Chopin's Pianinos and the Discovery of Their Secrets, or Fadini's Workshop (Vol. 5, No. 10)

Fadini works on Keys of a Playel Pianino No. 7037.

On May 3, 2014, after the end of the Szymanowska Conference in Paris, I took a trip outside of Paris to the workshop of harpsichord maker and collector of Pleyel pianos, Oliver Fadini. I went with the renowned Chopin specialist, Prof. Halina Goldberg of Indiana University.  Our tour was arranged by Fadini's friend, music journalist at Radio France, Gilles Bencimon, a fervent lover of Chopin's music and the sound of historical pianos and pianinos.

                                       Maja Trochimczyk, Halina Goldberg and Oliver Fadini

We arrived in time to see our host work on restoring a Playel Pianino no. 7037  from 1837; very close to the number of Chopin's pianino from 1830s.

Rabbit fur felt is wrapped in layers on the hammer. 

Mr. Fadini took the pianino apart and was restoring all the hammers that had old leather on the heads, and had to be refurbished with rabbit-fur felt.  We looked around at his magnificent collection of Pleyel pianos and pianinos, including square pianos, and an example of every model that Playel made until mid 1840s.

A sample of hammers with leather, rabbit felt (grey) and lamb felt (white).

Apparently, if you cover the heads of the hammers with leather, it will dry and shrivel after a year or two, and will have to be entirely replaced, or else it will cause the piano to sound like a honky-tonk instrument from a saloon in an old Western.  However, if the heads of the hammers are covered with stripes of rabbit-fur felt and leather, the sounds is different, softer, rounder, more distant and mysterious, but also more resonant.  Interestingly, the harder felt from sheep's wool does not create the same effect; and the sounds remains harsh, unforgiving.

The pianino had a built in square stand for the candle  holder.

In order to show us this difference of tone, Mr. Fadini used the hammer heads to strike the exposed strings of the pianino. Indeed, the leather-covered hammer hit the strings very hard, with a pointed, sharp accent at the beginning, and the confused, sharply dissonant resonance afterwards. In contrast, the felt-covered hammer touched the string more delicately, and did not have that sharp, twang attack at the beginning of the sound that was richer, rounder and more sonorous.

This was Pleyel Pianino No. 7037. Chopin's pianino in Mallorca was no. 6668.

The different hammers require a different performance technique and Halina Goldberg had a chance of trying out the historical pianino, playing through fragments of various preludes and etudes, from old editions that Mr. Fadini also collects.  The pianino's location in the studio was also interesting, as it was not set flat against the wall, but turned with the resonance holes, covered for modesty with blue fabric, towards the listeners. While the instrument is not very pretty seen from this side, its "underbelly" as it were, the sonorities are more present and especially the high registers sound crystal clear.

As it turned out, the pianist's "touch" has to be entirely opposed to the traditional way of approaching the keyboard on a grand piano, with heavy keys and mechanism.  The touch on the historical Pleyel pianino is lighter and never forceful; this is the most apparent in loud passages, played forte or fortissimo.  The heavy handed forte of the grand piano is entirely unsuitable for the historical Pleyel pianino, with delicate mechanism and soft, felt hammers.  The pianist has to forget what she or he knows and learn anew.

Another difference is in the use of the pedal; practically non-existent on the historical pianinos, where the legato is created on the keyboard, not by pedal, and the high register maintains the pearly quality of sounds that were often commented upon in Chopin's own performances. Chopin's pedal markings, different from one edition to the next, may also be intended for diverse types of instruments - he would use varying amount  of pedal on instruments that are naturally more resonant and more attenuated.  Sandra Rosenblum currently researches the issue of Chopin's changing pedalization and may take the structure and sonority of Pleyel pianinos into account.

Indeed, Chopin's students and listeners, have left testimonies about this delicate, nuanced way of playing, that had a full dynamic scale, but also a shimmering inner life of shifting dynamic levels, crescendos and decrescendos. They also talked about his abhorrence of loud, forced chords that sounded to him like the "barking of a dog" - in the words of his student Karol Mikuli, quoted by Aleksander Michalowski in 1932.

Halina Goldberg played on restored Pleyel Pianino No. 3495.

