Chopin’s Polish Letters ebook

Table of contents

EDITED BY

John Comber

CONSULTATION

Zofia Chechlińska

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Kamila Stępień-Kutera

HISTORICAL NOTES

Marcin Wąsowski

COVER DESIGN, LAYOUT AND TYPESETTING

Anna HegmanK+S, Grzegorz LaszukK+S

PROJECT INITIATOR

Artur Szklener

PROJECT COORDINATOR

Adelina Kumor

COPYRIGHT BY

The Fryderyk Chopin Institute, 2016

COPYRIGHT BY

David Frick, 2016

FIRST HARDCOVER EDITION

Warsaw 2016

FIRST E-BOOK EDITION

Warsaw 2021

ISBN epub

978-83-959167-7-9

ISBN mobi

978-83-959167-8-6

PUBLISHED BY

The Fryderyk Chopin Institute 43 Tamka Street PL 00-355 Warsawwww.chopin.nifc.pl

E-BOOK MADE BY

eLitera s.c.

Preface

“The man waited three days in Châteauroux for the piano before I called him off yesterday, once I’d received your letter; but what sort of voice the piano has, I don’t know yet, because it hasn’t been unpacked . . .”

– Chopin to Julian Fontana, 9/10 August 1841

Readers who know only English have for almost a century faced the same problem as did the composer with his crated piano: what sort of voice Chopin had remains hidden, boxed up behind incomplete and inaccurate translations.[1] The situation has been most acute for the letters Chopin penned in his native Polish (the majority of his extant correspondence). Without correct and complete translations of those letters in which Chopin expressed himself most fluently, the English reader has had to struggle in order to grasp his personality and his modes of thinking.

The present volume is thus cause for celebration. The translations by David Frick at last allow the Anglophone audience unfettered, nuanced access to the composer’s distinctive Polish voice. Within individual letters, we witness the characteristic processes of the composer’s imagination, at times in fully developed narratives (with logical structures of storytelling and distinctive turns of phrase), at other times unfolding through spontaneous digressions, entertaining outbursts, or angry curses (with the flow of the prose feeling more fragmented, often taking place in incomplete sentences).

Countless details emerge clearly for the first time to English readers. One wonderful example is Professor Frick’s trenchant translation and explanation of Chopin’s atypical use of the Polish feminine first person singular in the last extant letter to his sister Ludwika (25 June 1849), an interpretation that lends poignant shading to our understanding of the importance of hope to the dying composer. Entire casts of characters – friends, colleagues, students, and antagonists – are fully restored to the documentary roster, again permitting the reader to witness the communities and contexts within which Chopin lived and worked. The new translations make it possible for the reader to experience Chopin’s voice in an almost conversational way, the composer commenting, letter-by-letter, on the life he led.

All the major landmarks of Chopin’s compelling existence emerge in these Polish letters. From the years he resided in Poland, we read exuberant reports of a young lad away from his family embracing the diversity of country life, and lively and passionate missives to his friends Jan Białobłocki and Tytus Woyciechowski that document the deepening of Chopin’s emotional ties, the rapid expansion of his musical vision, and his first major successes as a pianist and composer. We encounter his first sustained residence abroad in Vienna, a time marked by further successes on the stage, but marred by the outbreak of revolution in Poland.

Chopin’s Parisian years are first reported in chronicles that detail the musical and social whirlwinds he experienced. These give way to the letters of a composer who had quickly risen to acclaim as one of the major artistic figures of the day. From this position, he scrupulously negotiated through associates like Julian Fontana and Wojciech Grzymała the nagging details of his musical and personal life, larding his instructions with various measures of humor, abuse, and invective. His emotional relationships emerge as well, first in glimpses of his failed courtship of Maria Wodzińska. Chopin’s fabled liaison with George Sand is then described in passages from letters to his family and Polish acquaintances, penned from exotic locales in Majorca, Marseille and Nohant in France, and of course from Paris once Chopin and Sand returned there as a couple. We learn much about Chopin’s interests and pursuits in the 1840s, with his routine split between Nohant in the summer and Paris in the fall, winter, and spring. The rupture with Sand again emerges through the lens of his reports to family and friends.

