Szulc, Marceli Antoni (EN)

Szulc Marceli Antoni, *16 January 1818 Koziegłowy (near Poznań), †9 April 1898 Poznań, Polish musical writer. He came from a family with musical traditions: his grandfather was an organist for the Cistercians in Wągrowiec, his father worked near Poznań as a cappellae magister; Szulc played the violin, piano and organ fluently. He studied classical philology (Latin) and French at the University of Berlin. On 29 February 1844, he passed the state examination for the position of a middle school teacher; in 1846, he worked at the middle school in Trzemeszno, and from 1847 until his retirement in 1884 at the Mary Magdalene middle school in Poznań; he wrote three textbooks for learning French. From 1841, he published articles on the musical life of Poznań in the local press. The carefully collected information about F. Chopin’s life and work enabled him to write the first Polish monograph on the composer. Szulc’s correspondence with O. Kolberg from 1874–88 has been preserved (published in Dzieła Drugie O. Kolberga, vol. 64–66, 1965–69), which is a testimony of their friendship, which contributed to the further collection of Chopin books with a view to the next edition, unfortunately not implemented (this information was included in the 1986 edition). M. Karasowski and F. Hoesick extensively used Szulc’s book as a source of information.

Literature: D. Idaszak M.A. Szulc i dzieło jego życia, in: F. Chopin i utwory jego muzyczne, ed. J. Ilnicka, «Biblioteka Chopinowska» IV, ed. M. Tomaszewski, Kraków 1986.