Mr. Fadini found a confirmation for his theories in a period study about the sound of pianos and the importance of the proper hammers and proper pianist's touch on the sonorities created by the instrument. The book, written by Nannette Streicher nee Stein in Vienna, and entitled "Quelques observations sur la facon de jouer, d'accorder, et d'etretenir les fortepiano" (transl. by Hubert Bedard and Felia Bastet, Heugel et cie., 1982) contains a lot of fascinating insights into the sonorous world of instruments used in Chopin's lifetime.  Another highly recommended book is "Art classique et moderne du piano" published in Paris in 1842 by A. Marmontel (https://archive.org/stream/artclassiqueetmo00marm#page/n4/mode/1up)

Streicher writes about the "veiled, mysterious" sonorities in mid-range and of the "pearly" - distinct, clear and almost translucent - scales in the high register. She insists on the proper articulation and "touch" that is never forceful but always very precise. The sounds described so vividly by the author, a Chopin contemporary, may be heard on a recording by Fadini's wife, a Japanese-born pianist. The recording is not yet commercially available, but it will contain enough material to convince its listeners about the veracity of Fadini's theories.

While few piano-makers subscribe to Fadini's hypotheses at this time, he continues to restore pianinos and show them in concerts and exhibits. Most recently, he finished the restoration of a pianino for Mallorca; where it was shown and played at a special event. Gilles Bencimon assisted his friend in the time-consuming restoration tasks, that include making the artisan's own glue, paints, and felt.

Chopin's Playel Pianino No. 6668 and Fadini's Playel Pianino No. 7037.

Photo courtesy of Gilles Bencimon.

The restored Pleyel Pianino No. 7037 is the same model and was made in the same year as Playel Pianino 6668 that is preserved in the museum in Mallorca. The restoration project is a subject of a book that is being prepared by Fadini and Bencimon. That Mallorca Pianino is important: Chopin composed his Preludes Op. 28 on this very instrument! Wouldn't you want to know how it sounds like?

As it turns out, you can. Oliver Fadini's wife, Japanese pianist Aya Okuyama (http://www.ayaokuyama.com) recorded them playing on the Pianino 7037, identical to the one that Chopin composed the preludes on in 1839. More information may be found on http://www.nomadmusic.fr/fr/webzine .  

Antique pianinos and harpsichords in Fadini's workshop.

You can read more and see the photographs of various historical pianos on Fadini's blog, called Pianino Pleyel, pianinopleyel.blogspot.com.  It is certainly a fascinating topic, worth further explorations. If more comparisons are made between fully restored old pianinos with rabbit-fur-felt hammers, and modern grand pianos, and if the various editions of Chopin's preludes, waltzes, mazurkas and etudes are played on these diverse instruments, we will be able to expand the scope of knowledge about Chopin and his musical world. I do not know if the argument will be resolved in this discussion; people like holding on to their ideas for their dear life. On the basis of what I heard in Fadini's studio, though, I can say that he certainly won one convert that day.  If I ever want to play Chopin well, I'll buy a Pleyel pianino.

In the meantime, I admired the collection of antique piano in a cramped studio, where piano legs may be found in the ceiling, and one beautiful instrument stands on its side, while another is piled up on the third.  We saw a beautiful old harpsichord with "inverted" white and black keys, and a beautiful Viennese Graf piano.

But Fadini likes only the Pleyel made by Pleyel himself. He considers these to be the best sounding instruments of all time, the most suitable pianos for Chopin's music. Listening to them and to Fadini's explanation about the role of proper materials in the reconstruction of historical instruments made me understand my decades-old dislike of historical fortepiano that, to me, typically sounded shrill and out of tune. Yes - they would have sounded like that if the leather on the hammers was worn out, which was bound to happen as soon as one or two years of making them, as Fadini explained... That was an "AHA!" moment and I felt as good as if I discovered America myself.

I have not discover America, only moved there... so on they way back home to California, I pondered the many mysteries that remain to be discovered in the performance history of Chopin's music and in the history of his pianos.

Piano by Graf from Fadini's collection (not associated with Chopin).

An instrument does not have to look pretty to sound good - and pianinos (or upright pianos) do look nice only from the front, and have that fabric covering the mechanism on the other side. Yet, they do have wheels on all legs, which is hard to understand if they are meant to just stand in place by the wall and be pretty, but easy to consider useful - when we realize that the instruments would have been moved away from their stationary position and turned towards the audience, to enhance their sound.  There is a sketch of Chopin playing a piano turned like that.

