Podbielski, Jan (EN)

Podbielski Jan, Polish organist and composer active in the mid-17th century in north-eastern Mazovia. No reliable information about Podbielski’s biography and musical activity has been found to date. He probably belonged to a family of organists known for their activities in East Prussia at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries (Jacob, Gottfried, and Christian Wilhelm Podbielski), who were recognised as German composers by German musicologists. The name Joh[annis] Podbielsky appears once in Praeludium, published in an organ tablature from around 1660, stored before World War II in the National Library in Warsaw and destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising. This tablature, probably created in the vicinity of Ostrołęka, includes, apart from Podbielski’s prelude, anonymous capriccios, canzoni, toccatas, fugues and arrangements of Polish songs. It is possible that some of these works were composed by Podbielski. The aforementioned Praeludium, 33 bars long, is written in the toccata style, which indicates a good knowledge of the works of the most outstanding representatives of this genre active in Italy in the 17th century (G. Frescobaldi and B. Pasquini). Due to its texture, this piece belongs more to the harpsichord repertoire than to the organ repertoire.

Literature: Z. Jachimecki Muzyka polska w rozwoju historycznym od czasów najdawniejszych do doby obecnej, vol. 1, part 1, Krakow 1948; H. Feicht Studia nad muzyką polskiego renesansu i baroku, Kraków 1980; R. Wygranienko, Jan Podbielski. Kolejna mistyfikacja?, “Muzyka,” LIII, (2008); M. Szelest, W obronie Praeludium Podbielskiego, “Muzyka”. LXII, 2017.