100 Years of Poland in Music - Lecture from Modjeska Club Concert (Vol. 9, No. 8)

100 Years of Poland in Music - Sto Lat Polski w Muzyce 

Remarks by Dr. Maja Trochimczyk, Modjeska Club President at the Gala Concert in Beverly Hills, CA, October 20, 2018 (full text)

This year, in 2018, we are celebrating 100 years of Poland regaining independence in 1918. Since I think that the word “regaining” is quite “ungainly” I entitled our concert “100 Years of Poland in Music.”  The Helena Modjeska Art and Culture Club is only 46 this year, since we were founded in 1971. Interestingly, it seems that in the one hundred years that passed since 1918, Poland was independent only for 50 years (minus 6 years of WWII under German and Soviet occupations, and 44 years of Soviet rule in the Polish People’s Republic, 1945 to 1989).  So, in fact, we are close in age.

Nonetheless, our club with its 46-years of history is half serious and half humorous. Serious:  because if we were to put in this room all books, articles, artworks, and inventions by our members there would be no room for guests, these numbers are in thousands! So we are very serious about our American careers and we are well established in our fields – the academe, business, medicine, or the arts. Humorous – because we cherish good humor; enjoy each other’s company and like to share this enjoyment with others, while promoting Polish culture in California.

Modjeska Club poster from 1996 by Ewa Swider

Today we are celebrating 100 Years of Poland in Music. Why in Music? Let me start with an anecdote. When I moved from Poland to Canada in 1988, I was very surprised by the content of information available from the media, newspapers, and TV evening news. Classical music, the arts – were all absent. In my Warsaw, the opening of the Chopin Competition, Warsaw Autumn Festival, Konfrontacje Film Festival, or the Jazz Jamboree were all honored on the national news and on the first pages of newspapers. Classical music and the arts were so important in PRL, the Polish People’s Republic. Even though it was a Soviet puppet state, it cherished its arts and its artists.  Poland worshipped Chopin, a half-French émigré pianist and composer as its national symbol. The same country survived one tragedy after another.

Poland survived 123 years of partitions, without its own government or state, because families read Polish books and sung Polish songs at home – Christmas carols and military songs, krakowiaks and mazurkas, and the 1816 Historical Chants by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz that were designed to pass on to the next generations of Poles the history of Polish kings and heroes in the guise of songs in Polish. The key words here are: music, memory, resilience. In English “hardiness” – Poles are “hardy” – and they are also “hardy” in Polish – indestructible.

Kazimierz Wielki - song and litograph from Historical Chants by Niemcewicz (1816 edition)

A perfect illustration of this “hardiness” and resilience may be found in the 1946 film Zakazane Piosenki / Forbidden Songs. Today, we will start our concert with the music from this film. Forbidden Songs from 1946 is the first feature film made after six years of the Second World War. Its star, Danuta Szaflarska, was a guest of our club in 2010, in a wonderful event that is even now well remembered. I had the honor and pleasure to lead this fascinating meeting and conversation with a nearly century-old star.

She debuted in Zakazane Piosenki. The action of the film takes place during the occupation of Warsaw during the war, tells the story of several residents of the same building. Their stories are loosely linked to a set of songs, both pre-war ballads popular during the war, as well as songs that make fun of the German occupation. The premiere of the film took place in January 1947. Unfortunately, already in 1948, the film was reworked for political reasons, adding praise for the Red Army, and criticism of the Home Army. After three years of hope for freedom, the night of Stalinism prevailed in Poland. Everything was seen in the crooked mirror of the PRL propaganda.

Miro Kepinski, photo by Iga Supernak

Miro Kepinski, a fantastic composer and pianist who just received yet another prize for his collection at the Opening Gala of the Polish Film Festival (for best debut as a film composer), uses some melodies from Forbidden Songs - Green Apple, Hymn of Szare Szeregi in his own compositions.  His music mixes minimalism with a ‘rawness’ of the north and a Slavic melancholy blended with classic themes. Miro’s recent film credits include: a multiple-award winning feature documentary, The Wounds We Cannot See; a dark-comedy, Suicide For Beginners (with Sig Haig and Corey Feldman); as well as In This Gray Place, his feature debut (with Phil LaMarr) and Lord Finn.

Bravo, Miro! In addition to red roses, he received a signed Dyplom Uznania from us (a Certificate of Appreciation) for his ever growing collection.

