Chopin in Literary Salons and Warsaw's Romantic Awakening

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CHOPIN IN LITERARY SALONS AND WARSAW'S ROMANTIC AWAKENING Author(s): HALINA GOLDBERG Source: The Polish Review, Vol. 45, No. 1 (2000), pp. 53-64Published by: on behalf of the University of Illinois Press Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences of

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The Polish Review, Vol. XLV, No. 1, 2000: 53-64 ?2000 The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America

HALINA GOLDBERG

CHOPIN IN LITERARY SALONS AND WARSAW'S ROMANTIC AWAKENING1

In the National Museum in Cracow there exists a copy of Stanislaw Potocki's celebrated 1815 treatise on rhetoric, entitled On Articulation and

Style, the Cracow exemplar is inscribed with Fryderyk Chopin's name in the adolescent composer's own hand.2 This volume - a publication particularly influential in reclaiming the noble status of the Polish language

- stands as a witness to Fryderyk's involvement with the intellectual trends sweeping Warsaw's salons during the first part of the nineteenth century.

Whereas the typical social salon followed new cultural tendencies, the more aspiring circles, which I shall call "intellectual" or "literary salons," were in the avant-garde of cultural events. The intellectual salon was not just a

recipient of ideas engendered by the cultural renaissance taking place in Warsaw during Chopin's youth, but more significantly it was where much of the new ideology and aesthetics were generated. Although social class and

age considerations influenced the nature of Warsaw's literary salons, these were often overlooked by participants enthralled with the pursuit of beauty and

knowledge. Thus, among the participants of gatherings at the homes of highly educated aristocrats were intellectuals and artists from other social classes:

representatives of free professions, University and Gymnasium professors, and future leaders of Polish culture - mostly students and new graduates of the

Warsaw University.

Chopin had close associations with all these circles: his talent opened for him the doors to the most discriminating aristocratic salons, and his educational background placed him among the young poets, literati and artists.

Through his father's professional connections, from his earliest childhood he

mingled with the faculty of the Gymnasium and the University. In fact, the

Chopins resided in the Kazimierz Palace together with other professors' families:3

1 This article is based on a paper delivered during the 57th Annual Meeting of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, June 19,1999, at Fordham University, New York City.

2Krystyna Kobylanska, Chopin w kraju: dokumenty i pamiatki [Chopin in His Land: Documents and Souvenirs] (Cracow: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1955), p. 53.

3Later, they moved across the street to the Krasinski Palace.

53



54 The Polish Review

We lived on the second floor in the wing on the right, next to the

Gymnasium, which was downstairs in the building known as "Cadets Quarters," where the public library is today. On the first floor of the same

wing lived Samuel Bogumil Linde, the rector of the Gymnasium, and Father

Wojciech Szwejkowski, the Rector of the Warsaw University. Downstairs were university professors [Juliusz] Kolberg, Kazimierz Brodzinski and many others.4 (See Figure 1.)

Kazimierz Brodzinski, a young literature professor at the university, in

particular, was an important mentor, introducing Chopin to Romanticism and

moderating in the conflict between the old and the new aesthetics? The culture of early of nineteenth century Warsaw was dominated by two

philosophical tendencies: the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Several members of the older generation

- Stanislaw Staszic, Hugo Kolfytaj and Jan Sniadecki - embraced the philosophy of the Enlightenment, and their treatises based knowledge, morality and progress on reason and laws of nature. They were supported by poets and writers, headed by Ludwik Osinski and Kajetan Kozmian, who strove to preserve the classical tradition, as well as by Freemasons, among them Chopin's composition teacher, Jozef Eisner.

The young intelligentsia, in turn, were influenced by new trends coming from the West, endorsing the primacy of emotion over reason and advocating the search for new forms of art. Already the turn of the century saw translations of Dante, Lope de Vega and Shakespeare. Soon the poetry of

Goethe, Schiller, Byron, the prose of Sir Walter Scott and the philosophy of Herder and Schelling brought to Poland the seeds of Romanticism. The older

generation attacked the young artists for returning to the "Dark Ages" and

feudalism, but the youth understood these new trends as a way of expressing their trust in common people, their defense of Polish nationality and yearning for freedom.

