Chopin or Szymanowska? Kocyan's Quiz at the Bowers Museum (Vol. 4, No. 8)

On Sunday, June 30, 2013, at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, during a lecture-recital about "Maria Szymanowska, the Court Pianist to the Tsarinas" Wojciech Kocyan let the audience compare and identify the music of Szymanowska, born in 1789 and publishing since 1810 to her death in 1831, and Chopin, born in 1810 and composing since his childhood to 1849.

Instead of playing their music in a straightforward piano recital, Kocyan arranged six pieces in pairs, in random order, and asked the audience to identify the composers. To make things harder, the pieces were put in the same, or very similar key. The two pieces in A-Flat major were fast, effervescent, and virtuosic, with melody barely indicated above a web of arpeggios. The two pieces in F Minor were melodic and expressive, poignant event. The pieces in E-flat Major were whimsical, nostalgic, and dance-like - both could actually be danced at an aristocratic salon.

In A-Flat Major:

Chopin – Etude in A-flat major, Op. 25 No. 1, known as The Aeolian Harp since Robert Schumann's review in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, composed before 1837, dedicated to Maria d'Agoult.

Szymanowska – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfcmvkbmtygNocturne in A-flat Major “Le Murmure” published in Paris by Henry, with the title on the cover “First Pianist of the Tsarinas of Russia”

In F Minor:

Szymanowska – Polonaise in F Minor, no. 4 from the same collection of 18 Dances dedicated to Princess Vyazemsky

Chopin – Waltz in F minor Op.70 No.2, composed in 1841 and dedicated to Elise Gavard and Anna Caroline Oury [de Belleville] in different editions

In E-flat Major:

Chopin – Waltz in E flat Major Op.Posth., composed around 1827 (he most likely heard Szymanowska in Warsaw at that time), played by Biret Idil, from YouTube.

Szymanowska –  Contredanse, pub. 1820 Leipzig, in 18 Dances dedicated to Madame la Vera Viazemsky nee Princesse Gagarin, wife of Prince Pyotr Viazemsky (in 1819-21 he lived in Warsaw, was friends with Pushkin and Mickiewicz), with a quotation from opera Jean de Paris by Pierre Boieldieu.

Wojciech Kocyan plays Szymanowska and Chopin. Photo by  Maria Kubal.

The audience filled out the answer cards that were collected and counted during the reception. Three books on Szymanowska by Stanislaw Dobrzanski were given to three winners randomly chosen from among 20 listeners who gave correct answers. The lecture recital was attended by about 140 people, so the proportion of correct answers was about 14%, which means that the majority of listeners mistook Chopin for Szymanowska and Szymanowska for Chopin. This indicates the similarity of their compositional styles.

Wojciech Kocyan and Maja Trochimczyk present Szymanowska. Photo by  Maria Kubal. 

To make things harder, Kocyan, who just learned the Szymanowska pieces for this event, but has played Chopin for his entire career, that started with an award in the Warsaw Chopin Competition, decided to not play from memory, but rather use scores, without clearly visible names on the covers, so that the pieces would be identified solely by ear.

As a bonus, the wonderful and witty pianist, selected a piece that grew a collective "aah" from the expectant audience just after two chords. Everyone recognized Chopin's Waltz in C-Sharp Minor Op. 64 No. 2, composed in 1846-47, dedicated to Charlotte de Rotschild and beloved by generations.

Chopin - Waltz in A Minor, op. 34 no. 2, and Waltz in C-sharp Minor Op. 64, No. 2 played by Valentina Igoshiona, from YouTube.

The event started with my lecture on "Fashion, Portraits and Szymanowska's Professional Image" richly illustrated with portraits of the virtuoso pianist, teacher of princesses, and composer of romantic music, endowed with rich melodic invention and a talent for filigree ornamentation, and expressive harmonic progressions. Certain cadences, motives, textures, and melodies in "Chopin's style" pointed to an inspiration or a shared language of the era that is now forgotten, since we only remember Chopin. The poster by the lectern by Janusz Majewski of Poland celebrates another Queen of Polish culture - Helena Modjeska (Modrzejewska), an actress and director, and the patron of the Modjeska Club that sponsored the event.

To learn more about Szymanowska, the audience could buy a book published in 2006 by the Polish Music Center, with a CD insert by Dobrzanski. The book is a result of Dobrzanski's doctoral studies (he's now a piano professor in Kansas) and includes my chapter on Szymanowska's songs.