Back side of Pleyel Pianino no. 3495 in Fadini's collection. 

_________________

FADINI PROJECTS:

The restoration of the piano owned by Mme Natalia d'Obreskoff, often played by Chopin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJhhUzBXN1Q
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2167504/Re:%20A%20restoration%20of%20Chopin%20Pl.html

Fadini's Blog: Pleyelpianino.blogspot.com

ON CHOPIN AND GEORGE SAND

Celda Chopin y George Sand: http://www.celdadechopin.es/

A Tour of Chopin's Paris - Square d'Orleans, Salle Pleyel, and Musee de la Vie Romantique (Vol. 5, No. 9)

A visit to Paris in the spring cannot be complete without taking a tour of Chopin's traces in the City of Love... With a noted Chopin specialist, Prof. Halina Goldberg of Indiana University, after the end of the Maria Szymanowska Conference in May 2014, I went on a little tour to visit some places related to the life of the great Romantic composer.

FIRST STOP: SQUARE D'ORLEANS

As we walked up the street from the metro, admiring the lovely streetscapes of Paris, we actually missed the gate to this landmark where Chopin spent his last years.  Located in the 9th Arrondissement at 80, rue Taitbout, the square is actually a rectangular yard with a fountain and trees, and the doorway to Chopin's former apartment is on the left side of the internal gate.

We went to the next corner, the street ended and decided to turn around. Only then did we see the inscription next to a green metal gate.

Once inside, we saw an engraved map of the square, with apartments of  famous occupants marked, we turned into a gate... and voila! Two steps lead up to Chopin's door, no. 9, with a sign identifying the place on the left.  He lived on the first floor, did not have to walk high up the stairs. After nearly seven years, in the fall of 1849, he moved to Place Vendome where he died on October 17, 1849.  The years at Place d'Orleans were difficult but also filled with blessings - his health was deteriorating, but there were many friends, artists and musicians in the "New Athens" of the Square and he had companionship and warmth of affection of his admirers nearby.  

The two steps leading to the door of Chopin's staircase.

The Map of the Square d'Orleans.

Once we passed through the gate, we entered the courtyard, which was very pleasantly arranged, with pansies in bronze vases, potted plants, and large magnolia trees. We looked up into Chopin's windows on the first floor in the corner.

The door to Chopin's staircase is on the left.

Chopin's windows would have been on the first floor in the corner behind the tree.

We took another look at Chopin's building and went to search for the one where his lover, George Sand (1804-1876) resided. It was very close by - even after the separation of lovers, she kept an eye on him!

Entrance to the apartment occupied in 1842-1847 by George Sand

The interior courtyard where Chopin used to live. 

I wondered around for a while. I went on to the next courtyard and looked down on the ground under my feet. The ancient cobble stones, overgrown with moss, were probably from Chopin's time.

While lounging around the courtyard, filled with new parked cars and passersby, I thought about the beautiful poem by Adam Zagajewski describing Chopin's last days and the lasting beauty of music.  I was particularly impressed by the poem's interpretation by Zagajewski in a documentary film by Ophra Yerushalmi, "Chopin's Afterlife" - I was still thinking about our great, fragile musician and the pain of his last days, as we were walking away to our next destination. 

SECOND STOP: SALLE PLEYEL

Having satisfied our curiosity about Chopin's final years in Paris, we went in search of a location of his first years: the site of his debut concert, Salle Pleyel, not far from the Square d'Orleans. Sadly, the Pleyel company has just gone out of business; people stopped buying pianos and a great tradition ended. In 2011, I visited the modern Salle Pleyel, with a wonderful display of colorful pianos.

                         

Somewhat off the beaten tourist track, the building badly needs repainting. 

But Chopin's debut and his last public concert took place at at the former location of the Salle Pleyel, now somewhat decrepit. The tall ballroom windows gave the place away.  Chopin's music first sounded in its spacious space in 1832: Chopin plays the Concerto in F minor and Variations, Op. 2, on the Aria "La ci darem la mano" from Mozart's Don Giovanni. 

