Szymanowska, Maria (EN)

Szymanowska Maria Agata, née Wołowska, *14 December 1789 Warsaw, †25 July 1831 Saint Petersburg, Polish pianist and composer. She learned to play the piano with Antoni Lisowski and Tomasz Gremm. In 1810 she went to Paris, where she performed at the salons; L. Cherubini dedicated the Fantasia in C major to her at the time. On 21 June 1810, she married Józef Szymanowski, the leaseholder of the Otwock estate near Warsaw; she had 3 children: Helena (later the wife of F. Malewski), author of Dziennik kept from 1 November 1827 to 1857, Celina (later the wife of A. Mickiewicz) and Romuald (†1839). She performed in Vienna in 1815, in London in 1818, in Berlin in 1820. The same year she got divorced and devoted herself to the piano. In 1822 after series of concerts in Moscow and Saint Petersburg (where she performed, with J.N. Hummel, a concerto for 2 pianos by J.L. Dusík) she was appointed as the “First Pianist” of the Tsarinas: Elizabeth Alexeievna (wife of Emperor Alexander I) and Maria Feodorovna (the widw of Emperor Paul I); J.N. Hummel and J. Field, who were in Petersburg, offered her their compositions. Hummel and J. Field gave her their compositions. From 1823, she performed in Russia (with K. Lipinski on 6 February in Kyiv), at home (in Krzemieniec, Lviv, Poznań and other cities), in Karlovy Vary, Mariánské Lázně – where she met J.W. Goethe (who wrote for her the poem Aussöhnung [Atonement]) and V.J. Tomašek – in Germany (in Leipzig, Weimar, Berlin and other cities) and in Paris. From there (after a 2-month stay) she set out to London on 20 March 1824, where G. Rossini, J.B. Cramer and Ferdinand Ries left autographs in her Album musical. After that, she continued her journey through Paris and Geneva to perform in Italy (Milan, Venice, Rome, Naples). She then returned to London, where she gave concerts and was also active as a teacher. She returned to Warsaw in July 1825, enjoying the European acclaim and numeorus successes; she brought an English grand-piano with her. On 15 January 1826 she played at the National Theatre, performing, among others, Hummel’s Concerto in A minor. In 1827 she performed three times in Saint Petersburg, besides also in Vilnius and Riga; that winter she also went to Moscow and then returned to Saint Petersburg, where she settled permanently. She was a teacher there and ran a wonderful salon. She also performed several concerts there until 1830, and also played in Moscow and Kyiv during this period. Szymanowska’s house was a meeting place for many artists (Kątski family), especially poets (A. Mickiewicz, F. Malewski, A.E. Odyniec, A. Puszkin, M. Glinka, and others), as well as representatives of the Polish and Russian aristocracy (such as Piotr Wiaziemski) and diplomats. Mickiewicz, who improvised and recited to Szymanowska’s accompaniment, in 1827 dedicated a poem to her entitled Na jakimkolwiek świata zabłysnęłaś końcu. Szymanowska passed away during a cholera epidemic and was buried in Saint Petersburg

Szymanowska, as a professional pianist, along with the violinist K. Lipiński, were the first Polish virtuosos to achieve European fame. The pianist’s repertoire consisted of polonaises by M.K. Oginski, works in the style brillante and early Romantic compositions by J.N. Hummel, E. Ries, H. Herz, A.A. Klengel, J.L. Dusík, and her own works, occasionally including works by Mozart and Beethoven. Szymanowska’s playing was characterised by momentum; According to Goethe and Tomašek, she not only played gracefully, emphasising a beautiful cantilena, but also with a strong expression. M. Mochnacki wrote about a similar sound to that of a violin, imitating singing; he also mentioned a full and round sound. Whereas Elsner, in a letter to Chopin (27 November 1831), accused Szymanowska of a casual attitude to the musical text, making certain abridgements and changes, for example in Hummel’s Concerto in B minor. Szymanowska ceased performing on the concert stage at an early age.