To learn more about Szymanowska's music I recommend the purchase of her Complete Piano Works, issued by Acte Prealable in Poland this spring, and recorded on three CDs by Slawomir Dobrzanski (AB 181-83). This is a "must-have" set and hopefully some of these recordings will become available for download individually, starting from Szymanowska's greatest hit - her Nocturne "Le Murmure" which was used by Adam Mickiewicz as an accompaniment to poetic improvisations back in her salon in St. Petersburg. There are no excerpts from the CD set available online, but her two Nocturnes have been posted:

• Maria Szymanowska - Nocturne in B-flat Major
• Maria Szymanowska - Nocturne in B-flat Major, played by Anna Briscoe

The picture on Dobrzanski's CD is the same as the one towering above the performers in the auditorium: Szymanowska styled as a Roman Goddess and placed at a piano, with a putto handing her the book of music, to indicate angelic inspiration, in a exquisite evening gown and elegant interior, with a window pointing at the smoking peak of Vesuvius. Walenty Wankowicz painted Szymanowska in Naples, where she played for the Russian Ambassador on January 19, 1825 and socialized with Princess Natalia Golitzin, one of her closes friends and supporters.

Maja Trochimczyk with poet and artist Kathabela Wilson

Pictures were taken by Maria Kubal and Kathabela Wilson, poet, musician, and artist. The audience included also Prof. Roman Koropeckyj of UCLA, a noted specialist in Mickiewicz, Dr. Mira Mataric, Serbian-American poet and translator, and Susan Dobay, Hungarian-American artist. extraordinaire. Barri Mogilewsky (married to a Polish-American, hence the name), represented the Bowers Museum and coordinated the afternoon, whereas Andrew Z. Dowen, President of the Modjeska Club, represented the Club and coordinated the reception.

To see more pictures from the event, visit the Picasa Album: https://picasaweb.google.com/Maja.Trochimczyk/KocyanAndTrochimczykOnSzymanowska#

Maja Trochimczyk, with Modjeska Club's President Andy Dowen,
and Barri Mogilewsky of the Bowers Museum. June 30, 2013. Photo by  Maria Kubal. 

Szymanowska and Chopin at the Bowers Museum, Santa Ana (Vol. 4, No. 7)

On June 30 at 1:30 p.m. at the Norma Kershaw Auditorium of the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana (2002 N Main St, Santa Ana, CA 92706; tel. 714 567 3600) I will present a lecture about "Maria Szymanowska - Court Pianist to the Tsarinas" and pianist Wojciech Kocyan will play piano music by Szymanowska and Chopin. This lecture performance is one of the events associated with an exhibit The Tsar's Cabinet: Two Hundred Years of Decorative Arts Under the Romanovs on display at the Bowers Museum through the summer. The event will be sponsored by the Helena Modjeska Arts and Culture Club, with a small reception to follow. Books about Szymanowska by Slawomir Dobrzanski and a CD set with all of her piano music recorded by Dobrzanski in Poland will be available for purchase at the event.

The lecture will be richly illustrated with portraits of Szymanowska and European nobility, while the musical performance will bring her sound world to life, under the masterful fingers of Prof. Kocyan.  He will juxtapose Szymanowska's nocturnes and etudes with smaller works by Chopin, especially his waltzes - created for the same world of aristocratic salons that were inhabited by Szymanowska. The presentation is loosely based on my paper, read at the International Szymanowska Symposium in Paris, and published in the Annales de Centre de Academie Scientifique Polonaise a Paris, in 2012.

Fee: $7 Member/ $10 Non-member. Advance reservations: Visitor Services Desk, Tuesday – Sunday, 10 AM – 4 PM; bowers.org/tickets or bowers.org/calendar and fill out the reservation form or e-mail education@bowers.org. The event will begin promptly, please leave sufficient travel time.

Szymanowska's portrait by Walenty Wankowicz.

Collection of the Polish Library, Paris 

On Fashion, Portraits, and the Professional Image of Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831)

Fashion choices of classical musicians have recently attracted the interest of Mary E. Davis (Classic Chic, 2006). I bring this topic to the biography of Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831), a Polish pianist-composer who after her 1810 Parisian debut toured Europe in 1822-1826 before settling in St. Petersburg for the rest of her short life. A daughter of a Warsaw brewer, and a divorced mother of three (daughters Celina and Helena, and son Romuald), Szymanowska was able to ascend to an elevated position of the Court Pianist of the Tsarinas, and support her extended family with her music (i.e., concertizing and teaching children from aristocratic families). The pianist’s career benefited from ability to shape her “professional image” as a high-society lady of elegance and multiple talents. My project builds on the research of Anne Schwartz (2009), Sławomir Dobrzański (2007), and Benjamin Vogel (2012) that focused on Szymanowska’s talents as a savvy businesswoman and a musician with a love for English pianos. Through an analysis of her portraits by French and Polish artists (Henri Benner, Nicolas Jacques, Aleksander Chodkiewicz, Józef Oleszkiewicz, Aleksander Kokular, and Walenty Wańkowicz) revealing Szymanowska’s personal image and her fashion choices, I demonstrate that in this pianist we encounter one of the earliest instances of “professional image-making” (term from Laura Morgan Roberts, 2005).

