Venetian Love Songs - Barcarolles by Chopin and Szymanowska (Vol. 6, No. 2)

First there was Venice,..

The Grand Canal in Venice from Palazzo Flangini to Campo San Marcuola, 

Canaletto, about 1738. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

... and then there was the most exquisite of love's songs, permeated with the lilting motion of the gondolas on the canals in Venice: Chopin's Barcarolle...


...
 

In the introduction to Chopin's Op. 60 (in F-sharp Major, composed in 1845-6), Prof. Mieczyslaw Tomaszewski calls it "a work that intoxicates with the beauty of its sound and thrills with its seethingly ardent expression."  As the case should be for a piece both searing and soaring, the Barcarolle evoked a whole range of nearly ecstatic descriptions from typically rather somber scholars. Tomaszewski himself wrote:

Musicologist Hugo Leichtentritt called it "a work of bewildering beauty;" Marceli Szulc heard in the music "a duet between a couple of lovers – threatened for a moment by death." Writer Andre Gide was attunted to its "languor in excessive joy." A fellow composer, Maurice Ravel found it to be “the synthesis of the expressive and sumptuous art of this great Slav.”

Chopin was well aware of the barcarolle as a genre, primarily from the operas of Rossini (Guillaume Tell, and Daniel Auber (Fra Diavolo), but also from its rendition by Mendelssohn in his Songs without Words. Yet, his take is thoroughly different and completely modern, especially in its seemingly pointless wondering, loss of continuity, and suspensions of musical narrative at the end of the central section.  This is one of the most sublime moments in all pianistic repertoire. It occurs deep in the piece, where the score is marked with "dolce sfogato" - a rare Italian expression, "sweet like a breeze" - that has not been known to grace the pages of other compositions. He reaches the boundaries of atonality in this prophetic moment of timelessness.

The overall formal scheme is traditional for a nocturne: ABA' song-form, with the main sections in F-sharp Major and the central episode in A Major and a prominent 12/8 lilt. This is music overflowing with light - reflections, waves, interference, brief, passing shadows and a myriad of stars scattered on the water at midnight...

The Fryderyk Chopin National Institute in Poland (NIFC) selected a recording by Tatiana Shebanova, that fully modernizes the Barcarolle, emphasizing is modernist discontinuities, interruptions and irruptions, while sustaining an overall tone of  melancholy mixed with passion.

There are many other interpretations of this sublime piece of music. Five are gathered in one YouTube post by a music lover, Ashish Xiangyi Kumar: Pollini, Zimerman, Kissin, Argerich.... (I wish he skipped Horowitz...). Over 40 minutes of otherworldly romanticism. A perfect gift for St. Valentine's Day, especially for musicians: the recording is accompanied by the score.

As Kumar writes, placing the recordings in a chronological order:

00:00 -- Pollini (Warm and lyrical. He has a reputation for technicality and coldness that is not deserved.)
08:37 -- Zimerman (Hushed and worshipful, occasionally rising to majesty)
17:30 -- Kissin (Tender and surprisingly meditative)
26:23 -- Horowitz (Scriabinesque, aching, enigmatic, some nice voicing)
35:21 -- Argerich (Intimate, and as you would expect, relatively free and occasionally tempestuous.)



Listen for yourself. And let the music take you to the breathtakingly beautiful and melancholy canal-streets of Venice - that Chopin never visited himself... Here's the gift of

As an encore, let us turn to another Barcarolle, far less known and much smaller in size:




Maria Szymanowska wrote her Barcarolle as a farewell gift to the poet Adam Mickiewicz on the day of his departure from St. Petersburg, in May of 1829.  He left for Paris, banished from his temporary residence in Russia, destined for exile until his death 25 years later. She gave him recommendation letters to famous poets and influential nobility that earlier delighted with her performances.

The work has never been published and was preserved only in manuscript. Elisabeth Zapolska-Chapelle, President of the Société Maria Szymanowska, Paris, France, provided a copy of the sheet music of this unknown composition to pianist Slawomir Dobrzanski, a Szymanowska specialist. This is a live recording from October 11, 2014, his concert in Paris.

Szymanowska's Barcarolle is just a violet, compared with the glorious bouquet of velvety red roses blossoming in Chopin's... still both are welcome in the perennial world of Valentines:

Na gorze roze

Na dole fijolki

Kochajmy sie

Jak dwa aniolki!