Finally, the correspondence vividly and movingly documents Chopin’s declining years, with the planning for his last concert in Paris, his extended, suffocating (figuratively and literally) sojourn in England and Scotland, and his poignant final months back in Paris. Through all these letters there pass a wide range of minor characters and places: the stories they narrate from Chopin’s life are as deep as they are broad.

The letters in this volume bristle with details about the publication of his music, and offer up many comments on his pending and past performances of them. But unlike the correspondence of many composers, Chopin’s letters seldom offer reflections on the content and sense of his own music. (The rare instances of such commentary are therefore all the more precious, as when Chopin explains to Tytus Woyciechowski that the Adagio of his E-minor Concerto “should create the impression of a pleasant gazing at a place where a thousand delightful memories come to mind . . . a sort of pondering during a beautiful springtime, but under moonlight” – letter of 15 May 1830.) But this hardly means that Chopin’s Polish letters only describe the details of the non-creative side of his daily life. As Ryszard Przybylski has persuasively argued (and Przybylski’s book makes a fine companion volume to the present tome), Chopin’s prose constantly reveals the invention and vision of its author.[2]

An excellent guiding illustration of this sort of verbal creativity comes in a passage from Chopin’s letter to his family of 18–20 July 1845. Near the end of a beautiful description of his room in Nohant that is otherwise meant to convey an element of his wistfulness at recalling the prior stay of his sister there, he nonchalantly invokes a striking Cartesian term:

[. . .] I have placed the piano differently – next to the wall where there had been a little sofa with a little desk, at which Ludwika often embroidered my slippers, and the Lady of the House worked on something else. In the middle stands the desk at which I write, on the left lie a few of my music papers – Mr Thiers and poetry (including ‘the moustache’) ; on the right, Cherubini; before me, that repeater you sent me in its case (4 o’clock). Roses and carnations, pens and a piece of sealing wax still left over from Kalasanty.

I am always one foot with you – one foot in the room next door, where the Lady of the House works – and not at all in my own place at that moment – only, as usual, in some strange space.

Those are no doubt those espaces imaginaires – but I’m not ashamed of this; after all, it has become a proverb for us that ‘he went to the coronation in his imagination’, and I’m a genuine blind Mazovian.

It is not hard to sense Chopin evoking “imaginary spaces” throughout many of his Polish letters.[3] We can perceive an anticipation of them already in the sometimes-nonsensical whimsy of the issues of the “Szafarnia Courier” that the fourteen-year-old Chopin created for his family back in Warsaw. They emerge again, surely, in the macabre scenarios rehearsed in the so-called Stuttgart Diary, and not much later toward the end of long letter to Tytus Wojciechowski that he wrote on 25 December 1831:

Just when I was getting ready to a describe a ball to you, at which a certain divinity with a rose in her black hair enraptured me, I receive your letter. Everything moderne leaves my head. I move even closer to you. I take you by the hand, and I cry. I had your letter from Lwów – we shall meet all the later, and perhaps not at all, because, speaking seriously, my health is poor; I’m happy on the outside, especially among my own (I call the Poles ‘my own’), but inside something is killing me – some sort of forebodings, anxieties, dreams or insomnia – longing – indifference – the desire to live, and a moment later the desire to die – some sort of sweet peace, some torpor, unconsciousness of mind, and sometimes a precise memory torments me.

“Imaginary spaces” could be for Chopin strange places of nostalgic rumination, but they could also lead him to inhabit disturbingly darker realms.

Other times, the espaces imaginaires blended directly into Chopin’s dream worlds, but in ways that led back to the nonsensical paths he explored in the Szafarnia Courier. Thus Chopin’s envoi to Julian Fontana from 9/10 August 1841:

Once I dreamed I’d died in a hospital, and that became so lodged in my head that it seems to me it was yesterday. If you outlive me, you’ll learn whether one should believe in dreams; several years ago, I dreamed something else, but it didn’t come true. And now I dream while awake; blither-blather, as they say; that’s why I’m writing you such nonsense. Right?