Szymanowska's litograph based on Oleszkiewicz portrait
Collection of the Polish Library, Paris

Szymanowska created her positive image through “impression management” and “social re-categorization”- shifting the attention away from her humble roots to her preferred aristocratic milieu. The means for this transformation included appearance (clothing, hairstyles, and jewelry), carefully cultivated social networks, and virtuous conduct befitting a single mother of three, a teacher of princesses and nobles. The pianist was exposed to the attire of the nobility as a performer in aristocratic salons in Warsaw (in 1805-1806; 1812, 1823, 1827, and 1828), Paris (in 1810, 1824, 1825, and 1826), London (in 1818, 1824, 1825, and 1926), and St. Petersburg (in 1820, 1822, 1827, and 1828-31). The portraits provide an opportunity to compare her white muslin gowns, shawls, turbans, double sleeves, and jeweled belts with the predominant and changing French, Polish, English and Russian fashions of her time, including those of her mentors – Countess Zofia Zamojska, Duchess Maria Czartoryska Wirtemberg, and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna – as well as Queen Hortense, Duchess Laura Junot d’Abrantes, and Madame de Stael, among others.

The striking features of portraits by Kokular and Wańkowicz, both painted in Italy in 1825, point to a possible artistic “Agon” of the two artists who envisioned the pianist as a Queen of Tones in Rome (Kokular, the phrase was coined by Adam Mickiewicz) and a mythological goddess in Naples (Wańkowicz), thus furthering her elevated professional and social status. The ramifications of Szymanowska’s image creation that helped her to become a teacher and a role model for daughters of Russian aristocracy touch upon the concepts of “female genius” and “modesty” (the preferred virtue of society women in the early 19th century). The research for this paper, conducted at the Muzeum Literatury in Warsaw, Poland and Bibliothèque Polonaise in Paris was supported by Maria Szymanowska Society in Paris.



WOJCIECH KOCYAN



Wojciech Kocyan and Maja Trochimczyk after
a Chopin with Cherries Concert, Ruskin Art Club, May 2010



Wojciech Kocyan was praised for his “highly distinctive performances (…) superb, intelligent artistry (…)” (ClassicsToday.com) and “incisive temperament, impeccable technique and sumptuous tone” (Le Monde de la Musique.). He was born in Poland. He studied with two of the world’s most esteemed piano pedagogues: Andrzej Jasinski in Poland, where he received his Masters Degree and with John Perry at the University of Southern California, where he received a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree.

He is a laureate of several international piano competitions, including F.Busoni and Viotti, as well as a special prizes winner of the XI International Chopin Competition and the First Prize winner of the Paderewski Piano Competition. He performed in Europe, America, Australia and Japan, participating in music festivals such as Musica Antiqua Europae Orientalis, Capri Festival, Bydgoszcz International Music Festival, H.M.Gorecki Festival, Beethovenfest, Paderewski Festival, Liszt Festival in Vienna, San Francisco Liszt Festival, Cervantino International Music Festival, Morelia International Music Festival and the Chopin Festival in Paris. He has recorded for television, radio and film and his performances were broadcast in Europe, United States and Australia. His solo and chamber music recordings can also be found on DUX label. He was a subject of press articles in Poland, France, Italy, Germany, Mexico, United States and Japan.

In September 2007 the Gramophone magazine, published in London and considered the world’s most prestigious classical music journal, chose Mr. Kocyan’s recording of Prokofiev, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff as one of 50 best classical recordings ever made, alongside recordings of such luminaries as Leonard Bernstein, Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau, Nicolaus Harnoncourt and Arthur Rubinstein. It also featured the cover headline “The genius of Wojciech Kocyan”. His latest CD, of music by Robert Schumann was released in June 2012.

Dr. Kocyan is much in demand as an adjudicator and lecturer. He has been invited to give masterclasses in France, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Mexico and the United States, including such prestigious venues as the Colburn School. He is the Artistic Director of the Paderewski Music Society in Los Angeles and the Artistic Director of the American Paderewski Piano Competition in Los Angeles.


Maja Trochimczyk, Jane Kaczmarek and Wojciech Kocyan,
First American Paderewski Piano Competition, 2010