Fryderyk Chopin was right in the midst of the debate, living among the

Gymnasium and University professors, artists, musicians, poets, and cultural activists of the older generation on the one side, and the enthusiastic, fervent

gymnasium, university and conservatory students, young poets and influential

young teachers on the other. He had a deep love and respect for the great figures of the Enlightenment that he was privileged to know. The most famous of them was the legendary Stanislaw Staszic, who embodied every idea of the Enlightenment: a friend of the French encyclopedists, a naturalist,

4 Ferdynand Hoesick, "Z pami^tnikow Marylskiego" [From Marylski's Memoirs]

in Pisma Zbiorowe [Collected Works], vol. 1, Slowacki i Chopin [Slowacki and Chopin] (Warsaw: Trzaska, Evert i Michalski, 1932), p. 90. In this article, all translations of Polish texts are mine except where otherwise indicated.

5 Already in 1826 Chopin attended University lectures given by Brodzinski.

Fryderyk Chopin, Warsaw, to Jan Bialoblocki, Sokolow, November 2, [October 1926], in Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina [Correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin], collected and edited by Bronislaw Sydow, two volumes, (Warsaw: Panstwowy Instytut

Wydawniczy, 1955), vol. 1, p. 73.



Chopin in Literary Salons and Warsaw's Romantic Awakening_55

a geologist, a poet and a translator, a politician and a state minister, one of the founders of the Society for Friends of Learning and of the Warsaw University, an ardent supporter of the French Revolution, and a philanthropist, who

supported the needy while he himself led a very modest life. We do not know if Fryderyk ever met Staszic, but his reverence for this great man is apparent

when in a letter description of the philosopher's funeral, he reported:

. . . that out of love and enthusiasm his coffin [cover] was torn, and that I

also have as a memento a piece of pall, with which the bier was covered;

finally, that twenty thousand people accompanied the remains to [their] destination.6

Chopin was also acquainted with other important proponents of the

Enlightenment, most notably, Stanislaw Soltyk and the author of the aforementioned treatise on language, Stanislaw Potocki. These two eminent men, present on the Polish political and cultural scene since the time of King Stanislaw August, were entirely devoted to matters of learning and social

progress. Their salons were havens of Polishness and their endeavors were fundamental to the creation of the Society for the Friends of Learning

- an institution dedicated to the rebirth and preservation of national culture in

occupied Poland. In addition, the Potockis, in particular, had a great interest in music and maintained a close relationship with Jozef Eisner.7

During the 1820s the Potocki and Soltyk salons gradually lost their role in

generating intellectual progress. The elderly and widowed Count Soltyk ceased to hold meetings in his own house, but he continued to participate in

literary meetings in salons to which the young Chopin was also invited. Count Potocki had passed away in 1821, but Chopin would have met him when as a child he performed in his distinguished home? Potocki's wife, Aleksandra, continued to receive guests in her salon and organized periodic amateur theater

performances. Chopin's casual remark about his presence at such a perform ance suggests that he must have attended them on more than one occasion?

While the influence of his conservative elders made a lasting imprint on

Chopin's mind, even more significant for his maturation were the new

6 Fryderyk Chopin, Warsaw, to Jan Bialoblocki, Biskupiec, February 12, 1826,

Sydow edition, vol. 1, p. 63. 7 Eisner dedicated several funeral compositions, including De profundis, to the

memory of Count Stanislaw and his brother Ignacy. For this Countess Aleksandra Potocka gave him a snuffbox that had belonged to her husband. Jozef Eisner, Sumariusz moich utworow muzycznych [A Summary of My Musical Works], modern edition by Alina Nowak-Romanowicz, (Cracow: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1957), pp. 36-37. 8

Ferdynand Hoesick, Chopin. Zycie i tworczosc [Chopin. Life and Works], two

volumes, (Warsaw: Hoesick, 1927), vol. 1, p. 52. 9 Fryderyk Chopin, Warsaw, toTytus Woyciechowski, Poturzyn, March 27, 1830,

Sydow edition, vol. 1, p. 117.