It should not surprise anyone that a composer celebrated for some of the most innovative flights of invention in the history of music should show an imaginative streak in his letters. This is not to suggest that his prose inventions in any direct way “explain” or somehow run parallel to his musical means of expression: Chopin himself inveighed with disgust against all such efforts (witness his complaints in these letters about the titles that the English publisher Wessel added to his publications). But from Chopin’s Polish letters we can infer creative habits of mind, ways of making sense of the outside world, and his place within it, and these habits in turn prove invaluable as we situate Chopin’s musical endeavors in their nurturing contexts.

Chopin of course never imagined that anyone but the intended recipients would read his letters (and the further notion that they might be translated into another language would have been completely foreign to him). This puts the creativity we perceive in them in a different realm than that of his compositions: they cast light on a more private domain of inventiveness, one focused in Chopin’s past and present, but decidedly not on posterity. This, then, is the great gift of this new translation: the chance to eavesdrop on Chopin, to insinuate ourselves into his perception of his contemporary world, and to better understand his place in it.

Jeffrey Kallberg

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia

Editor’s note

The correspondence presented here comprises all the known letters that Chopin wrote in Polish, as well as youthful verse and greetings, and also extracts from his personal journal dating from the period ‘in limbo’ between his youth in Warsaw and his life in Paris. Footnotes are provided to explain things that might otherwise be rather obscure, but in general this is not intended to be a scholarly edition. Consequently, although obviously no changes have been made to the substance of Chopin’s texts, their appearance has been slightly modified in some respects compared to the manuscripts, for ease of reading: occasional spelling mistakes are tacitly corrected, including the orthography of personal names, which was never Chopin’s forte; italics are used both for Chopin’s own italics and also for his underlinings; second person pronouns are given with a small first letter, although Chopin generally used the capital letter in line with traditional Polish usage; Chopin’s punctuation and paragraphing have occasionally been simplified and rendered easier on the eye – for instance, full stops and even new paragraphs are most often given instead of Chopin’s dashes, which were due, at least in part, to his wish to save paper (the publisher will forgive our profligacy in this respect!).

The correspondence has been divided into sections, based largely on the criterion of location (Warsaw, Vienna, Paris, UK, and so on), as well as changes in Chopin’s personal circumstances. Each section has been provided with an introduction, comprising a very brief historical/political background, biographical notes for Chopin, a list of the works he composed during the given period (only those works published during his lifetime, Opp. 1–65) and notes on selected individuals appearing repeatedly in the letters from that time. The dating of the compositions is based on Mieczysław Tomaszewski’s list in Chopin. Człowiek, Dzieło, Rezonans, and the biographical information is drawn largely from volume 1 of the new Warsaw University edition of Chopin’s correspondence (KorFCh), the updated edition of Krystyna Kobylańska’s Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopin z George Sand i z jej dziećmi and the website of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw (http://en.chopin.nifc.pl/institute), which is recommended for further information on all aspects of Chopin’s life and music.

The letters themselves are taken from KorFCh (1–80) and B. E. Sydow’s original two-volume Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina (81–286), with additional letters supplemented from Kobylańska. All original sources and editions can be found in those three publications.

JC

A Note on Usage

Chopin frequently uses affectionate diminutives of first (rarely last) names in addressing letters to close friends. He also uses diminutives and, on occasion, augmentatives (which can be derogatory or express something like admiration and respect – the way he employs them) in his narration of events in the letters themselves.

Here is a partial list of diminutives found in the correspondence:

Antek, Antoś – Antoni

Domuś – Dominik

Emilka – Emilia

Henryś – Henryk

Izabelka, Izia –Izabela

Jaś, Jasio, Jalek – Jan

Julisio – Julian

Józio – Józef

Kesslerek – Kessler (a last name)

Kostuś – Konstantyn

Kostusia – Konstancja

Ludka – Ludwika

Sol – Solange (daughter of George Sand)

Stańsio – Stanisław

Szaniasio – Szaniawski (a last name)

Tycio – Tytus

Wiluś – Wilhelm

Włodzio – Włodzimierz

Zuzia – Zuzanna

And here are two augmentatives:

Izabelisko – Izabela

Ludwiczysko – Ludwika

The ending –owa signifies ‘wife of’, and the ending –ówna ‘unmarried daughter of’. The suffixes can be attached to first or last names. For example, Maćkowa is ‘wife of Maciej’ (Matthew). I have kept all of these manners of referring to persons. The question of exactly which Jasio is meant (where that question has been resolved) will be clear from context or annotations.