Miro Kepinski receives our "Dyplom Uznania" - Photo by Iga Supernak

CONCERT PROGRAM

Miro Kępiński, pianist and film composer

• Zakazane piosenki - Inspiracje / Forbidden Songs – Inspirations 

Songs performed by Katarzyna Sadej, mezzosoprano & Basia Bochenek, piano

• Hej, Orle Biały / Hey White Eagle, (1917) text and music by Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941)

• Dziś do Ciebie przyjść nie mogę /I Cannot Come to You Tonight, (1943) text and music by Stanisław Magierski 

• Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino / Red Poppies on Monte Cassino, (1944) by Feliks Konarski (text) and Alfred Schütz (music) 

• Five Songs by Derwid (1950s-1960s) by Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994) with texts by Jerzy Miller, Tadeusz Urgacz, and others 
• Z lat dziecinnych / From Childhood Years
• Zakochać sie w wietrze /To Fall in Love with the Wind
• Tylko to słowo / Only this Word
• Filipince nudno / The Filipino Girl is Bored
• Cyrk jedzie / The Circus is Coming

• To ostatnia niedziela / That Last Sunday, (1935) by Zenon Friedwald (text) and Jerzy Petersburski (music) 

Artur Szyk's postcards of Paderewski and President Wilson

And now, I would like to share with you the reasons we chose these particular songs for our program. In 1918 the country was reborn. We, Californians, like to credit Ignacy Jan Paderewski with this miracle for persuading President Woodrow Wilson to add to his 14 points for the Peace Treaty, independent Poland as no. 13. I wrote about the appreciation of Paderewski by Americans for this amazing feat. That is why we are starting our concert with Hej, Orle Biały / Hey White Eagle, a battle hymn written in 1917 - both text and music - by Paderewski. He intended it for the “Blue Army” of Gen. Haller formed in the U.S. and Canada to help liberate Poland during WWI. The Great War to end all wars that ended nothing.

Cover of Hej Orle Bialy by Paderewski. Polish Museum of America, Chicago.

The Blue Army consisted of about 90,000 Americans and Canadians who immigrated from Polish lands, Galicia or  Podhale, mostly poor peasants turned factory workers, who returned to Europe to fight first alongside France against Germany, and then in Poland to restore the country’s independence and to defend it during the Polish Soviet War of 1920.  The Miracle on the Vistula was followed by the return of these  veterans to their hardworking lives in Chicago, Milwaukee, or Toronto. The Blue Army was purposefully forgotten by the PRL propagandists; their defense of Europe from the Soviets could not be taught in schools. At least, today we remember.

In our program, we skip the interwar years for now, and find ourselves in the middle of the second World War, another effort to end all wars, again a failure. Wars are entirely pointless.  Dziś do Ciebie przyjść nie mogę /I Cannot Come to You Tonight  is a song was written in 1943, with text and music penned by Stanisław Magierski, a pharmacist from Lublin and a member of the Home Army, the largest organized underground resistance to the Germans anywhere – about 400,000 people conspiring against German and Soviets occupiers during WWII.

"Place sanctified by the blood of Poles who died for the freedom of their homeland" - monument commemorating a massacre of civilians in the district of Wola, 5 August 1944, Warsaw Uprising. This one is close to my home in Wola, near the Russian Orthodox Cemetery and Sowinski Park. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Sadly, just like Zakazane Piosenki / Forbidden Songs, this nostalgic song was appropriated by the PRL propaganda and shifted to the partisans of Armia Ludowa, the People’s Army, formed in 1944 and controlled by the Soviets. Their numbers were much smaller (about 30,000), yet they were portrayed as the most important heroes and freedom fighters. Meanwhile the Home Army’s accursed soldiers / zołnierze wyklęci continued fighting against the Soviets and, like the brave Captain Pilecki, were mercilessly hunted and killed. Only now we can restore their memories, make films and write books about their lives.

The next song, also from World War II, is Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino / Red Poppies on Monte Cassino written in 1944 on the eve of the tragic victory of Polish troops. Monte Cassino was a Benedictine monastery, where St. Benedict and his sister St. Scholastica were buried. Germans converted it into a fortress that blocked the main road towards Rome and stopped the Allied forces. Poles were asked to sacrifice themselves and storm that citadel, and so they did, with the majority of the troops dying on the slopes of Monte Cassino.  Interestingly, if you go to visit this site today, the first thing you notice is that the Benedictine monks – whose very name is synonymous with hard work – have rebuilt their monastery and church exactly as it was for centuries, with all their exquisite mosaics, architecture, stained-glass windows. It took them well over 20 years, but they refused to accept the destruction of the war, and erased its memory.