Romantic trends, embraced by Warsaw's youth and the more progressive members of the older generation.

The roots of Polish Romanticism can be traced as far back as the 1780s, but during the first years after the Vienna Congress, with the publication of Franciszek W^zyk's first articles on Romanticism, the new aesthetic tendencies became more common and pronounced. The most influential declaration of the new style arrived in Mickiewicz's response to the 1818 attack on Romanticism published by Jan Sniadecki, mathematician and

philosopher at the Warsaw University. The young bard replied to Sniadecki with a poem entitled Romanticznosc [Romanticism] which encapsulated the Romantic aesthetics in the words:

Feeling and faith speak to me more strongly Than a wise man's looking glass and eye

The poem's closing line, "have heart and look into the heart," became a Romantic manifesto opening and closing every conversation about Polish

poetry.10 Mickiewicz's poems were saturated with new aesthetic and moral values,

as well as revolutionary language. The young intelligentsia responded to these works with great enthusiasm and delighted in their subtle political undertones.

Mickiewicz, Edward Odyniec, Stefan Witwicki, and their followers defended their vision of art and the entire youth of Warsaw was captured in the whirl of new ideas: ". . .

everything that breathed of novelty and audacity was sought after and gladly accepted."11 Andrzej E. Kozmian, Chopin's older colleague at the Gymnasium and the University, summarized these emotions in his

memoirs:

Today, this unconditional adoration of all youth for the author [Mickiewicz] of Dziady [Forefathers' Eve] can be easily explained and understood; already then he had sung his hurrahs and the apotheosis of

youth. This admirer of Youth conquered all young people by indulging their tempestuous nature; prophesying that the Leyden jar was about to

explode, he became their leader and worshipped bard.12

After the publication of Adam Mickiewicz's first Romantic volumes in

1822, the quiet discussions between the representatives of Classic and Romantic schools of thought transformed into an open conflict which lasted until 1830. Some more progressive members of the Society for Friends of

10 Kazimierz Wojcicki, Warszawa, jej zycie umyslowe i ruck literacki 1800-1830 [Warsaw, Its Intellectual Life and Literary Movement 1800-1830] (Warsaw: Gebethner i Wolff, 1880), pp. 174-177.

11 Andrzej E. Kozmian, Wspomnienia [Memoirs], two volumes, (Poznan:

Letgeber, 1867), vol. 2, p. 68. 12 A. Kozmian, Wspomnienia, vol. 2, p. 47.




Learning made efforts to create a middle ground between the battling parties: Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, whose writings inspired Polish Romanticism, attempted to mediate the conflict, and the gentle Kazimierz Brodzinski did his best to calm down the bitter battles by conveying to the public the important idea that "beauty is indifferent to the cut of the clothing it is made to wear, and the poet must draw inspiration from the heavens, not from the academic

pulpit." (See Figure 2.) Among the very first adherents of the Romantic aesthetics was Izabela

Czartoryska, a lady of extraordinary intellect and artistic taste. A two-volume

commonplace-book of poetic and literary excerpts written in her own hand best testifies to her interests: Troubadour poems, chivalric epics, Provencal

songs, Scandinavian, Germanic and Slavic myths.13 After 1784, when the

Czartoryskis acquired a country estate in Pulawy, Izabela's Romantic tastes became even more evident. In her description of the English garden on her new estate, she clearly articulated her intentions of breaking away from French

pseudo-classicism:

Unnatural things cannot please -

only things in which nature seems at its

most perfect are pleasing; to me forced shapes in trees seem to be disgusting:

shaped into columns or knobs, or opened into fans they are no adornment for any site. Trimmed spruce trees, tormented hornbeams, cut linden trees

always offend, never decorate.14

Undeniably, such an approach to gardening was a milestone was a milestone in aesthetic thinking, but the most famous aspect of Izabela's estate at Pulawy were the two structures which had built in the park: the Temple of the Sybil and the Gothic House. These buildings housed monuments of Polish

history -

they enshrined the essence of Polish patriotism. The Temple of the

Sybil was older; it dated to 1800. In it one could see shields with coats-of arms belonging to the noblest families, spoils taken in distant wars, the arms and armor of Polish knights and kings. Here, in a gloomy half-shade, the visitor was taken through the thousand years of Polish history. The Gothic

House, opened in 1809, was almost entirely built of fragments that came from historical sites and structures around Poland -

stone, brick, wooden, and marble architectural elements. Pulawy quickly became a place of pilgrimage for Poles, especially the fiery, young, emotional Romantics.