Chopin signs his letters and refers to himself in them as Fryc or Fritz (usually the former, which is the Polish spelling, but I have consistently used the latter for ease of pronunciation). This is the German diminutive of ‘Friedrich’, i.e., ‘Fryderyk’. He uses it in a somewhat sly, self-deprecating manner. The word is, after all, German and not Polish (even though he preferred the Polish spelling). What is more, in addition to being a form of Chopin’s name, it also signifies, in Polish usage, a generic German or a ‘greenhorn’, ‘rookie’.

DF

Sources and abbreviations

Dbop – Dzieło bez numeru opusowego [Work without opus number], according to the Polish National Edition (see WN below)

Hoesick – Ferdynand Hoesick, Chopin. Życie i twórczość [Chopin. His life and work] (Lwów, 1932), vol. 1

Kobylańska – Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina z George Sand i z jej dziećmi [Fryderyk Chopin’s correspondence with George Sand and with her children], ed. Krystyna Kobylańska, 2nd edn (Warsaw, 2010)

KorFCh, I – Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina [Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin], vol. 1, 1816–1831, ed. Zofia Helman, Zbigniew Skowron and Hanna Wróblewska-Straus (Warsaw, 2009)

Opieński – Listy Fryderyka Chopina [Letters of Fryderyk Chopin], ed. Henryk Opieński (Warsaw, 1937)

Sydow, I and II – Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina [Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin], ed. Bronisław Edward Sydow, 2 vols (Warsaw, 1955)

Tomaszewski, Mieczysław, Chopin. Człowiek, dzieło, rezonans [Chopin. The man, his work and its resonance] (Cracow, 2005)

WN – numbering of Chopin’s works not published during his lifetime, according to Wydanie Narodowe Dzieł Fryderyka Chopina / National Edition of the Works of Fryderyk Chopin, ed. Jan Ekier, 36 vols (Warsaw, 1959–2010)

Wójcicki – Kazimierz Władysław Wójcicki, Cmentarz Powązkowski pod Warszawą [Powązki Cemetery near Warsaw], vol. 2 (Warsaw, 1856)

I

6

December

1816

–

9

September

1828

LOCATION:

Warsaw, Szafarnia, Żelazowa Wola, Duszniki Zdrój, Sanniki

NB Poland did not exist as such at this time, divided into three ‘partitions’ under the rule of Russia, Prussia and Austria. Warsaw was capital of the Congress Kingdom under Russian tutelage

Chopin, Fryderyk (Fritz, ‘Jakub’, ‘Mikołajek’, ‘Pichon(ek)’)

Born in 1810 in Żelazowa Wola, grew up in Warsaw. Taught piano by Żywny, composition by Elsner. Attended secondary school (Lyceum) and conservatory (Main School of Music). Holidays spent on the family estates of his schoolfriends, at the Dziewanowskis’ in Szafarnia and the Pruszaks’ in Sanniki, where he encountered traditional customs and music. In Warsaw, attended concerts and operas. Poor health. First performances and compositions. Opp. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7/4 and 8 (begun).

FAMILY

Mikołaj [Nicolas] Chopin (1771–1844), Fryderyk Chopin’s father (Papa), born in Lorraine. In 1787 (together with the family of Adam Weydlich, steward-administrator of the Marainville estate belonging to Count Michał Jan Pac), he left for Poland. An intelligent, receptive and well-educated young man, with time he became a highly esteemed tutor to families of the Polish gentry, including Ludwika and Kacper Skarbek in Żelazowa Wola and Warsaw. It was in their service that he met Justyna Krzyżanowski, whom he wed in 1806, in Brochów. The couple had four children: the daughters Ludwika, Izabella and Emilia, and the son Fryderyk.

In 1810, Mikołaj started working as a teacher in various schools, beginning with the Warsaw Lyceum. At the same time, from 1810 to 1837, the Chopins ran one of the most highly regarded boarding schools in Warsaw; the boarders became Fryderyk Chopin’s closest friends.

Mikołaj Chopin never returned to France and became fully attached, including emotionally, to his adopted homeland.

