Czartoryska Marcelina née Radziwiłł, princess, *18 May 1817 Podłużne, †5 June 1894 Kraków, Polish pianist. From the age of 5, she lived permanently in Vienna, where she began her music studies with C. Czerny. In 1840, she married a famous music lover, Fr. Aleksander Romuald Czartoryski, in 1845, she became involved in running an artistic salon at the Hotel Lambert in Paris. On 26 May 1845, a concert for Polish emigrants was held there, with the participation of Fryderyk Chopin and Antoni Kątski. Czartoryska was probably Chopin’s student from 1844, as well as his friend and guardian. In Vienna, she conducted philanthropic activities for Polish youth studying at the university there and probably financially supported the anti-Austrian movement. After the March 1848 riots, the Austrian government considered this activity dangerous and in April ordered her, a subject of the Russian tsar due to her place of birth, to leave the Austrian Empire. She lived in Paris, travelled around Europe, in Edinburgh, Glasgow and London she met the seriously ill Chopin, who played in public for the last time on 16 November 1848, at a concert she organised for veterans of the November Uprising. Present at Chopin’s death in 1849, she took care to preserve the composer’s memorabilia, collected obituaries, columns and memoirs of his contemporaries from 29 periodicals available to her in a special notebook, and in 1881, she donated these memorabilia to the Princes Czartoryski Museum in Krakow. She often travelled around Europe, giving concerts, always for charity, often with the participation of outstanding musicians such as F. Liszt, the violinist H. Vieuxtemps, the cellist A. Franchomme, and the singer P. Viardot-García. In 1856–58, she visited Galicia several times, in 1858, she settled for a short time in Kraków, and on 19 January 1859, she organised a charity concert in the Redoubt Hall of the Stary Theater, where she made her public debut, playing Beethoven’s Violin Sonata in D major, Op. 12 with the violinist N. Biernacki and Chopin’s Concerto in E minor with W. Żeleński at the second piano. In 1860, under the pretext of plotting against the legal authorities, she was forced by the Austrian government to leave Krakow. She went to Paris, sold her family estates located in the Russian partition and thus ceased to be a subject of the Russian Tsar. From 1867, she settled permanently in Galicia, initially in Lviv, and from 1869 in Kraków. She ran a music salon at her headquarters, in Willa Decjusza in Wola Justowska, and in 1875–1886, another one in a residence at ul. Sławkowska 5. On her initiative, on 19 March 1871, S. Tarnowski gave a lecture on Chopin at the Jagiellonian University, illustrated with the princess’s playing. From time to time, she gave public charity concerts in the Redoubt Hall of the Stary Theater, the Knotz (Saska) Hall and the halls of the Cloth Hall, and in 1877, she organised two historical concerts devoted to the presentation of Polish music with works by Gorczycki, Gomółka, Chopin, Moniuszko and Dobrzyński. From 1876, she was the protector of the Musical Society, and thanks to diplomatic efforts with the authorities of the Austrian partition, she paved the way for the opening of the Conservatory of the Musical Society in Krakow in 1888. After her husband’s death (1886), she stopped public appearances and devoted herself to charity work. From around 1875, she was a member (tertiary) and until the end of her life the superior of the Third Order, a community operating at the monastery of Discalced Carmelite Nuns in Krakow, also known as the Secular Third Carmel (currently the Secular Carmelite Order). She participated in the charitable works of the Conference of St. Vincent de Paul and the Sisters of Charity in Kazimierz. She was a co-founder of Saint Ludwika children’s hospital and the house of the Sisters of Charity at ul. Piekarska in Kraków. She gained recognition as an interpreter of Chopin’s works, conveying the performing style of her master. Her advice was later used by world-famous Polish pianists: N. Janotha and A. Michałowski. She was buried at the Rakowicki Cemetery in the monastic robes of a Carmelite Tertiary.
Literature: S. Tarnowski Księżna Marcelina Czartoryska, Kraków 1895 (http://polona.pl/item/ksiezna-marcelina-czartoryska,Njc4NjkOMTM/3/#info:metadata); J. Reiss Najsławniejsza uczennica Szopena, “Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny” 26 July 1937; Z. Kałuża Chopin i Marcelina Czartoryska, “Ruch Muzyczny” 1974 No. 17; K.M. Górski Księżna Marcelina Czartoryska, Kraków 1984; Z. Naliwajek La nécrologie de Chopin. L’album de la princesse Marcelina Czartoryska, in: La fortune de Frédéric Chopin, ed. F. Claudon, Paris 1994; J. Skarbowski Sylwetki pianistów polskich, vol. 1, Rzeszów 1996; J. Lenkiewiczowa Księżna Marcelina Czartoryska inicjatorka założenia „Pokoju z pamiątkami po Chopinie” w Muzeum Książąt Czartoryskich w Krakowie, in: Rocznik Biblioteki Polskiej Akademii Nauk w Krakowie, Wrocław R. 43 (1998); S. Dybowski: Słownik pianistów polskich, Warsaw 2003; A. Gabryś Salony krakowskie, Kraków 2006; Z. Wojtkowska Wnuczka Chopina po tonie, Marcelina z Radziwiłłów Czartoryska, in: Saga rodu Czartoryskich, Warsaw 2020; Św. Rafał Kalinowski założyciel laikatu karmelitańskiego (https://karmel.pl/zalozyciel-laikatu-karmelitanskiego).