Szymanowska’s oeuvre includes mainly piano pieces and songs. The selection of piano genres, such as dances, études, nocturnes, minor compositions (romance, fantasia, serenade), is typical of early Romantic tendencies in the movement known as Biedermeier, corresponding to the bourgeoisie. Szymanowska’s style is clearly influenced by the style brillante – juxtaposing virtuoso sections with cantilena-sentimental ones, combining ornamentation typical of Rococo with the resources heralding Romanticism, which does not always create a harmonious synthesis. Szymanowska is the first author of études in Polish music. The type of virtuoso texture in her works, especially the figurations, exceeding an octave, containing skips, and covering several registers, enables to classify the composer among the precursors of the technique typical of music of the Romantic period (Caprice sur la romance and Fantasia in F major from 1819). While reviewing Szymanowska’s 12 Etudes (1836), R. Schumann, praised the Polish composer for her shaping of various techniques and delicate expressiveness. 7 etudes are in fact preludes, and two of them resemble scherzos: the ornaments in the cantilena – similar to Hummel’s – blend into the melodic constructions, anticipating Romantic melodicism. Besides traditional European dances, such as the contredanse, contredanse anglaise, quadrille, minuet, and waltz, Szymanowska incorporated the patterns of the waltz with those of Polish dances, like the oberek in her composition Waltz in F major for piano 4 hands. She also composed polonaises and mazurkas suitable for salon use. In her mazurkas, there is a stylization of folk elements, including Lydian modes and irregular accents. In her polonaises, a brillante texture is more important. In her nocturnes, Szymanowska drew inspiration from John Field’s compositions, but in Nocturne in B flat major, she applied variation technique (similar to Chopin’s technique in Nocturne in E flat major from Op. 9), transforming the melody with ornamental and virtuosic elements.

The vocal genres in Szymanowska’s oeuvre, which included arrangements of folk songs and stylized folk songs, romances, historical-patriotic songs and art songs, were warmly received in the Russian community. She wrote romances, according to French models (ambitus from D1 to C2, moderate ornamentation, possibly instrumental ritornellos), to love texts that were somewhat exalted, sometimes with a romantic (Romance à la nuit) or lyrical (Romance du saule from Shakespeare’s drama Othello) mood. The verses were freely shaped, and the melodies were fairly simple, rarely dramatised with intervals such as a ninth, augmented second, or diminished fifth. In the songs to Niemcewicz’s Śpiewy historyczne, Szymanowska achieved a more buoyant melodicism, usually supported by chordal accompaniment. Duma o kniaziu Michale Glińskim is an epic poem with ritornello at the beginning (2 other songs from the Śpiewy historyczne were also published in 1816, namely Jadwiga, królowa Polski and Jan Olbracht). The musical language of works such as Pieśń do Wilii, with accompaniment taken from the nocturne Le murmure, and ballads (Świtezianka, Alpuhard, to texts by Mickiewicz is more epic than lyrical or virtuosic. Szymanowska sometimes emphasised dramatic tension with melodics (such as in Aldona’s monologue in Pieśń z wieży), in harmony she used somewhat freely elements from early Romantic style, and her rhythmic choices often reflected the text’s content, as in Complainte d’un aveugle, which was set to a prosodic text. However, relatively conventional interludes and textures influenced by romance or instrumental music mark a transitional period in Szymanowska’s songs, during which various heterogeneous elements overlap. The composer’s early death ended the development of her music, which had a significant impact on the shaping of early Romantic elements in Polish music before Chopin.

In 2009, Élisabeth Zapolska Chapelle founded the Société Maria Szymanowska in Paris (address of the Polish Library). She has organised popular science conferences and salon concerts. When she died in 2020, her husband Patrick Chapelle took over her responsibilities and still continues the activities of the Société through the publication of “Cahiers Maria Szymanowska” and the resumption of the concerts. In Poland, the Maria Szymanowska Society was founded in 2021 on the initiative of Justyna Galant.