The windows were filled with flickering candle light on the 16th of February 1848, when Chopin appeared in Paris in a public recital for the last time. Actually, it was not "in public" - the 300 listeners were all friends of Chopin. Amid familiar faces, surrounded by fragrant bouquets of flowers, Chopin relaxed and played exceedingly well.  His program included études, preludes, mazurkas, waltzes, the Berceuse and Barcarolle. Auguste Franchomme joined the composer in his own Cello Concerto in G minor and they also played Mozart’s Trio in E major, with the violinist D. d’Alard. The complicated program included also songs performed by A. Molina de Mendi and G. H. Roger. 

The windows face the courtyard, with some sheds, that were better left out of sight.

Halina Goldberg sat in the courtyard with the windows of the former Salle Pleyel above.

The street leading the Salle Pleyel had a series of somewhat faded buildings. 

THIRD STOP: MUSEE DE LA VIE ROMANTIQUE

Since it was getting late, we decided to move on. We had to make one more stop - at the Musee de la Vie Romantique, in a former home of Chopin's friend, painter Ary Scheffer (1795-1858) who created a beautiful portrait of the composer, along with many other wonderful portraits and paintings. 

Courtyard of the Musee de la Vie Romantique with antique rose bushes.

Located at 16, rue Chaptal in the 9th Arrondissement in Paris, the museum includes many artefacts from the life of George Sand and Ary Scheffer, her friend and portrait maker. The painter held regular salons on Fridays, frequented by his artistic neighbors: Chopin, Sand, Franz Liszt, Pauline Viardot, Eugene Delacroix and others. 

Salon in the Musee de la Vie Romantique with the portrait of George Sand.

One of the portraits was of Pauline Viardot (1821-1910), Chopin's friend, and a wonderful Spanish singer.

Chopin's portrait by Ary Scheffer.

The cosy rooms of the Museum gave an insight into artistic interests and leisure activities of Sand and her family - her son Maurice, daughter, Solange,  and her son-in-law, sculptor and artist, Auguste Clesinger.  There were family jewels, paintings by her brother Maurice and mother, and other memorabilia. There is a Sand family tree, and her portrait as a young girl.

Detail from the family tree of George Sand - Aurore Dupin, wife of Casimir Dudevant.

Aurore, the future George Sand, as a child.

I was happy to see the painting of poppies by Pierre-Joseph Redoute (1759-1840) 

and the antique roses in the garden.

On Virtues of Musicians and Romances of Aristocrats, or Szymanowska in Paris (Vol. 5, No. 8)

Maria Szymanowska by Walenty Wankowicz

On April 28-29, 2014, in the elegant palace of the Paris Section of the Polish Academy of Sciences the Second International Conference “Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831) and her Times” took place. The conference was organized by Elisabeth Zapolska-Chapelle, the president of the Societe Maria Szymanowska in Paris.  Following the pattern created for the first Conference in 2011, that is, two days of presentations, a mini-recital and an artistic salon at the end, this meeting of scholars created an opportunity for a review of the state of research about the life and work of Maria Szymanowska, in the context of the contemporary culture, including her connections to eminent artistic personalities from Germany (poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe), Denmark (sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen) and Poland (historian-writer-politician Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, and his sponsor Duchess Maria Czartoryska de Wurttemberg). 

Conference Attendees, with Anna Kijas in the foreground.

Participants of the conference came from many countries: the U.S. (Halina Goldberg, Anna Kijas, and Maja Trochimczyk), Poland (Jerzy Miziołek, Hubert Kowalski and Adam Gałkowski representing the University of Warsaw, as well as Irena Poniatowska from the  National Fryderyk Chopin Institute), Germany (Maria Stolarzewicz from the Instytute of Weimar-Iena), Denmark (Karen Busk Jepsen from the Thorvaldsen Museum), Sweden (Benjamin Vogel), and France (Piotr Daszkiewicz from the Natural History Museum, and  Jean-Marc Warszawski from the Musicology Instytute).

