Other Polish and Polish-American composers of the 19th century

[eschiss1]

First, has anyone mentioned Wladyslaw Tarnowski's string quartet? Was just having a look at it and if nothing else the decision to end in flat-mediant major (F major, for a D major quartet) is interesting even as late as 1874 (date of publication ; don't know when it was composed.)

I also find myself thinking of some Polish-American composers of the time (Pychowski (1816-1900), Henri Kowalski (1841-1916), others) and wondering how much by them one hears and will hear anytime soon; there seems some things of interest uploaded @ IMSLP in my honest opinion, though I admit nothing absolutely stunning yet. (Kowalski seems to have been quite prolific...) A "percussion, Violin, Cello and Piano" arrangement of a march by Pychowski makes me wonder - well- .. what the original instrumentation was, I suppose. (He also figures in the title of a book - "A Century of Musical Exiles and Emigrants: From Jan Pychowski to Marta Ptaszyńska." and a violin sonata by him was performed in 1857-11-12, New York, with Theodore Thomas (as violin rather than conductor, that is, and composer at piano; whether the work survives I don't know. See This book on Charles Hommann, note 175, page liii- himself also it seems of some interest...)

[giles.enders]

I have always thought Polish composers of the nineteenth century are underrated and worth exploring. I suppose it is partly due to history with Russia on one side and Germany on the other. They don't seem to be covered in literature as well as say the French and Germans.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Absolutely (and sadly) right. I suppose Germany and Russia are dominant models, and everything between gets squashed. Thanks to labels such as Acte Prealable (always expensive in the UK..ouch) I've got to know some especially rewarding music. For example, near the end of the shelves we get Zarebski, Zarzycki, and Zelenski. One 'irk', though, is that because only a few isolated works of such composers get broadcast or recorded it is difficult to arrive at a decent overview of their output.

Another carp is that you invest some valuable loot in the purchase of what appears a potentially interesting Acte Prealable disc only to discover it is a recording of sheer pretentious nonsense - especially 20th century music. However quite unfair to blame that on Polish music, since there is a lot of nonsense to be found in the contemporary music of other nations (France being a chief culprit).

But given your 'Germany on one side and Russia on the other' analysis (a bit crude but largely right), isn't the issue much wider than Poland alone? For example (and I was awful at Geography way back in school), if you visualise a map of Europe there is a long, very broad, area stretching south of Poland with Germany / Austria to the left (oops West) and Russia on the east. Very approximately, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania. We're hardly aware of music of those countries (with a few notable exceptions). And to complicate it a bit more, Czechoslovakia is in the same 'between Germany / Austria and Russia' area, and yet happily Czech music is well represented.

Exactly the same of course when it comes to literature. Browsing in the magical Aldeburgh bookshop recently (ah, bliss to be in such a place) I came across the recently published Everyman edition of Miklos Banffy's 'Transylvanian Triology'. Utterly never heard of it before....but what a wondrous delight it turns out to be.

[Mark Thomas]

As far as Poland is concerned, it's not so much a case of "Germany on one side and Russia on the other" as not existing at all in the 19th century, or indeed until 1919! It was partitioned between Prussia, Austria and Russia in 1795. Polish composers of the 19th century were effectively provincial Russians and they and performers who became internationally famous did so by leaving Poland: Chopin, Wieniawski and Paderewski come to mind. I do agree, though, that Poland had a very vibrant music scene which unaccountably seems to have been ignored elsewhere. I'm not sure that I agree with you, Peter, about Hungary: I guess that Erkel was a purely domestic figure, but what about Goldmark and, at least in his own lifetime, Volkmann? Liszt himself doesn't really count, I suppose. Maybe Slovakia and Romania just didn't have much going on musically, whereas Bohemia and Finland (then part of the Russian empire) very obviously did.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Humph, guess you were top of the class in History, Mark (I never seemed to progress beyond the Tudors). Yes, of course you're right. Just try saying to yourself 'early 19th century Polish composer' and you realise immediately that no-one could fit into that category.

On a very minor point I defend myself by pointing out I did write in parenthesis "with a few notable exceptions" - for I could never neglect Goldmark (up there in the almost top notch in my view).

But I confess I did forget about Volkmann. I've got into the long-entrenched habit of thinking of him as a German composer. After all, he was born in Saxony, and I suppose the contact with figures such as Schumann and Brahms reinforced that habit. (Into the mind pops that claim to be found somewhere in Nietzsche: "'What are our 'truths'? - Nothing but our habitual prejudices.") I had forgotten that Volkmann eventually settled in Budapest, taught there, and finally died in Hungary. So you're vindicated and I hang my head in shame on account of my prejudices!

[Mark Thomas]

No, no, not at all, Peter! Apologies for the plonking history lesson.

Actually, I think that Vokmann illustrates a very important point. We are so accustomed now to think in terms of geographic, ethnically-homogeneous nation states that we forget that this wasn't at all the way things were in many parts of Europe in the 19th century. To be a "German" was a description of ethnicity, not one of citizenship (at least not before 1871). Volkmann settled in Hungary, but that doesn't mean that he learnt Hungarian and took a Magyar name, any more than the native-born Goldmark did. There was a very substantial German minority in Hungary, as there was in many eastern European countries. Even the nationalist Mihály Mosonyi began life as  the German-Hungarian Michael Brand! In many ways, cultural borders were much more fluid than they were in the 20th century, I think.

The Polish issue, though, is interesting. Why were the many capable Polish composers pretty much unknown by the rest of the world, when the reputations of those in Bohemia and Finland, countries both also part of larger empires, managed to escape their borders?