Let us return to Czerwone Maki. Feliks Konarski (1907-1991) penned the text and Alfred Schütz (1910-1999)  wrote the music. The song was composed for the Polish II Corps of Gen. Władysław Anders and with it we honor soldiers that fought for Polish independence outside of Poland.  We selected it to illustrate three facts of Polish history.

The first fact: that Poland fought alongside the Allies on many fronts and yet was denied its independence in 1945. This bitter truth is perfectly illustrated in the film premiered at the Opening Gala of the Polish Film Festival in Los Angeles, Squadron 303, with a fantastic role by Maciej Zakoscielny.  Based on the popular novel by Arkady Fiedler it presents the contribution of heroic Polish pilots to the Battle of Britain: they shot down 126 German planes, while losing only eight planes themselves.  Yet, there were denied the right to march in the Victory Parade: Churchill and Roosevelt partnered with Stalin, Poland’s government in exile, located in London, and refusing to accept Soviet occupation, was a thorn in their side.

Church candles in Poland, photo by Maja Trochimczyk

The second fact: that Poland lost more than half of its land after Soviets took over what is now Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine – the so called Kresy, the Borderlands. In 1940-41, up to 1.5 million Poles were deported to Siberia, Kazakchstan, and Central Asia; about 500,000 died. From among those who lived, the Anders Army gathered nearly 80 thousand soldiers and took in over 37 thousand civilian deportees, women, children and war orphans to Iran, Palestine, Italy and on around the world. India welcomed a thousand Polish orphans with Hanka Ordonowna - the famous Ordonka - as their teacher (you can read her story in her memoir, now out of print, soon to appear in its first English translation from Moonrise Press). New Zealand received just fifty Polish children and there is a museum to prove it!

There were Polish refugee camps in Kenya, Uganda, Rhodesia, Australia, and Mexico.  You can find out more, if you join the group “Kresy Siberia” on FB, and read posts by children of survivors, scattered literally around the globe. The poet of Czerwone Maki, Feliks Konarski was one of these survivors, an Anders Army soldier and theater director (“Polska Parada”) who wrote texts to popular songs as “Ref-Ren” in the interwar era in Poland and settled in London after the war, where he staged over 30 theater performances for the Polish community. After 1965, he ended up in Chicago, where for many years he had a Polish radio program called Czerwone Maki. 

The third historical fact is that up to 10% of Anders’ Army were Jews, including the majority of musicians. We can name Alfred Schütz, the composer of Czerwone Maki, as well as Henryk Wars / Henryk Warszawski / Henry Vars (1902-1977 – his archives are at the USC Polish Music Center and children live in Los Angeles)and Jerzy Petersburski (1895-1979) who wrote the last song on our program tonight.  Schütz went to Brazil for 15 years, but ended up in Munich, working for Radio Free Europe for another 25.  Paradoxically after Schütz died in 1999 and his wife passed on as well, the royalties for Czerwone Maki, this anthem of anti-German struggle of Polish soldiers, were collected  by the State of Bavaria, the same state that saw the origins of Hitler’s rise to power… Only in 2015 were the royalties from this war-time anthem assigned to the Polish government.

Maja Trochimczyk's lecture, photo by Lucyna Przasnyski

Thus, with three war songs we commemorate the tremendous sacrifices made by Poles during both World Wars, the suffering and tragedies that resulted in a national Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that still affects us.  (This, at least is a thesis of Maciej Świrski from the Polish National Foundation). Poles could not tell the truth for 50 years after the war: they went from fire into fire, from oppressive German and Soviet rule, into Soviet occupation of a country cut in half and transformed from a multi-ethnic, culturally diverse nation, into one that was almost uniformly Polish and Catholic. According to British historian Norman Davies, the Polish census of 1931 listed the nationalities by language as Polish, 69% of the population, Ukrainian, 15%, Jews 8.5%, Belarusian, 4.70%, German, 2.2%, Russian 0.25%, Lithuanian, 0.25%, Czech 0.09%, (Davies, God’s Playground, Vol. 2, p. 460). Thus, one-third of Polish population consisted of minorities.