Elizabeth Zapolska-Chapelle, Dr. Jerzy Miziolek and Dr. Maja Trochimczyk

The session was opened by Prof. Zbigniew Kuźnicki, director  of the PAN Section in Paris, and the participants were warmly welcomed by Ms. Zapolska Chapelle, before scholars ventured into their presentations and discussions in three languages: French, English and Polish (the latter in discussions only).  Two presentations were dedicated to general stylistic topics: Jean-Marc Warszawski discussed the aesthetic and stylistic trends in Polish music of Szymanowska’s time and afterwards, while Prof. Irena Poniatowska presented an analysis of the concept of “salon music” – contrasted with serious, concert music, that this genre shared only some features with, being a predecessor of hit songs and popular musics of today.  Dr Jerzy Miziołek, the director of the Warsaw University Museum presented a fascinating panorama of artistic culture of Warsaw and its surroundings, emphasizing the connections to neo-classical revival of Roman art, especially those recently discovered in Pompea.  After the concert, with great interest, he studied in the Museum at the Polish Library in Paris a portrait of Maria Szymanowska painted by Walenty Wańkowicz (the portrait-maker of Adam Mickiewicz). Posed as a Roman goddess, in a fashionable 19^th century evening gown, but with a little angel holding a book for her, the pianist is seated in an opulent music room, with a smoking volcano visible through a window. In my 2011 paper, I identified the location of this portrait as Naples, where Szymanowska traveled in early 1825, after a visit to Rome. In terms of setting, this portrait is a twin of a portrait of the composer as  a Queen of Tones (described by Dr. Benjamin Vogel), created in Rome by Aleksander Kokular in 1824.  

With his broad knowledge of Roman and classical iconography and the arts of 19^th century, Dr. Miziołek undoubtedly will all a lot to my interpretation of the painting. Such artistic-scholarly dialogues were at the core of the conference’s activities.

Maja Trochimczyk and Halina Goldberg on the way

to their guest rooms at the Polish Institute in Paris.

Prof. Goldberg, well known from her studies of reception, milieu, and performative aspects of Chopin’s music, presented a fragment of a larger project dedicated to the study of 19^th century albums as a medium for preserving and shaping memory.  In the albums of autographs, music fragments, and poetry collected by Maria Szymanowska and her daughter Helena Malewska, Prof. Goldberg found examples of music that illustrates the multilevel connections of albums and memory – the constructs of half-private and half-public self images, recorded in a intimate, personal voice, but for posterity, to be seen by others.   She found examples of three aspects of memory – its psychological aspect, national-patriotic memory, and nostalgic emotional dimensions of memory and memorabilia found in personal albums. 

Dr. Benjamin Vogel of Lund, Sweden talks about pianos in 19th-c. salons.

Dr. Vogel, specialist in the history of pianos revealed places where this “memorialization” of the past took place, that is aristocratic and middle-class salons and parlors where the piano had the place of honor.  These pianos took the strangest shapes, including square, upright, cabinet, and giraffe, but they were always in the central spot in the home, where meetings focused on performances of songs, dances, and a variety of miniatures. The piano was once the “heart” of the home –by now replaced by the multiplicity of electronics connected to omnipresent Wi-Fi. It is a sad testimony to the change of musical culture – from participatory and performative to passive and receptive – that in the period that separated the two Szymanowska conferences, the renowned piano maker based in Paris, Pleyel, went bankrupt.  The demand for pianos is not what it used to be even 50 years ago, let alone in the 19^th century where everyone had to have a grand instrument in the salon and a smaller one in the separate living room for women. Broadly outlined cultural context for the stellar career of Maria Szymanowska was provided in papers by Prof. Adam Galkowski, who discussed  famous women of her time, and Dr. Piotr Daszkiewicz who talked about the connections between natural history and the arts in the early 19th century, starting from scientific interests of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. 

Elizabeth Zapolska-Chapelle with Dr. Maria Stolarzewicz

In the next paper, Maria Stolarzewicz discussed the connections of Maria Szymanowska and her sister Kazimera Wolowska with the famed German poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  This topic was earlier extensively studied by a New York-based scholar, Anne Swartz, but Stolarzewicz added a lot to her predecessor’s research, including a handout that featured a comprehensive collection of excerpts in Goethe’s letters, writings and diaries with mentions of the great pianist. To bring this poetic-musical friendship closer to the listeners, at the final Salon, Elizabeth Zapolska Chappelle recited the poem that Goethe dedicated to Szymanowska, Aussohnung – with musical accompaniment of Szymanowska’s pieces, in the “melodrama” style popular in 19^th century salons.  Stolarzewicz highlighted the many different aspects of the friendship of the aging poet and the beautiful pianist, and corrected mistakes made by previous biographers of both in the interpretation of the nature of this artistic relationship.  