Chopin and Szymanowska, Again - Paris, April 2014 (Vol. 5, No. 1)

After three years, the 2nd International Conference on "Maria Szymanowska and Her Times" will take place in Paris, at the Polish Academy of Sciences - Paris, on April 28-29. The conference will include an international array of scholars, and an impressive assortment of topics, gathered again by the indefatigable Elizabeth Zapolska, president of Maria Szymanowska Society.  The comparison of Chopin and Szymanowska's styles will be presented by pianist Slawomir Dobrzanski, who recorded all of Szymanowska's piano pieces for Acte Prealable in Poland.  Ms. Zapolska issued a double CD of all songs composed by Szymanowska, on the same label.

Dr. Benjamin Vogel, Prof. dr hab. Irena Poniatowska and Elizabeth Zapolska

 LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

1) Prof. Irena Poniatowska – Institut National Frédéric Chopin, Warszawa

2) Prof. Benjamin Vogel – Lund University, Institut National Frédéric Chopin: Le pianoforte - élément clé d’un salon musical en Pologne et en Russie au temps de Maria Szymanowska (in English)

3) Prof. Dr hab. Jerzy Miziołek – Directeur du Musée de l’Université de Varsovie : Maria Szymanowska, née Wolowska, dans l’entourage des personnages clés du renouveau intellectuel et culturel réunis autour de l'Université de Varsovie fraîchement créée.

4) Prof. Dr hab. Hanna Konicka – Paris

5) Dr Hubert Kowalski – Directuer adjoint du Musée de l’Université de Varsovie : sujet à préciser, peut-être sur les contacts de Bertel Thorvaldsen avec la Pologne et l’Université de Varsovie

6) Dr Slawomir Dobrzański – Kansas State University : New Insights and Discoveries. Maria Szymanowska and Fryderyk Chopin - texte lié à la présentation d’illustrations musicales „live”

7) Dr Bart van Oort - University of the Arts, The Hague : interprétation „live” d’oeuvres de Maria Szymanowska sur un piano du XIXe siècle, suivie de commentaires sur les spécificités de pianos anciens

8) Dr Jean-Marc Warszawski - Université Paris VIII, directeur du magazine www.musicologie.org : compositeurs juifs au temps de Maria Szymanowska

9) Dr Elena Grechanaya – Université d’Orléans, C.N.R.S. : L'album féminin en Russie à l'époque de Maria Szymanowska

10)Dr Maja Trochimczyk - President of Moonrise Press, Los Angeles : « les Chants historiques » de Niemcewicz, et tout particulièrement - ceux de Maria Szymanowska (in English)

11)Anna Kijas - University of Connecticut : possiblités de promotion du personnage et de l’oeuvre de Maria Szymanowska grâce aux projets et programmes existant sur Internet

12)Karen Benedicte Busk-Jepsen - Muzeum Thorvaldsena w Kopenhadze : un regard nouveau sur les contacts amicaux entre Maria Szymanowska et Bertel Thorvaldsen - à travers leur correspondance

13)Dr Piotr Daszkiewicz - Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (Paris) : Humboldt, Cuvier, Jarocki et les autres - les naturalistes et les salons artistiques au temps de Maria Szymanowska

14)Dr Adam Gałkowski –Université de Varsovie : femmes de talent, femmes d’action au temps de Maria Szymanowska

15)Dr Iwona Agnieszka Siedlaczek – Société Polonaise de Phylosophie, Section de Lublin: sujet à préciser

16)Dr Paweł Maciejko - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem : la famille Wolowski en tant que représentant des « frankistes » polonais

Maja Trochimczyk with Szymanowska's portrait.

The Fourth Salon Maria Szymanowska in Paris on December 3, 2013 (Vol. 4, No. 12)

If you are in Paris next week, do not forget to stop by the Salle des Fêtes of the Fourth District of Paris on December 3, 2013 at 7:30 p.m. to participate in the Fourth Salon of Maria Szymanowska.

This poetic-musical event, subtitled Female Voices, Infinite Dreams (Voix de femmes, rêves inachevés) has been designed and planned by Elżbieta Zapolska, and directed by Ella Jaroszewicz. This is yet another cultural event in the International Project Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831) - The Woman of Europe, realized by the Parisian Société Maria Szymanowska together with many sponsors and cooperating partners.

The Szymanowska Society also manages a website in several languages, noting all events world-wide relating to the Polish composer and pianist, still delighting us with the modernity of her talent. www.maria-szymanowska.eu.

The program of the December 3rd Salon features songs and poetry by female artists of Szymanowska's time: Fanny de Beauharnais, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Christine Lavant, Louise Labé, Anna de Noailles, Joy Morgan, Christine de Pisan, Catherine Sayn-Wittgenstein, Aviva Shavit-Wladkowska and, of course, Maria Szymanowska.

