Mielczewski, Marcin (EN)

Mielczewski Marcin, monogrammist M.M., †between 8 and 30 September 1651 Warsaw, Polish composer and Kapellmeister. The composer’s name appears in many versions in the sources, e.g. Mielcowski, Mielezewski, Milczewski, Mylczewski. The date and place of birth are unknown, the dates of preparation and opening of the will allow the approximate date of death to be determined; from his will (lost during World War II, we now know the summary prepared by H. Feicht) it is known that he came from a Catholic family. According to H. Ninius (Examen breve…, Braniewo 1647), Mielczewski was a student of F. Lilius. The first certain date regarding the composer comes from the records of the church of St. John in Warsaw from 18 December 1632 (baptism of his son Stanisław), which shows that at least from 1632, Mielczewski was a royal musician. Mielczewski’s function in the Vasa band is unknown; he was probably an instrumentalist. A. Jarzębski lists him among the most outstanding bandmasters of Władysław IV and emphasises his compositional qualifications.

In 1644 or 1645, Mielczewski became kapellmeister of Karol Ferdynand Vasa, brother of King Władysław IV, bishop of Wrocław and Płock (he was first mentioned as maestro di cappella of Karol Ferdinand on 10 January 1645 in the baptismal book of the church of St. John in Warsaw). The bishop-prince had one of the best musical ensembles in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at that time, composed of Italian virtuosos and Polish musicians, and his position as a Kapellmeister was the most prestigious one held by a Pole. Mielczewski held this position until the end of his life, without breaking contact with the royal court. Karol Ferdynand tried to always have his band at his disposal, so it can be assumed that Mielczewski usually changed places of stay together with his employer. He resided mainly in Wyszków, Brok, Ujazdów and Warsaw, and also made longer trips, e.g. to Gdańsk (1646) and to Nysa and Opole, where he probably spent half of 1650.

Mielczewski was married twice; with his first wife Urszula Manuszówna he had a son, Stanisław, and three daughters: Elżbieta (baptised on 21 June 1633), Dorota (baptised on 3 January 1638) and Agnieszka (baptised on 10 January 1645); with the other – Jadwiga Kołaczkówna, he had one son, Franciszek Sylwester (baptised on 31 December 1649). Until 1648, he owned a farm in Ujazdów, which he sold after the death of his first wife. In 1648, together with his wife Jadwiga Kołaczkówna, he bought a tenement house in Warsaw at ul. Mostowa, called ‘Ludwikowska’ (later referred to as ‘Milczewska’). By the grace of Karol Ferdynand, he “held for life” the Niemirów farm near Wyszków. He willed his entire compositional achievements to his “Most Serene Lord and Benefactor, the Prince of His Grace.” Neither the collection of musical pieces nor the list of works mentioned in Mielczewski’s last will has survived to this day. Probably due to his premature death, Mielczewski did not manage to obtain citizenship of Old Warsaw. It was received in 1653 by his widow, Jadwiga (secondo voto Kudelska). In the document relating to this case and in the now lost receipt of the debt repayment (from 1649), as well as in the act of foundation of Bishop Jan Lipski regarding the performance of Mielczewski’s masses in the collegiate church in Łowicz, the term “nobilis” was placed next to the composer’s name, which does not mean that Mielczewski was a nobleman, but it proves the recognition he had.

Mielczewski was the most famous Polish composer of the 17^th century in Europe. His works were known in various German centres, in Denmark, Gdańsk, Silesia, Moravia and Slovakia, Ukraine, Russia and probably in Paris. During the composer’s lifetime, only his canon was published by M. Scacchi in Xenia Apollinea, a musical supplement to Cribrum musicum (Venice 1643). A few years after Mielczewski’s death, his solo church concert Deus in nomine tuo was included in the collection of “the most famous Italian and other authors” by J. Havemann (Erster Theil Geistlicher Concerten, Jena 1659). M. Dylecki referred to examples from Mielczewski’s work in the treatise Gramatyka muzyczna [Music Grammar] (Vilnius, ca. 1675). His compositions were mentioned by M. Schacht in the treatise Musicus Danicus (1687). German princes and Moscow Patriarch Nikon sought Mielczewski’s compositions.