Justyna Chopin, née Krzyżanowska (1782–1861), Fryderyk Chopin’s mother (Mama). During the first years of the nineteenth century, probably due to the death of her father, she left the family home and moved to the estate of Kacper and Ludwika Skarbek at Żelazowa Wola, where she probably helped keep house. Thanks to the Skarbeks, Justyna met the tutor to their children, Mikołaj Chopin.

Justyna was very close to her son. In the recollections of those around her, she comes across as a devoted wife and mother, gentle, good, patient and pious, taking care to preserve the Polishness of her family and home.

Ludwika Chopin (Ludwina, Ludka) (1807–1855), Fryderyk’s elder and closest sister. Together with her daughter (also Ludwika), she was the only member of the composer’s family to be with him when he died (she travelled to Paris at his request and looked after him during his final months). After his death, she took care of his affairs. She brought Chopin’s heart back to Warsaw, in accordance with his dying wish, and did a great deal to set his manuscripts in order.

Ludwika was endowed with musical and literary talents. She wrote and published several books (some with her sisters), mainly for children, and in 1848 also Krótkie wiadomości z nauk przyrodzonych i niektóre ważniejsze wynalazki [A digest of scientific knowledge and some major discoveries]. Published in 1841 was Krótki zbiór życia ś. Weroniki [A short life of St Veronica], translated by Ludwika from the Italian.

In 1832, she married Józef Kalasanty Jędrzejewicz (not a happy union, particularly during the final years), with whom she had four children; today, Ludwika’s descendants are the Chopin family’s only heirs.

Izabella Chopin (Izabelka) (1811–1881), Fryderyk’s younger sister. Like her siblings, she received an excellent education and was musically and artistically gifted. With her sister Ludwika, she wrote the two-volume Pan Wojciech czyli wzór pracy i oszczędności [Mr Adalbert, or A model of industry and thrift], reissued many times. In 1834, Izabella married Antoni Barciński; it was a childless marriage.

Self-sacrificing, modest and hardworking, she came to take care of her elderly parents and later her widowed mother, as well as the under-age son of her elder sister Ludwika on the latter’s death. Active within the community, she was also committed to national affairs. During the 60s, on her mother’s death, Izabella inherited the family souvenirs left by Fryderyk Chopin (a large part of that collection was destroyed during a revenge campaign undertaken by the Russians in 1863; it was then that Russian soldiers threw Chopin’s piano out of the window of Izabella’s flat – an occurrence immortalised in verse by the Polish poet Cyprian Kamil Norwid).

Emilia Chopin (Emilka) (1812–1827), the youngest of the Chopin siblings. Extant recollections extol her charm, wit and distinguished literary talent (among those to praise her verse were Count Fryderyk Skarbek, himself a talented writer and eminent statesman, and the esteemed writer Klementyna z Tańskich Hoffmanowa). Emilia and her brother wrote the comedy Omyłka, czyli mniemany filut [The error, or The supposed rake], which the children prepared and performed in 1824 for Mikołaj Chopin’s name-day. Together with her sister Ludwika, she also wrote the novel Ludwik i Emilka. Powieść moralna dla dzieci z pism Salzmana wytłumaczona i do polskich obyczajów zastosowana [Louis and Emily. An edifying children’s tale from the writings of Salzman, translated and adapted to Polish morals and customs]. Emilia died prematurely, at the age of fourteen, from tuberculosis.

Zuzanna Bielska (Zuzia) (1803–1869), the beloved niece of Justyna Chopin, whom she helped keep house. Zuzia lived with the Chopins in Warsaw in 1824 and stayed with them more than once in subsequent years. In 1845, she resided with Fryderyk’s mother and sister, Izabella Barcińska, with whom she also lived after Justyna Chopin’s death until the end of her life.

FRIENDS

Białobłocki, Jan (Jaś, Jal, Jalek, Jasiek) (1805–1828), a close friend of Fryderyk Chopin; from 1816 to 1823, he attended the Warsaw Lyceum and boarded at the Chopins’. From 1823, he studied law and administration at the Royal University of Warsaw, but his poor health prevented him from completing the course.