After the war, however, Poland became mostly Polish, due not only to the Holocaust and departure of the remnant of Jews in 1946-48 (the survivors did not want to live under the Soviet rule and many went to the newly formed Israel instead), but also because of the deportation of Poles from lands taken over by the Soviet Union (about 4.5 million deportees) and the expulsion of Germans from Silesia and Pomerania, lands given to Poland in return for the lost eastern provinces. The borders shifted, the country shrank and lost its Slavic inhabitants as well. Belarusians, Ruthenians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians stayed where they lived for generations, yet found themselves in Soviet republics.

 

Covers of Trochimczyk's poetry books about war experiences of her family,  and Polish civilians.

Books recognized by the 2016 Creative Arts Prize by the Polish American Historical Association. 

The losses were harsh on everyone; there is not a Polish family that has not lost someone in World War II. I counted my losses in two poetry books, Slicing the Bread (Finishing Line Press, 2014) and The Rainy Bread (2016, read sample poems ). For so long, Poles could not face the past, deal with the pain and move on. The unhealed trauma still breaks up in public – in attitudes of victimhood, attacks, or hatred. For almost 50 years, historical facts could not be discussed in public, though people all knew them at home – about the murder of Polish officers in Katyn, about the deportations, murders and betrayals.

Aleksander Janta Polczynski

After 1945, Poles faced a difficult choice. The Dividing Line, Linia Podzialu went through every family, every heart. I quoted here a title of a very interesting play by émigré nobleman and writer Aleksander Janta Połczyński (1908-1974) about ethical and personal dilemmas of emigrants, in my opinion, a much  better play than Slawomir Mrożek’s or Janusz Głowacki’s Emigrants, more truthful, yet not convenient for PRL propaganda and its heirs.  I hope that the Modjeska Club will stage a performance, or at least a staged reading of this amazing play, in Polish, in California.  Incidentally, Janta’s Polish Psalms capture the grief and trauma of displaced Poles, worrying about their families in Poland, trying to come to terms with their loss and suffering.

Polczynski's most famous book, I lied to live.

What were the post-war options for Poles? Option Number One: Ensure the survival of Poland as a nation within its historic borders, however reduced, by accepting the Soviet dominance and keeping the language and culture alive where Poland was born. This meant staying put, having children and helping them to grow up into the film makers that we welcome here today.  This meant: compromise, Orwellian double-speak.

Option Number Two: Ensure the survival of the truth about Poland as it was, without lies, masks and propaganda by emigrating to maintain the fragile Polish identity in foreign countries. This meant leaving the Old Country behind and recreating it anew in the New World. This is us, the Modjeska Club members, Polish Californians.  This meant: loss of roots and coherent identity.

The first strategy resulted in biological survival and preservation of Poland as a nation on its own lands. The second strategy resulted in scattering the remnant among a multitude of host countries. It is as if a bomb exploded in the middle of Poland and sent Polish people around the world. We could look at it as a tremendous tragedy, or as a victory, because now the whole world belongs to Poles and there is Poland everywhere.

Katarzyna Sadek and Basia Bochenek in patrotic dresses, red and white, photo by Lucyna Przasnyski

Let us then move to the main part of the program, the popular songs by Derwid, written by the avant-garde composer Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994) under a pseudonym and now being recorded by Katarzyna Sadej and Basia Bochenek. These songs illustrate the first option, the survival strategy of pretending, wearing masks and adapting, while making sure that the kernel of truth remains within. Here I’m reminded of the masks worn by the characters of Witold Gombrowicz’s fantastic novel Ferdydurke (1937) – masks to hide true identity, masks worn upon masks upon masks. So that’s Polish compromise, mala stabilizacja / small stability. Gombrowicz( 1904-1969), the author of surrealist plays and novels, was an emigrant himself, he spent the years 1939 -1963 in Argentina, and later moved back to Europe – first Germany and then southern France.

When listening to the songs of Derwid we could ask ourselves a question – who was the real Lutosławski: the world-famous avant-garde experimentalist, or the one who celebrated childhood, seasons, humor, and love in his cute and stylish songs?  What was true? What will survive? In PRL, you had to hide what you knew, pretend and lie in order to live “jako tako / so so” – we called it “the Japanese way, po japońsku” - and do your own thing. In many places, you still have to do it today. Lie to survive. Wear a mask to keep a job.