Karen Busk-Jepsen of Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen.

At least this friendship was never hidden by either party – something that surprisingly happened to the relationship of Szymanowska with a Danish sculptor, Bertel Thorvaldsen.  The prudish and suspicious biographer of the sculptor, Just Mathias Thiele decided to omit from the artist’s biography and editions of letters all mentions of Szymanowska’s 15 letters, but also correspondence with two other artistic women that were close friends with Thorvaldsen: “ Zinaïda Volkonskaia (Russian princess, singer, writer, arranged salons first in Moscow, then Rome), and Adelgunde Vogt (Danish sculptor, animalière, virtually forgotten)” (cited from an email by Ms. Busk-Jepsen). According to Karen Busk-Jepsen neither of these women had an affair with the talented Dane, but Thiele thought otherwise and removed them in order to “purify” and “sanctify” the national artist of Denmark.  How easy it is to vilify women!  The fact that a romance with anyone was completely out of place in the life of a virtuous, though divorced, pianist with three children and siblings to support, never crossed the mind of Mr. Thiele.  The affectionate tone of Szymanowska’s letters indicated an emotional relationship that was not revealed in the only preserved letter of Thorvaldsen to her.  In any case, leaving romances aside, we should pay more attention to Thorvaldsen's influence on Polish culture.

Jean Marc Warszawski  jazzes up a Helena Wolowska's melody.

An important step in this direction was made in the research of  Hubert Kowalski, deputy director of the Museum of Warsaw University. In his presentation (read by his boss, Dr. Miziolek), Kowalski discussed the impact of neoclassical style of Thorvaldsen on the artistic landscape of Warsaw, going far beyond the two known monuments that beautify the capital: Prince Jozef Poniatowski and Mikolaj Kopernik (Copernicus). The unveiling of the latter monument was one of the tasks performed by the then President of the Society of the Friends of Learning, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz. 

Maja Trochimczyk, Photo by Judyta Nowak.

Niemcewicz was the author of the famous Historical Chants (Śpiewy historyczne”) - a bestseller of the 19^th century, present in every patriotic Polish home, including the Chopin family salon in Warsaw. This volume and Szymanowska’s contribution to it was the subject of my presentation, illustrated by engravings of  scenes and songs from the lives of the kings and heroes published in the original edition and its subsequent reprints.  The author, poet, journalist and politician and one of his main sponsors, Duchess Maria Czartoryska de Wurttermberg (Wirtemberska) are fascinating personalities in Poland’s artistic and musical history, and deserve a lot more attention that could be bestowed on them in my overview. The reading and singing of chants that were being assembled for publication took place in Czartoryska’s Azure Saturdays, literary gatherings in the Czartoryski Azure Palace in Leszno near Warsaw  (1806-1816).  The salons provided a venue for meetings of Warsaw’s literary elite, with Kajetan Kozmian, Maksymilian Fredro, Franciszek Lessel, Karol Kurpinski, Niemczewicz and Szymanowska as frequent guests.  The Czartoryski and Zamoyski families were among the main sponsors- subscribers to the first edition of the Historical Chants, also supported by Potocki and Tarnowski magnates, Warsaw school professors, the cleargy and minor gentry.  In PRL-period histories, the role of aristocracy in the creation of Polish culture was under-appreciated for obvious ideological reasons. Only now,  25 years after the fall of the system we can approach this topic anew, without “socialist” prejudices.

In  “Śpiewy historyczne” the song about hetman Chodkiewicz was penned by Duchess Chodkiewiczowa, the song about Hetman Zamoyski was written by Duchess Zofia Zamoyska (nee Czartoryska).  Maria Wirtemberska set to music a song about  Stefan Potocki and the whole project was inspired by a setting of Duma o Stefanie Zolkiewskim by Konstancja Narbutt, composed thirty years earlier and popular in the nobility’s salons.  The greatest number of songs was by professional composers Karol Kurpiński (6) and  Franciszek Lessel (10 plus a two-voice version of Bogurodzica).  Ewa Talma’s contribution to the discussion was invaluable as she has shown that the first edition of 1816 was incomplete. Prof. Irena Poniatowska relayed the information found by Zofia Chechlinska about the fact that two composers, Cecylia Beydale and Lessel, were siblings and could not marry, as they had intended to. They were, apparently, out-of-wedlock children of the adventurous and amorous Maria Wirtemberska. 