Białobłocki was artistically and musically talented: he played the piano, sang in a choral-instrumental group and took painting lessons. He spent a lot of time with Fryderyk Chopin during the summer holidays of 1824 and 1825, when Fryderyk was staying at the Dziewanowskis’ in Szafarnia and Jaś on his family estate in nearby Sokołowo.

Jan Białobłocki died at the age of twenty-three, probably from tuberculosis of the knee bone.

Dziewanowski, Dominik (Domuś) (1811–1881), a schoolfriend of Fryderyk’s and a resident of the Chopins’ boarding school in Casimir Palace. Fryderyk spent the summer holidays of 1824 and 1825 on Domuś’s family estate in Szafarnia (he wrote letters to his family in Warsaw in the form of a daily newspaper, which he titled Kurier Szafarska). Dominik studied in Warsaw and Berlin. He was a highly regarded lawyer and a distinguished participant in patriotic and political life, having previously taken part in the November Uprising. His daughter, Cecylia, became the wife of Mateusz Ciechomski, brother of Ludwik Ciechomski, who was married to Fryderyk Chopin’s niece, Ludwika Jędrzejewicz.

Kolberg, Wilhelm (Wiluś) (1807–1877), a good friend of Fryderyk Chopin, the eldest of several children of Karolina and Juliusz Kolberg, brother of Oskar. When Juliusz obtained a professorship of the Royal University of Warsaw, from 1820 the Kolbergs were neighbours of the Chopins in an annexe of Casimir Palace. Wilhelm was trained as a cartographer, metrologist and construction engineer, specialising in roads and bridges; he was a participant in the November Uprising and subsequently an active and respected citizen and patriot.

Mentioned among the works of Chopin dedicated to Kolberg are the Mazurka in A flat major, Op. 7 No. 4 and the Waltz in B minor (Op. 69 No. 2). Fryderyk composed the ‘Farewell’ Polonaise in B flat minor especially for Wiluś.

Matuszyński, Jan (Jaś) (1808/9–1842), one of Fryderyk’s closest friends. Matuszyński was musically gifted and trained in music as a child; ultimately, however, in line with the family tradition, he studied medicine in Warsaw and Tübingen. Shortly afterwards, he moved to Paris, where he lived with Chopin for a while (1834–1836). For several years, Matuszyński tried to cure Fryderyk’s illness. Unfortunately, in 1842, he contracted tuberculosis himself and died soon afterwards, after being moved by Chopin into George Sand’s apartment at 16 Place Pigalle. As the writer later mentioned in a letter to Pauline Viardot: ‘a Polish friend, a doctor, an old schoolfriend of Chopin’s, died in our arms after a slow and excruciating agony, which caused poor Chopin such suffering as if he had experienced it himself’.

Pruszak, Konstanty (Kostuś, Kot, Kocio) (1808–1852), a good friend of Fryderyk’s from the Warsaw Lyceum and a boarder with the Chopins. He took part in the November Uprising and after its defeat worked at the Bank of Poland and elsewhere. In 1845, he inherited the family estate of Sanniki, where many years earlier he had been visited by the young Chopin.

Woyciechowski, Tytus (1808–1879), a landowner, a close friend of Fryderyk Chopin during their youth; he continued to exchange letters with the composer after the latter’s departure from Poland. From 1818, Tytus was a pupil of the Warsaw Lyceum and a boarder at the Chopins’. On completing his studies, he returned to the family estate of Poturzyn, which he began running in 1829.

In 1830, Woyciechowski accompanied Fryderyk Chopin on a journey to Vienna, but he returned home on learning of the outbreak of the November Uprising.

Chopin dedicated to Tytus his Variations, Op. 2, whilst the latter kept souvenirs of his friend until his death: in 1873 he donated a bust of the composer to the Warsaw Music Society, and in 1876, via the intermediary of Izabella Barcińska, he made his letters available to Chopin’s biographer Maurycy Karasowski.

OTHERS

Barciński, Feliks Antoni (1803–1878), a mathematician, in 1825 a tutor at the Chopins’ boarding school; in subsequent years, having undertaken educational travels, he wrote a dozen or more books on accounting and arithmetic. In 1834, he married Izabella Chopin; they enjoyed a harmonious marriage until his death, at the age of seventy-five. The Barcińskis had no children of their own, but, on the death of Ludwika and Józef Kalasanty Jędrzejewicz, Antoni became the legal guardian of his wife’s nephew, Antoni.

