Brodziński, Kazimierz (EN)

Brodziński Kazimierz, *8 March 1791 Królówka (near Bochnia), †10 October 1835 Dresden, Polish poet, translator, literary critic, and theoretician, multifaceted in the musical culture of his time. He struggled through life as an orphan brought up in a village in a Subcarpathian Region. Almost self-taught, shaped by his readings of J.G. Herder, F. Schiller, and S. Gessner; a participant in Napoleon’s campaigns of 1809–1813. From 1814 was associated with Warsaw and its post-Congress history. He was a clerk, teacher, secretary of the National Theatre, member of the Society of Friends of Learning and the Masonic lodge, contributor to the “Pamiętnik Warszawski.” From 1822, he was a professor of Polish literature and stylistics at the University of Warsaw. Besides, he was involved in the November Uprising, after its failure, he experienced his own life epilogue. From 1811 he published poetic works in Warsaw magazines, including odes, fairy tales, elegies, dumas and dumkas, pastorals and erotic poems, translations of folk songs (e.g., Serbian, Czech, Slovak, Lithuanian) and biblical texts (songs of Job, and Jeremiah, Song of Songs). He has translated 8 opera librettos, including Mozart’s Don Juan, Rossini’s Tancredi and Spontini’s Milton, and wrote one to Kalmora by K. Kurpiński. He has published over a dozen critical and theoretical studies, including O klasyczności i romantyczności tudzież o duchu poezji polskiej (1818), O elegii (1822), O idylli pod względem moralnym (1823), O pieśniach ludu (1826), O tańcach (1829), O krytyce, O egzaltacji i entuzjazmie (1830). His early poems were published as Poezje (2 volumes) in 1821, and critical works as Pisma rozmaite in 1830.

Almost from the beginning, Brodziński’s works, both poetic and critical, with the exception of a few poems and a series of classical masonic cantatas from his youth, were inspired by the aesthetic worldview of Pre-Romanticism, in its folk-sentimental variant. Brodziński clearly cut himself off from the “Warsaw classicism” [Klasycyzm warszawski], its rhetoric, rigid hierarchy of genres and French orientation. He also did not distance himself from sentimentalism and identifying with aristocratic fashion and an artificially Arcadian lifestyle. He dissociated himself as well from the Pre-Romanticism (later Romanticism), which exaggerated the initial tendencies of “Romantic feeling” into poetry of horror and horror (Lonerism), tearfulness (Wertherism) or gloomy and wild fantasy (Bayronism). Brodziński’s positive programme formulated in the treatise O klasyczności i romantyczności, derived from the “spirit” of Polish poetry, postulated “love for the homeland, zeal in adoration of noble civic deeds, moderation in exaltation, free imagination that is not frightening, without fantastic imaginings, gentle tenderness, simplicity, agricultural images of rurality and the local community, a morality of practical philosophy, unruffled passions, and modesty in manners.” Two genres were intended to implement this programme: the idyll and elegy, both reformed in the spirit of the new sentimentalism, showing the poet’s world as if in two modes – major and minor.

Idyll, or pastoral, as conceived by Brodzinski, was a genre that broke with the tradition of the conventional (Rococo), allegorising (Classical) and directly moralising (Gessnerian) idyll, while developing the assumptions of Schiller (“to represent man in the state of innocence, i.e., in a condition of harmony and of peace with himself and the outside” – Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung 1795) and J. P. Richter (Vorschule der Ästhetik 1804) with his concept of limited realism (Brodziński: “One should choose the most beautiful scenes from the most beautiful nature, the best of people from the sweetest moments”) and Herder (Teokryt und Gessner 1767, Idylle 1801), with his demand to connect with folk culture, indigenousness, and concreteness when depicting reality. According to Brodziński, idyll “befits the Slavs most, and the Polish nation in particular.” He considered idyll to be the most specific and highest aesthetic and ethical category of art, as well as of Polish life. He created his idylls by following the path of the Polish Renaissance tradition, both epic (most notable: Wiesław, sielanka krakowska, 1820; Staś i Halina 1821), combining lyricism and songwriting (numerous erotic miniatures, including Pasterka, Mazurek). He directly drew inspiration from the melodic poetry of F. Karpiński and F. Kniaźnin, as well as L. Kropiński and W. Reklewski (Pienia wiejskie 1811). The numerous imitative cycles of “buccolic songs” were indirectly triggered by him.