After 1989, Poland regained its independence, then became a part of the European Union, which was supposed to guarantee the country's sovereignty against Soviet domination, but turned into quite a different story. About 70% of Polish media are now in German hands. As for the factories, land, companies, and real estate formerly owned by the Polish People's Republic, their "re-privatising" was a highway robbery - a process in which former PZPR executives and other politicians became owners of vast chunks of what had belonged to the whole nation under the "socialist system." Of course, heirs to those dispossessed by the PRL after 1945 were entitled to receive their property back. But those who lost lands and possessions to Soviet Union, received nothing and the losses of many who were robbed and traumatized or murdered by German soldiers and citizens were not paid back either. Democracy returned,  and with it the endless arguments that mired Poland before its fall in 1795 and threatens its independence even now.  A sad story, so let us return to music.

Sadej and Bochenek perform, photo by Iga Supernak

The composer of the last piece on our program, Jerzy Petersburski (1895-1979), a Polish Jew and a veteran of the Polish Second Corps of General Anders, is an example of Option No. 2, of those who left.  After serving in the military, he lived and worked as a musician in Argentina and Venezuela, but at the end of his life he returned to his beloved Poland. Here’s another paradox, he returned in 1967, just a year before the last mass expulsion of the Jewish remnant from Poland in 1968 – when so many Polish Jews were told to leave and denied Polish citizenship.  Somehow, Petersburski not only returned, but thrived – he married for the third time (his second wife died in 1967). The 1935 song To ostatnia niedziela / That Last Sunday, a nostalgic tango, remained one of the greatest hits, szlagiers, of the interwar period and is popular until today.

The song itself appeared in many films, including Russian Syberiada, American Schindler’s List, Polish/French White from Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors. It was originally performed and recorded by Mieczysław Fogg (1901-1990),  whose survival story was even more amazing than that of the famous Pianist, Władysław Szpilman. A veteran of the Polish –Soviet war of 1920, a singer since 1928, between the wars, Fogg was a “crooner” working in cabaret and revue theaters. During WWII, he became a member of the Home Army, engaging in many clandestine activities and fighting in the Warsaw Uprising. He saved the life of a Jewish composer Iwo Wesby (Ignacy Singer, 1902-1961) and his family, sheltering them in his own home until the end of the war. Wesby ended up in New York while Fogg stayed in Poland and now is on the list of the Righteous among the Nations.

Now that’s a subject for a film treatment, don’t you think?  And, please, do not forget Ordonka and the thousand Polish war orphans in India. That’s another unparalleled story of heroism, survival and resilience.

I’m sure that by now I convinced you that it is through song that Polish identity survived and thrived. We, the Modjeska Club members, will have a chance of singing together on December 15, 2018 at our annual Christmas Carols party, koledowanie. Mark your calendars for December 15th. We do it the American way, before Christmas. We are Poles in America and we are grateful for our new home.
Let me end this presentation with a fragment of a poem from my most recent book, a poetry anthology, Grateful Conversations. You can find the full text on my Poetry Laurels blog .

Yucca whipplei, endemic to the local deserts near LA. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

In Morning Light

[…]We live on a planet where it rains diamonds.
Hard rain. Sparkling crystal droplets.
We walk on untold treasures. that we do not notice.
We forget and forget and forget - where we came from
where we are – where we are going – 
[…]
We are the children of Sunlight, blessed by radiance
We wear Love’s golden haloes – we shine and blossom
In Light’s cosmic garden of stars, on this diamond planet
of what IS –  in the Heart of the great, great Silence…
[…]

Sadej and Bochenek with their flowers, photo by Iga Supernak

Today, we are most grateful for the amazing opera star, a Polish Canadian American mezzosoprano Katarzyna Sadej (sadedz) who agreed to grace our event with her astounding voice and musicality. Her voice is one in a million, you will feel its beauty very soon. If you read her biography in our program you see now many opera companies have already invited her to perform. We are delighted with her presence and thankful for the support and the musicality of the talented pianist Barbara Bochenek. So now, without further ado, welcome to One Hundred Years of Poland in Music!