 The Salon will be presented by Florence Rigollet, Monique Stalens, Elżbieta Zapolska (musicians) as well as actors Katarzyna Wolf, Hye Min Yang and Alexandru Pribeagu – from the theater of Ella Jaroszewicz called Studio MAGENIA.

 The Salon has been produced by the Société Maria Szymanowska with the cooperation of: Mairie du 4 e Arondisement of Paris, Historical Literary Society / and Polish Library in Paris, publishing house Les Editions Noir sur Blanc, the Polish Institute in Paris, Studio Magenia and Gazeta Paryska.

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The Szymanowska Society is preparing the Second International Conference on Maria Szymanowska, planned for April 28-29, 2014 in Paris.  Live performances and lectures by scholars will be on the program. Prof. Slawomir Dobrzanski will show detailed relationships between works by Szymanowska and Chopin (Szymanowska's were composed and published at least 10 years earlier). I will focus on Szymanowska's songs to Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz's Spiewy Historyczne and their relationship to other songs from the same volume. Details about the Conference will be announced later.

Szymanowska specialist, pianist Slawomir Dobrzanski recently released a complete recording of all of Szymanowska's piano music, while Elizabeth Zapolska has recorded all of Szymanowska's songs. Both recordings, - two sets of 2 CDs each - are available from Acte Prealable in Poland and online via major booksellers.

Here's a preview of Dobrzanski's performing Szymanowska for the Kansas Public Radio:

http://www.kansaspublicradio.org/music/live-studio/classical-live/7213-slawomir-dobrzanski-piano




Dobrzanski's book on Szymanowska, with a CD Sample of her music is available from Polish Music Center at the University of Southern California and published by Figueroa Press associated with USC.

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MUSICAL WORLDS OF POLISH JEWS IN ARIZONA AND TANSMAN


A mini-reunion happened at the International Conference "The Musical Worlds of Polish Jews, 1920-1960" at the Arizona State University in Tempe, where Prof. Dobrzanski performed some of piano solo pieces by Tadeusz Zygfryd Kassern.

Through October  I worked on my music history project, "Jewish Composers of Polish Music in 1943" -  a paper invited for the conference at the Arizona State University.  It was an amazing gathering of minds, with a keynote address by Prof. Antony Polonsky of Brandeis University, live music by the ART Ensemble of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and many fascinating lectures by scholars from Poland, U.K., Australia, Canada and the U.S.  

In my project this time I decided to count the names, this time: from 173 composers listed in 1939, 101 were still alive abroad (most of them have emigrated before the war) and 12 in Poland. Looking through the outlines of the composers' lives - destroyed and twisted by absolute evil, tossed around the world by winds of history... It is not an easy topic. We want to hear about the winners, the survivors, the heroes: we do not want this senseless, absurd, pointless death. 

I was not even born then, so what I can do? The only thing - remember: Koffler and Gold who died, Tansman, Palester, Kassern, Laks who survived... And be thankful for their gift of music.

Alexandre Tansman (1895-1986), the most famous Polish composer between the wars, a friend of Stravinsky, Ravel, Koussevitzky, Rodzinski, Mitropoulos, and Segovia, wrote more mazurkas than any other composer after Chopin. His symphonies were toured around the world by major orchestras. In 1940, he composed Rapsodie Polonaise dedicated to the defenders of Warsaw and major performances of the Rapsodie took place in Washington, Baltimore, Cleveland, under the baton of Rodzinski, Mitropoulos and Tansman himself.  

Tansman's love and knowledge of Polish folklore was expressed throughout his life, not only in pieces entitled "mazurka"  but also in in using elements of rhythm and melody from polonaises and mazurkas in various orchestral pieces.  A slow movement could be a kujawiak, a fast one - an oberek.  Seventy years of composing in Polish style! With many direct tributes to Chopin.

Here is Hommage a Chopin for guitar by Alexandre Tansman performed by Frederic Zigante: 



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuUOLaBDFYs

That's definitely something to be thankful for! Tansman's friendship with Andre Segovia, the master of classical guitar, and his intense musicality, resulted in creating the most important body of music for this instrument, beloved by guitarists world-wide, as can be witnessed on youtube.

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Szymanowska and Tansman. Two musicians, two approaches to Chopin - before his time and long after. A predecessor who influenced Chopin's musical ideas and artistic aspirations, and a disciple, breathing a thorough knowledge of his oeuvre. Two musicians, two expressions of talent - a romantic virtuoso, a neoclassical master. Both were composer-pianists. Both toured internationally and had their music published throughout Europe.  Both are vital to the history of Polish music.