Tetmajer, Kazimierz (EN)

Tetmajer, Przerwa-Tetmajer, Kazimierz, *12 February 1865 Ludźmierz, †18 January 1940 Warsaw, Polish poet, prose writer, playwright, art critic, “representative lyricist of Young Poland” (K. Jabłońska), whose work has had a wide resonance in Polish music.

Musical aspects of life and work. He came from a noble family with literary passions (great-grandfather Stanisław – translator of ancient and German texts, his son Karol – comedy writer and poet, poet’s father Adolf – author of poems). The artistic and literary connections of the Tetmajer family also included the musical environment. He was related to the Polish composer Władysław Żeleński through his mother Julia née Grabowska, sister of Wanda Żeleńska, the composer’s wife. He studied in Krakow (philosophy) and in Heidelberg. As A. Krasiński’s secretary, he travelled to Italy, Germany and Austria. In Poland, he was associated with the salons and artistic bohemia of Krakow, Lviv, Warsaw and Zakopane. Sensitive to music and sound phenomena, which was reflected in his work and self-reflection (“Ich singe – ein bischen – wie der Vogel singt,” 1899, quoted by K. Jabłońska, 1969); according to F. Hoesick, the inspiration for Tetmajer’s Preludes were Chopin’s Preludes (F. Hoesick: Powieść mojego życia, vol. 1, Wrocław 1959). In the poem Zamyślenia XVI he recalled “Chopin’s sad tones;” he recorded the sound of the bells from Ludźmierz in his poems and in the novel Na Skalnym Podhalu.

As a refined aesthete, Tetmajer was rather reluctant to set his poems to music, revealing an abomination to their settings in popular songs; according to A. Chybiński, he did not even show enthusiasm for M. Karłowicz’s songs, thanking only for the “notes.” At the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, Tetmajer was an extremely popular poet (according to J. Kleiner, his works became “general property, a kind of folk poetry of cultural Poland” – quoted by J.Ż. Jakubowski, 1958), later he became silent, and his poems they began to “sink into the silent abyss of oblivion” (J. Krzyżanowski, 1968). The core of Tetmajer’s poetic work consists of 8 series of Poetry (published 1891–1924). While series I, with its socialist elements, did not arouse much interest, series II became a famous literary event. Considered a perfect expression of the “state of mind” of a generation “incapable of action,” it also caused a wide resonance in musical creativity. The date of publication of this collection is conventionally assumed to mark the modernist breakthrough.

The wide reception of Tetmajer’s poetry at the turn of the century was influenced by topics and attitudes expressing declining moods, lack of faith in current values, admiration for A. Schopenhauer and F. Nietzsche, admiration for Indian philosophy and the concept of nirvana, proclaiming admiration for art and love, praising Tatra landscapes, mountain inhabitants and Podhale folklore, capturing impressions from a trip to Italy and seascapes. The dominant emotional tones in these poems – elegiac, reflective, doubt, pessimism – are often directed towards extreme images, characterised by fantasy and horror, or cheerful moods. Manifested feelings, experiences and reflections give the poems a confessional character. Tetmajer’s poetry draws on the experience of impressionism (moodiness) and the poetics of symbolism. Sensitivity to the beauty of form and refinement in the use of syntax (despite the excess of refrains and repetitions) earned Tetmajer the title of “artist of words.” Striving for the synthesis of words, music and colour, he implemented the postulate of the unity of art and Verlaine’s principle: “de lamusique avant toute chose.” The musicality of Tetmajer’s poems is the result of using “aligned and tuned measures,” ensuring regularity of the metric flow, closing lines with female rhymes favouring softness of focus, repeating highlighted words and phrases, constructing long, full sentences with “syntax flowing in broad phrases,” privileging gently undulating intonation, a predilection for euphonic sounds achieved by accumulating sounds with a prolonged emission and grouping them into groups of appropriately shaped sounds. The semantic layer of the poems is rich in musical motifs and onomatopoeic devices that dazzle with the effects of silence, noises, murmurs, various sounds, chords, choirs, playing and singing. There are references to the sounds of many musical instruments (flute, violin, cello, organ, harp, pipe, bells, lyre, zither, lute, phorminx, bells, horns, kettledrums, trumpets, zurna) and musical genres already present in the titles of the poems. (Ballada o…, Pieśń o …, Hymn do…, Oda, Czardasz, Marsz zbójecki, Elegia na wiolonczelę); the heroes of poems often sing songs (prayer, war, angelic). Musicality also emanates from other phenomena and objects (dream, forest), and is also evoked by the motifs of strings, bells (St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, a village church) and ringing. The lyrical subject of Tetmajer’s poems is a singer singing his song, for whom poetry is “the music of his soul” (Prelude VII).

Prose works (Anioł śmierci 1898, Otchłań 1900) and dramatic works (Sfinks 1893, Zawisza Czarny 1901, Rewolucja 1906, Judasz 1917) did not play a major role in Polish culture. The exceptions are the highlander tales Na Skalnym Podhalu (5 vols., 1903–10) and the epic dilogy Legenda Tatr: Maryna z Hrubego (1910) and Janosik Nędza Litmanowski (1911), recognised years later as masterful presentations of the Podhale world and the highlander dialect.