Applause for the musicians. Photo by Iga Supernak

MUSICIANS BIOGRAPHIES

Katarzyna Sadej, a Polish-Canadian-American Mezzo-soprano was born in Wrocław, Poland, and is based in Los Angeles, California. Her international, eclectic career spans concert, opera, chamber music, oratorio, recital and voice-over performance. She has performed numerous world premieres and has had over a dozen new works composed especially for her. Recent opera performances: L.A. Opera debut as the Page of Herodias in Strauss’ Salome, SOPAC Ottawa debut as Le Prince Charmant in Massenet’s Cendrillon, and the title role of Bizet’s Carmen in the Palm Springs Opera Guild annual gala. Upcoming highlights include her debut with the Chicago Philharmonic as the alto soloist in Wojciech Kilar’sMissa Pro Pace, her Chinese debut at Opera Chengdu as Giannetta in Donizetti’s L’ElisirD’Amore, and her debut with conductor Alexander Shelley as Cherubino in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro at the NAC Ottawa. Her debut at Walt Disney Hall was with the Pacific American Chorale (alto solo in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony). Other notable debuts: Industry Opera, Carnegie Hall, Festival Mozaic, the National Theater in Taipei, the Nuits Blanches Festival of Toronto, San Diego Opera, the Ravinia Festival as a Steans Fellow, the 2012 London Olympics, the Ojai International Music Festival, the Montenegrin National Theater, the Lviv (Ukraine) and Banatul (Romania) Philharmonics, the Music Biennale Zagreb, the Bard Summerscape Music Festival, the Cartagena International Music Festival, Harvard University, and more notable venues. www.katarzynasadej.com

Kasia and Basia perform, photo by Iga Supernak.

Basia Bochenek, a Polish-American pianist, is an avid performer of classical music, whose passion and dedication for collaborative arts brought her to venues throughout the U.S. and Europe,working with world-renowned composers, incredible musicians and great conductors. Basia has made Los Angeles her home. Her performances include world premieres and new interpretations of art songs as well as chamber music. Basia has worked with Robert Jason Brown, Richard Faith, Anne Lebaron, Lori Laitman, Libby Larsen and Sofia Gubaidulina, among others. In the exploration of performing lesser known music by Polish composers as well as art songs, Basia works with Katarzyna Sadej. Their dedication to exploring new approach to art songs began at Songfest.  Basia has worked at the California Institute of the Arts, coaching young artists, accompanying opera productions, recitals, classical works and musical theatre. Other engagements include accompanying the studios of acclaimed artists, such as LA Philharmonic concertmaster Martin Chalifour, Vermeer Quartet violist Richard Young, baritones Rod Gilfry and Sherrill Milnes. Her collaborations include performances with mezzo-sopranos Suzanna Guzman, soprano Ashley Maria Bahri, violinists Roberto Cani, Mark Menzies, Lorenz Gamma and Cheryl Norman-Brick. www.basiabochenek.com

Board with performers: L to R Elizabeth Trybus, Katarzyna Sadej, Maja Trochimczyk, Ewa Barsam, Miro Kepinski. 

Back row - Marcin Gortat, Witold Sokolowski, Chris Justin. Photo by Lucyna Przasnyski.

Modjeska Club Board with musicians: L to R. Treasuer Elizabeth Przybyla, President Maja Trochimczyk, PhD, Vice President Witold Sokolowski, PhD, Community Relations Director, Ewa Barsam, Katarzyna Sadej, Barbara Bochenek, guest. Seated: Technical Director, Christ Justin and Secretary Elzbieta Trybus, PhD. Photo by Iga Supernak

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

On Hypnotic Modernism of Maciej Grzybowski (Vol. 3, No. 7)

How can you tell if a pianist is good enough to be worth the effort of driving on our congested freeways to attend his concert on a Friday night, if you have never heard his name before? Hard to tell… perhaps, you should believe what others say about him.  You certainly should watch for the name of Maciej Grzybowski, an extraordinary Polish pianist, who recently visited Los Angeles upon the invitation of the Helena Modjeska Art and Culture Club. On May 11, 2011, he performed a solo piano recital at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica.  From there, he went on to play for the Polish Arts and Culture Club of San Diego and then to appear in a recital in Montreal, Canada. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have to state that as the President of the Modjeska Club I personally invited him to L.A., while his tour was sponsored by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute of Poland and supported by the Polish Consulate in Los Angeles). 