Literature: M. Mochnacki “Gazeta Polska” from 13 II 1827; B. Polewoj “Moskowskij tielegraf” from 5 III 1828; Muzykalnoje utrog-[ospo]ży Szymanowskoj, “Siewiernaja pczeła” 1830 No. 34; W. Grochowski Maria z Wołowskich Szymanowska, “Tygodnik Ilustrowany” 1872 No. 250; Goethe und Maria Szymanowska, “Neue Musikzeitung” 1889 No. 19; W. Mickiewicz Imionniki Marii Szymanowskiej, “Pamiętnik Literacki” IX, 1910 (Lviv); R. Schumann Gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Musiker, Vol. 1-2, Leipzig 1854; J. Mirski Maria Szymanowska Zur 100-jährigen Todesfeier der Künstlerin, “Pologne Littéraire” 1931 No. 59/60; J. Mirski Zapomniana artystka polska, M 1931 nr 11/12 oraz Maria Szymanowska a Goethe, “Tygodnik Ilustrowany” 1931 No. 2; H. Leichtentritt Szymanowska, “Unterhaltungsblatt der Vossischen Zeitung” 1932 No. 196; W. Lednicki Przyjaciele Moskale w albumie i zbiorze autografów Marii Szymanowskiej, Kraków 1935; M. Mirska Album musical de Maria Szymanowska, “Pologne Littéraire” 1938 No. 78; J. Reiss Maria z Wołowskich Szymanowska i jej triumfy w Europie, “Wiedza i Życie” 1950 2nd notebook; I. Bełza Maria Szymanowska, Moskwa 1956, translation into Polish by J. Unicka, Kraków 1987, new edition entitled Carica zwukow. Żyzń i tworczestwo Marii Szymanowskoj, Moscow 1989; T. Strumiłło “Śpiewy historyczne” do słów J.U. Niemcewicza, “Studia Muzykologiczne” IV, 1956 (including Duma o Michale Glińskim); T. Strumiłło, M. Witkowski Mickiewicz – Szymanowska – Otylia von Goethe, “Przegląd Zachodni” 1956 No. 1/2; M. Iwanejko Maria Szymanowska, Kraków 1959; I. Karasińska Gribojedow i Maria Szymanowska, “Muzykalnaja żyzń” 1959 No. 3; T.A. Syga, S. Szenic Maria Szymanowska i jej czasy, Warsaw 1960; J. Davies Maria Szymanowska, “The Consort” 1966 No. 23; Z. Sudolski Panny Szymanowskie i ich losy, Warsaw 1982; P.-O. Ozanne Maria Szymanowska, pianiste et compositrice. Un modele pour le jeune Chopin?, published in: Frédéric Chopin et les lettres, «Les Cahiers de Varsovie» No. 21, 1991; I. Poniatowska Maria Szymanowskaja. K tworczeskomu portrietu, “Sowietskaja Muzyka” 1991 No.1 and Styl brillant i idee preromantyczne w twórczości Marii Szymanowskiej, published in: Historia i interpretacja muzyki, Kraków 1993, 2nd edition 1995, English version: Maria Szymanowska and the style brillant, published in: The sources of Chopin’s style. Inspirations and Contexts, Warsaw 2005; H. Szymanowska-Malewska Dziennik (1827–1857), arranged by Z. Sudolski, Warsaw 1999; R. Suchowiejko Les voyages artistiques de Maria Szymanowska, «Chopin w Kręgu Przyjaciół», Vol. 5: Pianiści-wirtuozi w Paryżu wokół Chopina / Les pianistes-virtuoses à Paris autour de Chopin, edited by I. Poniatowska and D. Pistone, Warsaw 1999; A.M. Harley Chopin and Women Composers, “The Polish Review” XLV, 2000; I. Poniatowska Pieśni solowe Marii Szymanowskiej do tekstów Adama Mickiewicza, published in: Mickiewicz i muzyka. Słowa, dźwięki, konteksty, edited by T. Brodniewicz, M. Jabłoński, J. Stęszewski, Poznań 2001 I. Poniatowska Gatunki wokalne Marii Szymanowskiej, published in: Pieśń polska. Rekonesans. Odrębności i pokrewieństwa. Inspiracje i echa, «Muzyka i Liryka» z. 10, edited by M. Tomaszewski, Kraków 2002; E. Talma-Davous Autograf “Polonoise” Marii Szymanowskiej, “Ruch Muzyczny” 2006 No. 7; I. Poniatowska Szymanowska Maria, published in: Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, zweite neubearbeitete Auflage, Personenteil 16, edited by L. Finscher, Kassel – New York – Stuttgart 2006; Rękopis znaleziony w Paryżu. Wspomnienia Stanisława Morawskiego o Marii Szymanowskiej, introduction, and study by D. Danek, Warsaw 2013; E. Orman, I. Poniatowska Szymanowska z Wołowskich Marianna (Maria), published in: Polski Słownik Biograficzny, Vol. L/1, notebook 204, Warsaw–Kraków 2014; É. Zapolska Chapelle Maria Szymanowska, le plus fou des talents, Élisabeth Zapolska Chapelle raconte Maria Szymanowska: Quand le piano sonne au féminin. Propos recueillis par Filip Lech, J.P. Armengaud Le toucher pianistique de Maria Szymanowska oraz I. Poniatowska Maria Szymanowska: une grande dame de la musique polonaise, “Cahiers Maria Szymanowska” No. 1: Les talents au féminin, Paris 2021; J.-M. Warszawski Mutations et mouvements dans le monde de la musique au temps de Maria Szymanowska, “Cahiers Maria Szymanowska” No. 2: Les talents en révolte, Paris 2022; I. Poniatowska Études et préludes de Maria Szymanowska: une école de la virtuosité, “Cahiers Maria Szymanowska” No. 3 Écrire, vivre, composer au féminin.