Irena Poniatowska, Maja Trochimczyk and Ewa Talma. Photo by Judyta Nowak.

These relationships and others between the various persons in Szymanowska’s life, as well as archival documents about them could be plotted in an open, free access website that could be developed, as Anna Kijas proposed in the closing paper of the conference. A trained librarian as well as musicologist, Kijas has published a bio-bibliography of Szymanowska that showed some previously unknown letters of her daughter to an American friend, preserved in a library in North Carolina.  Indeed, it would be beneficial to have these letters scanned and made public –  the letters in Thorvaldsen Museum are already posted online. 

Anna Kijas with Prof. Halina Goldberg

A visit to the Polish Library in Paris, to see the notebooks and letters of Szymanowska family in the Museum of Adam Mickiewicz provided me with a proof of the importance of this step for the future of research.  The archives, always crowded by researchers, have amazing resources and I discovered, to my great pleasure the vast scope of patriotic songs copied by hand for personal use by Szymanowska’s children, Helena and Romuald.  The little hand-made notebooks, that can fit in the palm of a hand and be used for group singing in the salon, included hundreds of krakowiaks, mazurs, polonaises, as well as various versions of the Dabrowski Mazurka, Bogurodzica, and other patriotic hymns.  My study of the history of Polish anthems will find a follow up in these documents. 

Prof. Irena Poniatowska, Ewa Talma and Prof. Halina Goldberg at the Polish Library

archives of the Adam Mickiewicz Museum in Paris. 

While was reviewing the content of children’s notebooks, Halina Goldberg focused on the famous albums with composers’ manuscripts, in wonderful leather bindings, made to be kept and shown. She started her own album, and I had the pleasure of writing a personal note for her, as well as a silly little collage with a rain poem, inspired by our wanderings around Paris and a story by Slawomir Mrozek... 

 

Parisian entry in Halina Goldberg's album by Maja Trochimczyk

The conference was supported by the Paris Station of the Polish Academy of Sciences that hosted the events, provided excellent audiovisual support and lovely, French-and-Polish style luncheons and receptions for the scholars. Some of the conference attendees could stay in PAN guest rooms, while the Polish Institute in Paris hosted the rest of the scholars. Air France and KLM offered discounted air flights, and the Polish Library in Paris welcomed scholars for archival visits. 

Karen Busk-Jepsen, Anna Kijas, Elizabeth Zapolska-Chapelle, Maja Trochimczyk

Adam Galkowski and Benjamin Vogel with Halina Goldberg at the piano. 

None of that would have been possible without the energetic and talented organizer, Ms. Zapolska Chapelle who, in addition to moderating all the sessions and introducing the speakers, delighted the audience with her rendition of all five songs of Szymanowska and fragments of two songs by others (Paris and Kurpinski) that replaced Szymanowska's versions in the published Niemcewicz edition. The singer has already issued all of Szymanowska’s songs on a CD (Acte Prealable) that is a must for all 19^th century music scholars, as well as those studying the biographies and work of Adam Mickiewicz and Fryderyk Chopin.  Pianist Małgorzata Kluźniak-Celińska aptly accompanied Ms. Zapolska-Chappelle and performed solo pieces by Szymanowska at the close of the conference and at the final Salon – where we heard Goethe’s poem dedicated to Szymanowska, as well as two poems of mine, along other assorted productions, as the case may be in an impromptu performance, of a dramatically varied artistic quality.  Next time, it will be better, we promise.

Elizabeth Zapolska-Chapelle with Małgorzata Kluźniak-Celińska at the piano

and Prof. Zbigniew Kuznicki. 

Participants surround Prof. Irena Poniatowska at the end of the conference.

Photo by Judyta Nowak. 

Participants receive flowers from the Director of PAN Paris Section, Prof. Zbigniew Kuznicki.

Photo by Judyta Nowak.