Musical resonance

The fame surrounding the poet at the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries was accompanied by an increasing number of musical adaptations of his texts. In the first phase of reception (until 1918), over 100 songs for voice and piano were written, which were the main form of musical arrangements of his poems. Their creators were almost all leading Polish composers: W. Żeleński, M. Karłowicz, K. Szymanowski, Z. Noskowski, F. Szopski, I. Friedman, H. Opieński, T. Joteyko, R. Koczalski, S. Lipski, H. Melcer-Szczawiński. These pieces represent two trends in Polish song: post-romantic and modernist. At that time, the first choral musical arrangements of Tetmajer’s poems were also created.

In the interwar period (the second phase of reception), the decreasing interest in Tetmajer’s poetry was accompanied by a decreasing number of its musical arrangements. Composers who believed in anti-romantic aesthetics were not inspired by the poet’s texts. Composers of post-romantic orientation were still faithful to the “classic of neo-romantic lyricism:” W. Friemann, F. Nowowiejski, J. Skrzydlewski, W. Brzostowski. The youngest generation of composers used Tetmajer’s poems occasionally (J. Lefeld, F. Maklakiewicz, T. Szeligowski, A. Szałowski). Choral works (F. Rybicki, S.B. Poradowski, Cz. Marek) became a significant form of reception of poetic works.

The third phase of reception begins with years of “disregard for everything ‘Young-Poland-related’”, which is reflected, among others, a small number of musical arrangements of Tetmajer’s poems. The exception is the song works of W. Friemann. At this time, choral arrangements of poems gained importance equal to solo songs (J. Młodziejowski, Z. Pruszyński, E. Bury). At the end of the 20^th century, there was a revival of interest in Tetmajer’s work. In addition to solo songs (K. Penderecki, M. Małecki) and choral songs (H.M. Górecki, M. Małecki, L. Wisłocki), there were also works for voice and orchestra as well as stage compositions to dramatic and epic texts by Tetmajer (opera by Z. Klisowski, rhapsody by B. Konowalski, melodramas by J. Młodziejowski). The texts that most often inspired composers were poems published in Poezje (series 1–4), some of which were set to music many times (Zawód, Limba, Preludia, Mów do mnie jeszcze, Cień Chopina). They are mostly texts about love, philosophical-reflective and “Arcadian” themes, characterised by lyricism, intimacy and mood, concise in form, sophisticated in the selection of means of expression, and suggestive in expressing emotional states. By bringing their “own tone” to literature, they also referred to the tradition of Polish romanticism and the values of universal culture.

Editions: Poezye, 7 volumes, Warsaw 1912–14; Poezje. Wydanie zbiorowe, 4 volumes, Warsaw 1923–24; Poezje, introduction and publication by J.Z. Jakubowski, Warsaw 1958; Poezje wybrane, introduction and publication by J. Krzyżanowski, «Biblioteka Narodowa» series I No. 123, Wrocław 2^nd ed. 1968.

Literature: H. Anders Pieśni solowe Mieczysława Karłowicza, “Studia Muzykologiczne” vol. 4, 1955; A. Chybiński W czasach Straussa i Tetmajera, Kraków 1959; K. Jabłońska Kazimierz Tetmajer. Próba biografii, Kraków 1969; S. Łobaczewska Twórczość kompozytorów Młodej Polski, in: Z dziejów polskiej kultury muzycznej, vol. 2, Kraków 1966; B. Chmara-Żaczkiewicz Liryka wokalna, in: Z życia i twórczości M. Karłowicza, ed. E. Dziębowska, Kraków 1971; M. Tomaszewski Nad pieśniami Karłowicza, in: Muzyka polska a modernizm, Kraków 1981; A. Neuer Wstęp, in: Karol Szymanowski. Dzieła, vol. 17: Pieśni, Kraków 1987; A. Nowak “Pamiętam ciche, jasne, złote dnie” Tetmajera w pieśniach Karłowicza, Friemanna i innych, in: Wiersz i jego pieśniowe interpretacje. Studia porównawcze, «Muzyka i Liryka» issue 3, ed. M. Tomaszewski, Kraków 1991; A. Nowak Pieśni Władysława Żeleńskiego, in: Krakowska szkoła kompozytorska 1888–1988, ed. T. Malecka, Kraków 1992; A. Nowak Liryki Tetmajera w pieśni postromantycznej i młodopolskiej, in: Poeci i ich muzyczny rezonans. Od Petrarki do Tetmajera, «Muzyka i Liryka» issue 4, ed. M. Tomaszewski, Kraków 1994; T.A. Zieliński Szymanowski. Liryka i ekstaza, Kraków 1997; M. Tomaszewski Struktura, topika i ekspresja pieśni Mieczysława Karłowicza, in: Affetti musicologici, Z.M. Szweykowski’s festschrift, ed. P Poźniak, Kraków 1999; Z. Chechlińska Pieśni Żeleńskiego do słów Tetmajera, L. Polony “Błąd młodości” czy zapowiedź opus vitae and M. Tomaszewski Świat pieśni Karola Szymanowskiego. Impulsy i inspiracje, nurty i fazy, in: Pieśń polska. Rekonesans, «Muzyka i Liryka» issue 10, ed. M. Tomaszewski, Kraków 2002.