The specially crafted Santa Monica program included music by Polish composers (Paweł Mykietyn, Witold Lutosławski, Paweł Szymański, and Fryderyk Chopin) juxtaposed with Western classics – Johannes Brahms, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel. Some of the best music of the world, played by one of the best pianists you can ever hear…

Born in 1968 and educated in Warsaw, Maciej Grzybowski is the winner of the First Prize and the Special Prize at the 20th Century Music Competition for Young Performers in Warsaw (1992). He made numerous phonographic, radio and television recordings as a soloist and chamber musician and collaborated with Sinfonia Varsovia conducted by such conductors as Jan Krenz, Witold Lutosławski and Krzysztof Penderecki. From 1996 to 2000 Grzybowski was a co-director of the "NONSTROM presents" concert cycle in Warsaw. He took part in numerous music festivals in Poland, such as the Warsaw Autumn, Musica Polonica Nova, Witold Lutosławski Forum, Warsaw Musical Encounters, and the Polish Radio Music Festival. He also performed at the Biennial of Contemporary Music in Zagreb, Hofkonzerte im Podewil, Berlin and festivals in Lvov, Kiev, and Odessa (Ukraine). In March 2005, Grzybowski’s recital at the Mozart Hall in Bologna was recognized as the greatest music event of the 2000s. After Grzybowski’s U.S. debut in New York, in August 2006 EMI Classics released his second solo CD with works by Paweł Szymański (b. 1954). He also appeared in three concerts at the critically acclaimed Festival of Paweł Szymański's Music in Warsaw. In February 2008, Grzybowski premiered a Piano Concerto by an unjustly forgotten composer, Andrzej Czajkowski (Andre Tchaikovsky).

After the 2004 release of Grzybowski’s first solo CD, Dialog, juxtaposing works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Alban Berg, Pawel Mykietyn, Arnold Schönberg and Pawel Szymanski, (Universal Music Polska), critics raved:
·       “His interpretations of Bach, Berg, Schönberg, Szymański and Mykietyn show the touch of genius! There are certainly none today to equal his readings of Bach! (...) How refreshing and exciting it is to be in the presence of such great art of interpretation, akin to a genius!”   (Bohdan Pociej).
·       “The performance of Berg’s youthful Sonata and Schönberg’s Sechs kleine Klavierstücke could easily stand alongside the recordings of Gould or Pollini.”  (Marcin Gmys).

These exorbitant expressions of praise were seconded by attendees of the Santa Monica recital including composer Walter Arlen, the founder of the music department at Loyola Marymount University and for 30 years the most influential music critic of the Los Angeles Times. After the concert, he stated, “this was the best pianist I have ever heard in my life.” His praise was seconded by another listener, Howard Myers: “Maciej is a phenomenon, a marvel, a miracle, a special kind of genius.” The belief in Grzybowski’s exceptional talent is shared by the Director of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Paweł Potoroczyn: “He is more than just a talented pianist – he is both a virtuoso of the highest order and a great musical personality.  The resultant unique combination is that of an uncommon musical genius that fully justifies comparing him with such masters as Glenn Gould or Maurizio Pollini.”

While admitting to a personal bias towards someone who has dedicated years of his life to the music of Paweł Szymański, one of the greatest Polish composers who ever lived (as it will become apparent in 50 years, when the dust settles and musical diamonds will be found in the sea of ashes), I had no doubt that by bringing Maciej Grzybowski to California, I offered our audiences a special treat.  His recital exceeded even my already sky-high expectations. First the program: arranged in two distinct parts, pairing composers of different generations in a surprising dialogue of musical ideas.

The youngest of the composers featured by Grzybowski was Paweł Mykietyn (b. 1971), his colleague and co-founder of the Nonstrom Ensemble where he has played the clarinet. In an entry on the Polish Music Information Center’s website affiliated with the Polish Composers’ Union, Mykietyn’s style is described in the following way:  “The composer ostentatiously applies the major-minor harmonies, introducing tonal fragments interspersed with harmonically free sections. He also makes use of traditional melodic structures, transforming them in his own individual manner. Mykietyn could be described as a model postmodernist, deriving his inspiration as well as material from all the available sources without any inferiority complex.” These words could well be applied to the virtuosic and wistful Four Preludes (1992) that opened the program with their contrasting moods, textures and tempi.



Grzybowski with Howard Myers and Prof. Walter Arlen.

Grzybowski followed the postmodernist Mykietyn with Twelve Folk Melodies by the dean of Polish composers of the 20th century, Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994). Commissioned by PWM in 1945, and elevating folklore to the realm of high art (in a preview of the official ideology of „socialist realism“ of 1948) these little gems show how unimportant is the ideology or context for a great compositional talent. The popular melodies of Hej, od Krakowa jadę [Hey, I come from Cracow], Na jabłoni jabłko wisi [An apple hangs on the apple tree], or Gaik [The grove] were set to music in a sophisticated harmonic style, reminiscent of Bèla Bartók.

