Does anyone know about it? I am only familiar with Paderewski, Wieniawski and Baroque composer called Marcin and surname beginning with 'M' but I can't remember the name.
The only ones I really know well from that era are Pękiel and Starzyński. If you get a chance to come to the Early Music Festival in Warsaw you should.
Sir Andrzej Panufnik was also wonderful He was the one I meant when I mentioned London. Górecki was of course in Kato. Lutosławski was the other great modernist, rated by many as the best modern Polish composer.
Henri aka Henryk Wieniawski was a virtuoso violinist during the 19th century and composer of still oft played potboilers. Jewish in origin, Polish by birth and nationality, he was the first in a long tradition of Polish-Jewish violinists up until the late 20th century, among them Henryk Szeryng.
We tend to measure all Polish musicians against the incomparable Chopin or Szopen. This though is unfair, as there were numerous other influential composers, not to least of whom the recently deceased Krzysztof Penderecki!
Just got finished listening to Rubinstein's rendition of Chopin's Etude in A-flat (La Tristesse). After wiping my eyes, one realizes why the latter remains the soul of Poland, despite a French father:-)
You said it! Attended a function at the General Consulate of Poland quite a few years back and I almost got a rush when I entered the main reception hall: Elegantly appointed tables loaded with kanapki, several varieties of wodka and beer, a coffee urn....... and of course, a gentleman seated at the piano playing hours of Chopin amid all the requisite hand kissing and traditional European formality.
@Lyzko That sounds like a wonderful experience! I only know one thing related to Chopin better than hearing, playing Chopin. There's even a ballet set to Chopin, Les Sylphides.
Yes, exactly! And yet his piano music is what separates much of Chopin from the rest. The late Harold C. Schonberg, erstwhile chief music critic for the NYT, once put it like this: "Mozart taught the piano to dance, Beethoven to feel, Schubert to emote and Chopin to sing."
@Lyzko Absolutely. Chopin always had more popular contemporaries, for some reason, but he was always the best. He still is probably the best composer to ever live.
Ahemm, Brahms or Schumann devotees like yours truly might gently beg to differ on that one, RussianAntiPutin:-)
Chopin does though reflect a deep Polish desire for allowing the passion of the moment to speak loudest! His is not a cerebral utterance a la Beethoven or dramatic grandiloquence a la Wagner and so forth.
Chopin's always at his best spreading the perfumed reverie of personal reflection while strolling in his private garden. The Italian lust for the in your face expression of opera isn't Chopin's cup of tea either.
Yet his music is often a call to arms, "guns buried in flowers" as Schumann put it, especially his mazurki, polonaise, above all his etudes and scherzi.
@Miloslaw To (indoctrinate) save your soul, you might like some pieces by Stravinsky and Mussorgsky. And I'd recommend to even people who hate classical Shchedrin Humoreske, just because it's perfection in music form.