Brzezina, Antoni (d. 1831), a publisher, from 1822 owner of a music shop on Miodowa Street in Warsaw, a lithographic workshop, an engraver’s atelier and then a printing press. Active as a publisher for almost ten years, he issued a total of 612 scores, as well as books, music textbooks, lithographic prints, maps, articles and periodicals; he also sold musical instruments. Brzezina published two compositions by Fryderyk Chopin: the Rondo in C minor, Op. 1 and the Rondo à la mazur in F major, Op. 5.

Dziewanowski family: Juliusz and Honorata (parents), Ludwika, Józefa (daughters), Dominik (son, see above).

The father of the family, Juliusz Dziewanowski (1779–1854), was a cousin of one of Mikołaj Chopin’s boarders, Piotr. Juliusz was owner of the estate in Szafarnia where Fryderyk Chopin spent two summer holidays. In 1834, Dziewanowski was a witness at the wedding of one of Fryderyk Chopin’s sisters, Izabella, and Antoni Barciński.

Another important figure in this family was Juliusz’s brother, Jan Nepomucen Dziewanowski (1782–1808). Probably ca. 1798, Jan Nepomucen’s tutor was Mikołaj Chopin. A soldier and patriot, Jan Dziewanowski secretly left Warsaw ca. 1806 to join the troops of General Jan Henryk Dąbrowski. In 1808, he took part in the Battle of Somosierra, and he was decorated as a hero by Napoleon, while still on the battlefield, with the Legion of Honour. Dziewanowski was the only Polish participant in the battle to be mentioned in the bulletin of Napoleon’s army. He died several days later in Madrid from his wounds.

Jan Nepomucen was the godfather of Ludwika Chopin.

Elsner, Józef (1769–1854), a Polish composer and teacher (his ancestors, who hailed from Sweden, settled in Poland during the seventeenth century). He taught Fryderyk Chopin harmony, counterpoint and composition at the Main School of Music (1826–1829). Elsner made a huge contribution to the development of cultural life and musical education in Warsaw, from the founding of the Drama School, through the opening (in accordance with his principles regarding the reform and development of musical schooling) of the School of Music and Drama (later divided into separate schools of music and of drama), to the founding of the Main School of Music under his direction. Elsner was also Director General of National Music, assessor to the Board of Theatres and All Dramatic and Musical Spectacles in the Kingdom and even a correspondent for the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung and (in 1803) founder of his own music engraving atelier. Chopin dedicated his Sonata in C minor, Op. 4 to Elsner.

Jędrzejewicz, Józef Kalasanty (1803–1853), a doctor of philosophy, master of law and administration and social activist. Born in Warsaw, he completed his schooling at the Warsaw Lyceum (in 1824) before graduating from the Royal University of Warsaw and the Jagiellonian University of Cracow. In 1828, he accompanied Count Fryderyk Skarbek and Eustachy Marylski (author of valuable recollections of Fryderyk Chopin’s youth) on an academic journey around Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Flanders, France, England, Switzerland and Austria, acquiring membership of international associations. In 1832, he married Ludwika Chopin. They had four children, but their union was not a happy one. Jędrzejewicz died suddenly in 1853.

Kurpiński, Karol (1785–1857), a Polish composer, conductor and music teacher, alongside Józef Elsner an outstanding figure in the musical life of Warsaw at that time. Initially a conductor, he subsequently combined that work with the posts of director at the National Theatre, lecturer at the Drama School and later the School of Music and Drama, director of the Singing School and editor of a music weekly (the Tygodnik Muzyczny, for one year, from 1820); he also wrote books and reviews. He composed almost thirty stage works, as well as symphonic, chamber and solo compositions. On 17 March 1830, he conducted the first performance of Fryderyk Chopin’s F minor Concerto.

Skarbek, Fryderyk (1792–1866), count, son and heir to the owners of Żelazowa Wola, Ludwika and Kacper Skarbek. According to the Chopin family tradition, he was Fryderyk Chopin’s godfather.