Under Grzybowski’s fingers, these charming miniatures sparkled with a caleidoscope of colors and rhythms. The pianist brought out the complexity of inner voices in seemingly simple pieces and endowed folk melodies with an aura of nostalgia and drama.  In a stroke of genius, Grzybowski followed the folk arrangements with an entirely hypnotic and modernist reading of Drei Intermezzi, Op. 117 by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897). A standard in every music theory textbook on Schenkerian analysis, Drei Intermezzi could be heard as small interludes only in comparison with Brahms’s majestic symphonies.  Composed in 1892, the intermezzi (No. 1 in E-flat major, No. 2 in B-flat minor and No. 3 in C-sharp minor) transverse cosmic landscapes of feeling evoked in Rainer Maria Rilke’s timeless poem, An Die Musik.

Yet it was the piece that followed, Two Etudes by Paweł Szymański(1954), written in 1986 and available on two Grzybowski CDs, that elicited the greatest enthusiasm of the audience.  It is a work of genius, unparalleled in music in its hypnotic effect on the listeners. The Etudes, played without a break, contrast the slow emergence of music in the first etude with the titanic flows of sound in the second.  The piece arises from silence in what appears to be a series of random, repeated notes and chords, but there is nothing random in Szymański’s music, everything is carefully constructed.  Sometimes called a “neo-Baroque” composer (due to his frequent inspirations with the music of that period, and talent for creating complex polyphony), Szymański refers to his style as “sur-conventionalism” and thus describes his main approach: “The modern artist, and this includes composers, finds himself tossed within two extremes. If he chooses to renounce the tradition altogether, there is the danger of falling into the trap of blah-blah; if he follows the tradition too closely, he may prove trivial. This is the paradox of practicing art in modern times. What is the way out? However, there are many methods to stay out of eclecticism despite playing games with tradition. An important method for me is to violate the rules of the traditional language and to create a new context using the elements of that language." Thus, Szymanski draws from traditional tonal and harmonic language by playing with the conventions of musical styles and with the listeners’ expectations. This game of cat-and-mouse was apparent in the stretching and constricting of time in the two Etudes. The irregularity of recurring chords and notes piqued the listeners’ interest and intensified their expectations. Thus, the music grew and expanded in scope in the first Etude, to reach monumental proportions and then dissolve in massive complexities of the second.

The second half of the recital started with a series of unusual readings of Fryderyk Chopin’s four mazurkas (in A Minor, Op. 7, No. 2; E Minor, Op. 41, No. 1; F Major, Op. Posth. 68, No. 3; G-sharp Minor, Op. 33, No. 1). The originality of the pianist’s interpretations rendered these well-known gems of the repertoire almost unrecognizable.  More angular and modernist than usual were also three Preludes from the second volume of impressionistic masterpieces by Claude Debussy (1862-1918): II  ...  Feuilles mortes, VI  ... „General Lavine” eccentric; VII ... La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune.  These terraces were lighted less by effervescent moonlight than by the brilliant focused light of Grzybowski’s intellect.  Again, they were so different from what I was used to hearing that I would need to hear these preludes again, to render an opinion. Yet, the rest of the audience was hypnotized into a complete silence and immobility: no slow, tortuous opening of candy wrappers at this recital! 

Grzybowski with the Modjeska Club Board

The finale was indeed “grand” -  a monumental rendering of Valses nobles et sentimentales by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). In 1906, Ravel started his “waltz” project, culminating with the 1919 publication of the orchestral suite, La Valse. Inspired by the noble and sentimental waltzes by the Viennese Franz Schubert, Ravel published a suite of eight pieces for piano in 1911 and followed them with orchestral versions a year later. The waltzes are not separated into distinct “noble” and “sentimental” sections; it is up to the listener to decide what is what.  The pieces, in contrasting tempi, span the whole expressive trajectory for which the words are too limited to give the music full justice.  An unusual selection to close a solo recital, the suite ended in a slow tranquil dissolution into silence. 

After a well-deserved standing ovation, the pianist relented and added a melancholy and thoroughly modern version of a Scarlatti’s sonata as an encore to the evening’s inspired and inspiring program.  One thing is certain: the name recognition problem mentioned at the beginning should be resolved, once for all, in the case of Maciej Grzybowski: just go to every concert of his, and if you cannot go, buy his CDs.