Chopin must have heard much about Putawy, and in his letter to a friend who knew Pulawy, written during a trip to Torun (when Fryderyk saw the

13 Ludwik D^bicki, Puiawy (1762-1830) monografia z zycia towarzyskiego, politycznego i literackiego na podstawie archiwum ks. Czartoryskich w Krakowie

[Puiawy (1762-1830) A Monograph on Social, Political and Literary Life Based on the Princes Czartoryski Archives in Cracow], four volumes, (Lwow: Gubrynowicz i Schmidt, 1888), vol. 4, p. 100. 14

Debicki, vol. 1, p. 129.




birthplace of Copernicus), the fifteen-year-old Chopin compared their

experiences:

What did you see in Pulawy? What? You saw only a small part of that seen

by my eyes in its entirety. Presumably you had seen in [the Temple of] the Sybil one little brick taken from the home of Copernicus, the place of his birth? And I saw the entire house, the entire place . . . .15

Though Chopin probably never visited Pulawy, he performed many times in the Azure Palace, the Warsaw home of the Czartoryskis.16 He also dedicated several of his compositions to the members of the Czartoryski family. For instance, on his Mazurkas op. 30 we find an inscription to Princess Maria Wurtemberg (Izabela's daughter).17 His Rondo a laKrakowiak in F Major, op. 14, bears the name of Anna Czartoryska, nee Sapieha; she was the wife of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, the most prominent of Izabela's

children, who hosted salon meetings for Warsaw's highest society. Through his strong patriotic stand, Prince Adam brought upon himself, quite predictably, the wrath of the Russian authorities: imprisonment and, after the November Uprising, the confiscation of his properties and exile in France. His Parisian home, Hotel Lambert, became a center of Polish emigre life and housed the most important exile institutions - political, educational and cultural. For Chopin, it became the bastion of Polishness in a foreign land.

Another of the Czartoryski children, Zofia, and her husband Stanislaw Kostka Zamoyski, kept a famous literary salon in the Azure Palace, to which

they invited high officials, members of the social elite, literati, journalists, and musicians. Chopin was first invited to this distinguished household as a child and he visited it again in later years:18

. . . Sunday, today a week ago, I was at the Zamoyskis, where almost the

entire evening they admired Dlugosz's eolipantalion}9 (See Figure 3.)

15 Fryderyk Chopin, Szafarnia, to Jan Matuszynski, Warsaw, [beginning of August

1825], Sydow edition, vol. 1, p. 51. 16 Maurycy Karasowski, Fryderyk Chopin, two volumes, (Warsaw: Gebethner i

Wolff, 1882), vol. l,p. 29. 17 Princess Maria Wurtemberg, the eldest daughter of Izabela and Adam

Kazimierz Czartoryski, was a respected writer and the author of the acclaimed romance

Malwina. She also was an ardent music lover and an amateur composer. From

contemporary sources we get an impression of her being quite an able musician. For

instance, in a letter to her mother written in 1809, Maria wrote about studying every day with [Franciszek] Lessel in preparation for a sung Mass that she would soon attempt with Miss Najemska, Szczurowski and Kratzer (renowned professional singers). (Debicki, vol. 4, p. 173). 18

Hoesick, Chopin, vol. 1, p. 52. 19 Fryderyk Chopin, Warsaw, to Jan Bialoblocki, Sokolow, May 15, 1826, Sydow

edition, vol. 1, p. 65. The eolipantalion, a newly-invented Polish ancestor of the