Skarbek, a future eminent statesman, professor of the Royal University of Warsaw, economist, historian, author of successful novels, plays and memoirs (written in 1878 and first published in full in 2009), began his education under the tutorship of Mikołaj Chopin at Żelazowa Wola (from 1802). Throughout his life, he maintained close and sincere relations with the Chopins, holding his first teacher, Mikołaj, in high regard.

Żywny (Živný), Wojciech (Vojtĕch) (1756 or 1760–1842), Fryderyk Chopin’s only piano teacher (from 1816 to 1821); it was Żywny who inspired in Fryderyk a love of the music of Mozart.

Żywny, of Czech origins, received a comprehensive training as an instrumentalist (besides piano, he also mastered the violin and the organ) and a composer (he also studied harmony and counterpoint). He spent most of his life in Warsaw, where he made his living from countless piano lessons; besides Chopin, his most illustrious pupil, he also taught Fryderyk’s sisters, Jan Białobłocki, Dominik Dziewanowski and Tytus Woyciechowski. Żywny was universally liked, and fortune bound him particularly closely to the Chopin family, with which he spent most of his time, as practically a member of the household. Chopin held his teacher in high regard and dedicated to him the childhood Polonaise in A flat major.

001.

Greetings card with wishes for Mikołaj Chopin on his name-day

[Warsaw], 6 December 1816

[Source: KorFCh, I, 38–39]

[In verse]

When the world announces the celebration of your name-day,

My Papa, it indeed brings joy to me as well,

Since I can offer my heartfelt wishes:

That you might live happily, not know unpleasant blows,

That God might always favour you with good fortune,

These wishes I ardently proclaim for you.

F. Chopin

6 December 1816.

002.

Wishes for Justyna Chopin on her name-day

[Warsaw], 16 June 1817

[Source: KorFCh, I, 40–41]

[In verse]

I congratulate you today on your name-day, Mama!

Let the heavens fulfil what I feel in my heart.

May you always be healthy and happy,

And long may you live in good fortune.

F. Chopin 16 June 1817

003.

Wishes for Mikołaj Chopin on his name-day

[Warsaw], 6 December 1817

[Source: KorFCh, I, 42–43]

[In verse]

Wishes.

What great joy do I feel in my heart!

When such a pleasant, dear and magnificent

Day begins, on which I congratulate you,

Wishing you a long and happy life,

In health and heartiness, good fortune and peace,

May the gifts of the heavens flow bounteously upon you.

6 December 1817

F. Chopin.

004.

Wishes for Mikołaj Chopin on his name-day

[Warsaw], 6 December 1818

[Source: KorFCh, I, 44–46]

Dear Papa,

Although it would be easier for me to reveal my feelings if I could express them in musical tones, and since, nonetheless, even the best concert cannot encompass my devotion to you, dear Papa, I must employ the simple expressions of my heart, in order to offer you the homage of a son’s most affectionate gratitude and devotion.

F. Chopin

6 December

1818.

005.

To Eustachy Marylski in Książenice

[Warsaw, 8 September 1823]

[Source: KorFCh, I, 49–54]

Dear Marylski!

I went to Mr Zubelewicz myself in order to find out when the beginners’ courses, not the examinations, begin. He told me that the courses would begin on either the sixteenth or the seventeenth of this month, since the Commission has not yet decided whether the public session of the Academy will take place on the 15th or the 16th. In addition, he told me that the lectures would take place in the morning, the examinations in the afternoon, and that he would not register anyone at all after the 13th. Please forgive me for writing so badly, but I’m in a hurry. So please report to Weltz what I have written to you, and give him and Tytus my best regards. Białobłocki arrived in Warsaw on Saturday. He’s planning to register on Tuesday, depart only on Wednesday, and then return for the courses. Mama and Papa send their regards to Mr and Mrs Marylski, Ludwika sends hers to your sister. I embrace you and your brothers warmly.

F.F. Chopin

Messrs Kulikowski, Karwowski, Wilczyński and Krzywicki have been dismissed, and that professor from Kalisz has taken over the professorship in Mr Kulikowski’s place. Mr Dobronoki sends you his regards. Farewell. Don’t show anyone this letter, because everyone would say that I don’t know how to write at all, nor do I know anything about politics.

Footnotes