Apart from the two mentioned above, all other works by Mielczewski remained in handwritten copies (generally undated, but mostly from the second half of the 17^th century), which are currently in foreign libraries and archives – in Berlin (e.g. the collection from the former City Library in Wrocław), Paris, Kroměříž, Levoča and Vilnius, as well as Polish ones: Gdańsk, Warsaw, Kraków (some works contained in these collections before World War II are now considered lost; they are known only from 20^th-century copies or photographs). In many of them, especially in copies made in the 17^th century outside Poland, the composer’s name was given in various distorted forms. In records written during Mielczewski’s lifetime or shortly after his death, in centres where he was well known, copyists often provided only the initials of the author’s name and surname. Preserved sources allow us to assume that the meaning of the monogram M.M. as Marcin Mielczewski was considered obvious in Gdańsk, Kraków and Wrocław around the mid-17^th century.

Mielczewski’s work includes a cappella religious music, vocal-instrumental music as well as instrumental canzonas, sonatas, dances and other secular works. Currently, there are approximately 120 works by Mielczewski known (preserved or missing, mentioned in inventories); there are approximately 70 available in a form enabling performance. In quantitative terms, this legacy among Polish composers of the 17^th century is second only to the work of M. Zieleński. In terms of genre and stylistic diversity, the corpus of Mielczewski’s works known today is unrivalled in Polish baroque music.

Mielczewski’s work shows a very clear dualism of prima and seconda pratica, and within these categories, the composer consciously made even further stylistic distinctions. Prima pratica mainly focuses on unaccompanied work, but two different trends can be identified within it. Four-voice missae plenariae, known as “Łowicz masses,” preserved in unreliable copies that distort the composer’s original concept, belong to the trend of retrospective polyphony. In this form, they constitute an example of archaism, unusual for stile antico, which has no analogy in the works of other Polish Baroque composers. In these modally homogeneous compositions, based on the cantus firmus placed in the bass, there is no clearly contoured melodic phrase that could be the basis for imitative and contrapuntal constructions, and shaping of the rhythmic and melodic layer, typical of the late Renaissance, depending on the structure and semantics of the text. Still, there are numerous irregularities in voice guidance following counterpoint standards (only some can be explained by copyists’ mistakes). The second trend is represented by motet compositions, especially Gaude Dei Genitrix and the homorhythmic hymn Pange lingua, which are much less anachronistic, although also not fully correct in terms of voice management, few and mostly incompletely preserved.

Most of Mielczewski’s work known today are vocal-instrumental compositions created in the seconda pratica, usually dominated by the concerto technique. Among the almost 50 completely preserved works in stile nuovo, there are over 40 church concertos and motets with basso continuo and 4 masses with instruments or only with basso continuo (Missa super “O Gloriosa Domina”). A significant part of the repertoire consists of polychoral compositions performed in various ways. The numerous sections intended for solo voices or small-voice ensembles, as well as the treatment of instruments and the architectural arrangements point to the Venetian tradition, while the use almost exclusively of choirs in the same registers (CATB) – to Roman tradition. In the case of the few compositions in which entire choirs are the structural units, we deal with polychoral motets (Beata Dei Genitrix, 2 choirs of 4 voices and basso continuo, Iubilate Deo, 3 choirs and basso continuo). Most of Mielczewski’s polychoral compositions, however, belong to the genre of a church concert or concert mass. What is of fundamental importance in them is the contrast of casting and texture (homophony–imitations), concerts of solo voices or small-voice vocal ensambles (Victimae paschali laudes), solo vocal voices (especially bass) with violins (Audite et admiramini), or solo instruments performing introductions of various lengths or short internal ritornels appearing in a few compositions. Among polychoral concerts and masses, most are intended for 2 vocal choirs and 2 instrumental choirs, the latter usually consisting of 2 or 4 violins and a family of trombones or three trombones and a bassoon (the ensemble given in known sources does not have to be consistent with the creator’s concept, however, it may result from the practice of the centre they come from). In one of the compositions (Virgo prudentissima), the structure consists of four choirs: 2 vocal and 2 vocal-instrumental. The influence of polychoral performance practice is also clear in compositions that could have been thought as single-choral. It is about the practice of great concertato – introducing tutti chori ripieni in sections, i.e. vocal, vocal-instrumental or instrumental choirs, doubling (exactly or with some deviations) the appropriate parts of the obbligato choir. This practice was used, for example, in Vesperae Dominicales, Missa Cerviensiana, Missa Sancta Anna and in many compositions for 6 voices, 6 instruments and basso continuo, from the former collections of the City Library in Wrocław, currently located in the Staatsbibliotkek Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Belin. Apart from strictly polychoral arrangements, such a cast, namely 2CA2TB, 2 violins, 3 trombones, bassoon (or 4 trombones) and basso continuo with the possible addition of an analogous vocal choir in tutti, is the most common in the known repertoire of Mielczewski’s works.