In Brodziński’s perspective, the elegy was a parallel genre to the idyll, similarly distancing itself from conventionality and rhetoric, but also from sentimentality and exaltation. In its three main variations: erotic, patriotic, and philosophical, it depicted “only blunted feelings, cheerfulness no longer present, sorrow already soothed.” Brodziński regarded the elegy, based on the category of “dumanie” [literally contemplation, reference to duma and dumka explained below] (“reminiscing combined with tenderness”), as a genre specific to Slavic nations. In a somewhat unclear characterization, Brodziński distinguishes the proper elegy (“poetic expression of gentle pain, awakened by reminiscence or longing”) from duma (“lyric-historical songs originated proper to Ukraine people” … ”they narrate or pour out feeling in song”); the duma (always melancholic) from a similar ballad; the dumka (also mostly melancholic), corresponding to the French romance in Poland, from “contemplation” [dumanie], corresponding to melancholic meditation.  Brodziński considers the subtle play of expressive modes characteristic of the group of elegiac genres (“cheerfulness always shadows some sorrow in elegy, and sorrow is animated by the ray of cheerfulness”), which is crucial, for instance, in the instrumental lyricism of early Romanticism. Brodziński’s oeuvre pursues all varieties of elegy (the most outstanding:Dumka 1816, Oldyna 1819, Żal pasterki 1821), reaching to the ballad (Przechadzka wieczorna 1821). In Brodziński’s poetic practice, the boundaries between genres are not sharply drawn; the elegiac and idyllic tones interpenetrate, much like literary style and folk stylization.

Brodziński was also known for his enthusiastic approach to folk song – as a source of inspiration and as an intrinsic aesthetic and moral value – and was one of its first gatherers. In 1819, he advocated in “Pamiętnik Narodowy” for their widespread notation and in 1821, he proposed a project for “a collection of spiritual and national songs.” In 1823, he suggested a project for a “dictionary of Polish customs and traditions.” His initiatives and programs were carried out by, among others, K.W. Wóycicki, W. Sowiński, and Ł. Gołębiowski. He initiated the assimilation of masterpieces of Slavic folk songs (especially Serbian, for instance, Żona Aza-Agi in 1819). Taking the model of the chant from Polish (especially Cracovian) song, he generated melic texts “in the folk style” (including songs from Wiesława, Chłopek, Rolnik, Do skowronka and others), inspiring imitations that reached the threshold of the 20th century. He also attempted to create songs “for the people”: religious (Pieśni do mszy świętej 1820) and patriotic (Pieśni rolników polskich 1818–1821), and during the Uprising he wrote new texts to be sung “on an old note.” As a theoretician, Brodziński developed and adapted Herder’s ideas to the Polish ground, considering folk art as the basis of national creativity. Accepted in detail, Brodziński’s views as a whole encountered controversial reception, and discussions around his lectures and writings sparked a fundamental dispute in the emerging era of Romanticism: from classical positions, he was attacked by J. Śniadecki (O pismach klasycznych i romantycznych 1819); defended from pre-Romantic perspectives by F. Wężyk; and fought against from romantic viewpoints by M. Mochnacki (O krytyce i sielstwie 1830).

In Brodziński’s aesthetics, music occupies a defined and distinguished place: it is the expression of feelings (“with a heartfelt language,” “a confession”), and at the same time, their awakener (“beyond the stream of its voices, the stirred emotion experiences alternately sadness, joy, memories, longing”); it strives for infinity and captivates the imagination (“lifts towards God, establishes in the ideal world”); it acts aesthetically (“creates enchanting objects”) and hypnotically (“leads the soul through all magical lands”), and its character is par excellence romantic (“contains the mysteries of our feelings”).  Music was created to accompany poetry; then separated, it should now accompany both, “bestowing each other with new beauty… together to speak to the feelings and thoughts of the listener.” The musical and melic elements are “what constitutes the essence of lyric poetry”; the ideal – poet’s “musical ear,” “songfulness in the structure of the poem.” Brodziński inherited songfulness from Karpiński, Kniaźnin and folk songs. He led to its recognition as the chief formative principle of the poem in Poland called accentual-syllabic verse [wiersz miarowy], and in collaboration with Elsner, he created the Polish system of accentual-syllabic versification. This system determined the fate of melic poetry for a couple of generations, leading up to Asnyk and Konopnicka. Implemented practically by Brodziński, Elsner’s reform aimed at the full fusion of word and music in song, cantata and opera based on the natural accent in the Polish language and on the principle of “eurythmy” (the repetition not only of the syllabic pattern of the stanza, but also of a numerically ordered system of accents). Brodziński illustrated Elsner’s Discourse on the Metricity and Rhythmicity of the Polish Language (1818) with 10 complete works (Elsner added music to six of them) and numerous fragments of poems. He chose for all of them the lenth “most commonly used in songs for music,” namely 8 syllables, giving it 4 basic metres (trochee, dactylic, adonic and sapphic metre) and their sensible sequences. Elsner was concerned with the “musical form of the poem,” through which “the poet is already, somewhat in advance, assisting the musician.” Brodziński agreed with the “pleasurable bonds of meter” because, precisely through this connection, the poem could achieve qualities of Romanticism, “almost like music to awaken, sustain and elevate feeling.” The discussion with the authors of the Discourse was undertaken by J. Królikowski and K. Kurpinski, supporters of the “klauzula oksytoniczna” [stress on the last syllable] and masculine rhymes – rejected as incompatible with the spirit of the Polish language.