Under the Zamoyskis, the Azure Palace housed several literary and cultural establishments and a number of outstanding young people were invited to live there, among them the realist writer Jozef Korzeniewski, the Italian painter Luigi Rubio, the poet Antoni Edward Odyniec, and the writer Klementyna Tanska.20

The Czartoryski/Zamoyski homes belonged to a large circle of aristocratic salons that considered matters of literary and theater criticism to be of utmost

importance. These wellborn literati established a group of critics who in the

years 1815-1819 wrote theater reviews signed X, hence were known as the

Society of Exes. The principal members of the Society were Prince Adam

Czartoryski, General Krasinski, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, the Plater brothers, Maksymilian Fredro, Kajetan Kozmian, ladies versed in literary matters -

Princess Wurtemberg, Roza Mostowska and Zofia Zamoyska - and the

founder of the Society, Minister of the Interior and the Police, Tadeusz Mostowski. Their gatherings provided a forum for lively debates on current

literary issues. Whereas Mostowski and Kozmian defended classical values, some of the others - Prince Czartoryski, Niemcewicz and Maksymilian Fredro - were open to the new German and English Romantic ideas?1 During some of these literary meetings the works of Mickiewicz and other young Romantics were read, in which case young Romantics -Gaszynski, Krasinski as well as

Chopin - were invited to participate in literary and aesthetic discussion.22

Chopin had many contacts with members of the Society of Exes. He

performed for the Mostowskis as a child23 and the youngest one of the

harmonium, was very popular during the 1820s. Chopin often performed at the

eolipantalion and even composed for it (the works are no longer extant). 20 The enthusiasm with which Chopin recounts lodging in Ojcow in a room once used by Klementyna Tanska suggests his sisters' admiration for the acclaimed writer.

Fryderyk Chopin, Vienna, to his family, Warsaw, August 1, 1829, Sydow edition, vol. 1, p. 89. Tanska wrote for adults and for children, books and articles, but the purity of

the Polish language remained of utmost importance to her. Her magazine Rozrywki dla

dzieci [Diversions for Children], was conceived to inspire writing and it was especially loved by little Emilia Chopin, a child of uncommon literary talents. In her Journal,

Tanska with affection wrote about the Chopins, and when Emilia died she published a

lengthy eulogy. She maintained contact with Fryderyk in Paris, where she settled after her brave involvement in the November Uprising.

21 A. Kozmian, Wspomnienia, vol. 1, p. 189.

22 Stanislaw Kozmian, Przeglqd Polski [Polish Review], June 1885, quoted in

Kobylanska, p. 232. 23

Hoesick, Chopin, vol. 1, p. 52. Although Mostowski did deny Mikolaj Chopin's application for a grant supporting Fryderyk's foreign education, he was no

enemy of the musical art; in fact, the Mostowskis often hosted musical performances. (Kajetan Kozmian, Pamietniki [Memoirs] [Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo Ossolinskich, 1972], vol. 3, pp. 208-209.) The Minister's cold refusal to assist Chopin is even more

surprising in light of his acquaintance with the young composer's singular talent.




Mostowski children, R6za, is said to have been Chopin's pupil.24 A

confirmation of a continuing relationship with Miss Mostowska comes from

Chopin himself, who inscribed his Mazurkas op. 33, composed in 1838:^4 Mademoiselle la Comtesse Rose Mostowska. A few years earlier, Chopin dedicated the Mazurkas op. 6 to another young Polish gentlewoman who studied with him in Paris, Paulina Plater, the daughter of Ludwik Plater, who

helped Chopin greatly during his first days in the French capital.25 Fryderyk was also well acquainted with Kajetan Kozmian, whose sons were his

colleagues at the Gymnasium. One of them remembered the young virtuoso's visits at the Kozmian home in his memoirs:

Frequently I brought him to holiday dinners at my parents'; already then he amazed everybody with his extraordinary gift and through his politeness and

good heart won approbation.26

The most pleasant and cheerful gatherings in the circle of the Society of Exes were hosted by General Krasinski. Here, one would find the older

generation of writers and poets, Niemcewicz, Osinski, Kozmian, and Fredro; scholars and university professors Linde, Lelewel, Bentkowski, Brodzinski, Ciampi, and Szubert; and the young writers and poets Korzeniowski, Odyniec and Grzymala.27 During these gatherings, Kozmian, Osinski and Morawski, who sturdily guarded the old values, were confronted by the young Romantics,

especially Odyniec. Often, the meetings followed Professor Osinski's lectures:

From the time when Osinski began his literature class in the university building and every Saturday gave lectures between 3 and 4, straight after the lecture, the usual circle -

including Osinski - gathered in the house of

General Krasinski for dinner. How much learning, amusement and cheer

accompanied these gatherings, for the host - an enthusiast of learning and

literature - was gracious, generous, cheerful, and witty; he encouraged and

permitted good humor.28

24 Ferdynand Hoesick, "Warszawskie Luminarze warszawscy w roli przyjaciol I

znajomych F. Chopina" [Warsaw Luminaries as Chopin's Friends and Acquaintances] in Warszawa: Luzne kartki z przeszhsci syreniego grodu [Loose Leaves from the Past

of the Mermaid City] (Poznah: Ksi^garnia sw. Wojciecha, 1920), p. 303. 25 Albert Sowihski, Siownik muzykow polskich dawnych i nowoczesnych [Dictionary of Polish Musicians Old and Modern] (Paris: Ksi^garnia Luxemburska, 1874), p. 55.

26 A. Kozmian, Wspomnienia, vol. 1, p. 210.

27 Andrzej E. Kozmian, "Wizerunki os6b towarzystwa warszawskiego" [Images of

Warsaw's Socialites], Przeglqd poznahski [Poznan Review], vol. 24 (1857), no. 1, pp. 20-21.

28 A. Kozmian, "Wizerunki...," p. 21.




Since during the years 1826-1828 Chopin probably attended Osinski's

lectures, he might have spent some Saturday afternoons in this choice

company. There, he would have had the opportunity to interact with the General's son, the young Count Zygmunt Krasinski, who was to become one of the most important poets of Chopin's generation.

During his last years in Warsaw, Chopin had a large circle of peers with whom he gladly spent time chatting or making music. Many of them were to become Poland's leading intellectuals and artists. Included in this circle were Antoni Edward Odyniec, a poet and a writer, translator of Byron; the poets Konstanty Gaszynski and Bohdan Zaleski, both of whom settled in France after the fall of the November Uprising,*29 Stefan Witwicki, whose verses

Chopin set to music; and Dominik Magnuszewski, a writer, a translator of Victor Hugo, and the main representative of Romantic expressionism in Polish literature.30 Among his closest friends were also two pianists: Julian Fontana,

who remained among Chopin's closest friends during the years of mutual exile in Paris, and Maurycy Mochnacki, one of the first Polish music critics who

wrote some of the best-known reviews of Chopin's early concerts31 (See Figure 4.)

Naturally, the young generation also hosted its own intellectual meetings and Fryderyk's enchanting music always figured prominently in these soirees:

Chopin - then cheerful and young

- whom we all called Szopenek [diminutive of Szopen]

- played for us his marvelous pieces. Equipped with

genius mind - quick, witty and sensitive - he frolicked with the art, mastered it and captivated listeners with the natural abundance of his Polish rhytym and melody.32

29 Zaleski was the poet of some of Chopin's songs. In Paris, in 1846 Zaleski married Chopin's pupil Zofia Rosengardt, who came from Warsaw to study with

Chopin. Zaleski must have been very close to the Chopins since at the end of his life in 1882 he sent a letter from France asking for help in recovering "my papers once left in

Warsaw with Chopin's sisters" \papiery moje zostawione ongi w Warszawie u

Chopinowien]. "Jozef Bogdan Zaleski" in Kronika rodzinna [Family Chronicle]. 1886:

p. 228. 30 Other members of this circle were Aleksander Rembielinski, Wilhelm Kolberg,