In addition to compositions for large ensembles, Mielczewski’s achievements included solo and small ensemble concerts. Some of them, known today from inventories, have disappeared. One solo concert (Deus in nomine tuo) and three small ensemble concerts (Veni Domine, Sub tuum praesidium and Salve Virgo Puerpera) have been preserved. These are compositions in which Baroque emotionality is most fully manifested and the verbal and musical rhetoric is implemented, significantly influencing the shape of the melodic line (jumps prohibited in old classical counterpoint, diminished and augmented intervals, chromatic sounds), as well as the harmony and other elements of the work. In terms of architecture, the dominant structure is a small-section chain structure, which, however, tends to unify its form through repetitions of sections (e.g. the Veni Domine form, which is similar to the rondo form). Similar formal structures are also found in numerous large-scale compositions, in which, however – in addition to the chain, small-section form, in which the subject of the musical arrangement are short fragments of the text – there are numerous arrangements based on a verse of a biblical or liturgical text, especially in many psalms and magnificates as well as in masses. Taking into account compositions of uncertain authorship, seven pieces (Benedictio et claritas, Currite populi, Ingredimini omnes, Plaudite manibus, Jesu, du bist unser Leben, Hsalleuja. Jesus ist der Anfang und das Ende i Psallite Domino) represent the popular at the turn of the 16^th and 17^th centuries, especially in Venice, a type of rondo concert in which a melodically, rhythmically and harmonically simple chorus performed by the tutti is repeated in triple metre, and the couplets, in simple meter, form interlocking and mosaic-changing short, melodically, rhythmically and texturally contrasted episodes performed by solo voices, ensembles and tutti. Mielczewski also referred to the Venetian tradition in the two-choir motet Benedictus sit Deus, repeating the Alleluia section in the form of a refrain.

In church concerts, concert masses and instrumental music, the composer clearly departs from the rules of Renaissance music. First of all, the tonal basis of a composition can be less and less understood in modal categories. In particular, due to numerous accidentals, the limited influence of modal rules on shaping the melody (moving from the horizontal conception of the melody to a vertical one, with a clear polarisation of the soprano and bass) and on the cadence plan, modality is reduced to external properties, such as the already blurred scale structure, finalis and ambitus, which reflects the vocal register rather than the sound range of the modus. Imitation means are also treated freely, often used in the form of the a due canti technique, which involves moving from imitation to progressions of imperfect parallel intervals. More elaborate means (e.g. double-theme imitations) are usually introduced in the final parts of concerts or mass parts.

Mielczewski was the creator of numerous instrumental ensemble compositions for various ensembles. The inventories include arias, sonatas and, above all, canzonas intended for 2–12 instruments. Of the eight preserved canzonas (mostly referred to in sources as “arias”), two are intended for 2 violins and basso continuo, in four the ensemble is complemented by bassoon, and in the remaining ones – trombone and viola da gamba. A clear structure of instrumental compositions is provided by marked internal divisions and, in some canzonas, an arch form or a reference at the end of the piece to its beginning. The basic means of shaping include imitation and variation techniques (especially in canzones for 2 violins). Of particular importance due to the melodic material is the variational Canzona prima a 2, called – after the place where the source is kept – the Parisian one. In almost every movement, an exact or slightly modified quotation from Polish popular music was introduced, sometimes in dance rhythm, including the rhythm of a mazurka (quotes from songs commonly known in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were also introduced by Mielczewski into religious works, e.g. Missa super “O Gloriosa Domina” or Audute gentes et exsultate). In all canzones, the means of concerto technique are visible in virtuoso solo parts, contrasts in metre, texture and melodic type; in compositions for three instruments also in the variable juxtaposition and opposition or combination of voices.

Mielczewski’s currently known works constitute a significant part of the preserved repertoire created in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the Vasa dynasty. The richness of the technical means used and the stylistic diversity testify well to Mielczewski’s compositional skills and, indirectly, also to the artistic level of compositional practice in 17^th-century Poland.

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