Brodziński had a significant impact on Polish music of the 19th-century, especially the years between 1820 and 1860. This influence was direct through an aesthetic programme, indirectly through accentual-syllabic verse, and relatively least through his own poems. Brodziński’s aesthetic influence, as observed through the lectures attended by a generation of Elsner’s students, is evident in the intensification of folklorism, the adaptation of idyllic-elegiac forms of lyricism, and an unequivocally harmonious conception of romanticism. This influence is noticeable in the later operas of Kurpiński and Elsner, in Chopin’s works created and published in Poland, in Moniuszko’s trend of composing idylls and dumkas, and, most significantly, in the music of composers who constituted the cultural background. To words by Brodziński were written: a couple of patriotic (Elsner Muzyka na wyprowadzenie zwłok ks. Józefa Poniatowskiego 1814) and Masonic cantatas (A. Weinert Śpiew w czasie obchodu uroczystości s… Jana 1815, Kurpiński Wiersz na obchód żałobny po J. Orsettim 1815 and Wiersz obrzędassemblagesowy na święto imienin L. Osińskiego 1816, Elsner Śpiew na obchód uroczystości imienin K. Woydy 1817), one idyl-heroic opera (Kalmora by Kurpiński), stage picture based on Wiesława (W. Szlagórski and F. Dulcken), several masses to a versed text (by Elsner Op. 15, 35, 44, 75, 76, and 79), several religious (W. Studziński, Elsner, J. Czubski) and reflection choirs (Światło i cnota by Kurpiński and Elsner, Radość by J. Sikorski) and dozens of songs written by, among others, Kurpiński (the famous Dumka), Elsner (among others, Pasterka, model of an idyllic song), J. Nowakowski, J. Dobrzyński, S. Moniuszko (6 songs, including Mazurek, Chłopek), E. Kania (Dola), B. Borkowski, W. Rzepka, A. Rutkowski, W. Krogulski, F. Janicki, A. Dworzacek, E. Młynarski, and M. Rudnicki (from foreign composers by C. Cui). The Polish equivalent (but not imitation) of Lied im Volkston is most often represented by these cantatas; they are related to the tradition of folk chants and popular songs (to some of which, such as Pamiętne dawne Lechity, Upadnij na kolana, have returned to the general repertoire). Following the suggestion of an appropriate stanza form (predominance of four-line: 6666, 8686, 8888), emphasizing the parallel structure with rhyme (often originating from the couplet), a stanza with an unbroken and always falling intonation, numerous stylisations of the krakowiak and mazur (sometimes polonaise) were created to idyllic texts, and dumkas (sometimes dumas) for pastoral. The accentual-syllabic verse (equivalent to periodic structure in music) introduced into Polish poetry by Brodziński played a remarkable, albeit dual, role in the history of Polish song from pre-Romanticism to post-Romanticism. This impact was realized primarily through melic poetry written according to Brodziński’s models by those he inspired and his continuators, including J. Czeczot, S. Witwicki, B. Zaleski, E. Wasilewski, A.E. Odysniec, W. Pol, T. Lenartowicz, W. Syrokomla and others. The culmination of this song realization was found in accentual-syllabic verse in the important movement of S. Moniuszko’s work.

Literature: J. Elsner Discourse on the Metricity and Rhythmicity of the Polish Language of the Polish Language, With Emphasis on Polish Poems in a Musical Context [Rozprawa o metryczności i rytmiczności języka polskiego, szczególniej o wierszach polskich we względzie muzycznym], Warsaw 1818; F. Królikowski O śpiewach z muzyką i o zastosowaniu poezji do muzyki, “Pamiętnik Warszawski” IX, 1818; K. Kurpiński O harmonii i zakończeniach polskich wierszy do śpiewania, “Tygodnik Muzyczny” 1820 No. 3; C. Zgorzelski Duma, poprzedniczka ballady, Toruń 1949; T. Strumiłło Źródła i początki romantyzmu w muzyce polskiej, Kraków 1956, A. Nowak-Romanowicz Józef Elsner, Kraków 1957; K. Budzyk Spór o polski sylabotonizm, Warsaw 1957; A. Nowak-Romanowicz Poglądy estetyczno-muzyczne Józefa Elsnera, published in: Poglądy na muzykę kompozytorów polskich doby przedchopinowskiej, Kraków 1960; J. Gabryś Początki polskiej pieśni solowej w latach 1800–1830, published in Z dziejów polskiej pieśni solowej, Kraków 1960; F. German Chopin i literaci warszawscy, Kraków 1960; A. Witkowska Słowianie, my lubim sielanki, Warsaw 1972.