly eager to remove Poles from their farms and/or Germanize them),
their attachment to the ancestral land was an expression of their
patriotism. These difficult circumstances
engendered the myth-making process that transformed Chopin into “a singer of
Polish fields and meadows” praised by Noskowski for the accuracy and
authenticity of his musical landscape depictions. The ecological nationalism of most
“flower”-references reveals a dependency on Herder-sanctioned connection of a
people to the land they inhabit. In this
style of nationalistic readings of Chopin’s music, both Polish folk song and
Chopin’s music based on it have a straightforward link to the benevolent and nurturing
Nature.
In other
nationalistic interpretations, the same music may be seen as vehicle for
conveying the national spirit and expressing the traits of the nation’s
personality (Musical Criterion 6).
Arguments used in this area increasingly take Chopin’s personal
characteristics and heritage into account (Biographic Criteria 2-4, pertaining
to the family of origin, psychosomatic identity, and emotional identity of the
composer). Thus, through the 19th
century, nationalistic writers gradually shift their attention from generalized
and colorful rhapsodizing about the Polish content of Chopin’s music (Musical
Criteria 5-6) toward statements about his personal relationship to the “Polish
race” and its musical manifestations.
Let us first examine the varieties of musical expressions of the Polish
spirit.
............... to be continued
Excerpts from Maja Trochimczyk, "Chopin and the Polish Race"
chapter in Halina Goldberg, ed. The Age of Chopin: Interdisciplinary Inquiries,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004, 278-313.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004, 278-313.
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