J6zef Reinschmidt, Alfons Brandt, Dominik Dziewanowski, Stanislaw Kozmian, Eustachy Marylski, Ignacy Maciejowski, and Marceli Celinski. (Karasowski, p. 53.) 31 Mochnacki is most remembered as a revolutionary and a historian of the November Uprising (several of Chopin's close friends were very active in the

conspiracy that led to the Uprising; Mochnacki was at the very heart of the plot). He also distinguished himself as a writer and a journalist, who in the years 1825-1830 wrote many superb articles in the daily press. Mochnacki involved himself with the

public dispute between the Romantics and the Classicists, eloquently advancing the Romantic cause. Drawing on his vast knowledge of aesthetics, metaphysics, and

literary and cultural history, he defended Brodzinski, Mickiewicz, Zaleski, and Witwicki.

32 Hoesick, Chopin, vol. 1, p. 243.




The Polishness of Chopin's music was of utmost significance to the young Romantics because of the distinctive local features that Romanticism took on in Poland. Given the tragic political circumstances of the enslaved nation, Romantic ideology became both the means to recapture the heroic past and the

prelude to a future armed revolt. These young people, who barely remem bered past events, grew up among stories about the splendor of old Poland and the brave deeds of Polish soldiers. They readily assimilated these memories and the national pride into their creative work and made them integral to Polish Romanticism. Echoes of these stories and of Polish patriotic songs continued to reverberate in Chopin's music long after he left Poland, defining the very soul of his art.

Chopin was welcomed to his peers' gatherings not only for his wit, charm and learning, but more importantly because his presence was recognized as

pivotal in the articulation of Polish musical Romanticism and rewarded with utter admiration for his genius:

It was a time of Romantic awakening in literature, and Music did not

hesitate to pursue its sister, Poetry, which boldly hastened toward the zenith of its excellence. Nourished by such forces of nature, as inspired as the

most superb bards of the time, to whose thoughts and feelings he tuned his lyre, Chopin emerged, the coryphaeus and representative of this musical epoch, though devoted exclusively to the piano.33

Like his literati friends, Chopin sought new, free forms of expression and turned to poetry, literature and folklore for inspiration. For instance, already in 1829 he composed song-settings of Romantic poems by his peers, which

very quickly traveled through the country and gained tremendous popularity3/ Novel melodic and harmonic vocabulary, as well as preference for typically Romantic genres, are undoubtedly already present in many of his works from the Warsaw period.

Thus, in the Romantic-Classical debate raging in Warsaw's salons of his

youth, Chopin declared himself through his music on the Romantic side,. Yet, it cannot be overlooked that the eighteenth century aesthetics, introduced to him by the older generation, remained an important influence on his views and art. Admiration for the music of the great masters of the past, concern for total

logic of the composition, unwillingness to sacrifice musical architecture in favor of virtuosity

- taught to him by his conservative elders - continued to

define his compositional style throughout his life. Similarly, in his literary tastes, while he always read and responded to new works by his

33 Oskar Kolberg, Dzieia wszystkie [Complete Works], edited by Julian Krzyzanowski, vol. 62, Pisma muzyczne [Musical Writings], edited by M. Tomaszewski, D. Pawlak and E. Miller, (Wroclaw: Polskie Towarzystwo Ludoznawcze, 1961-1990), vol. 62, p. 379.

34W6jcicki, p. 168.




contemporaries, his appreciation for the writings of the previous century never ceased. These tastes and artistic choices grew out of his early years in

Warsaw, when Chopin learned to draw knowledge and inspiration from such works as Potocki's treatise on rhetoric, on one hand, and the fierce poems of Mickiewicz and the other young Romantics, on the other. These artistic tendencies nourished his emerging compositional style, while his innovative

musical genius made him an active agent in the creation of Polish Romanticism.

Figure 1. The Kazimierz Palace; the Chopins' apartment was in the right

wing. (National Museum, Warsaw.)

Figure 2. A portrait of the poet Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz by Antoni Brodowski. (National Museum, Warsaw.)




Figure 4. Maurycy Mochnacki: poet, revolutionary, and music critic.

(National Library, Warsaw.)



Chopin in Literary Salons and Warsaw's Romantic Awakening

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