Chopin - Grottger

• Authors: Irena Poniatowska
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

PL

Is Stanisław Tarnowski’s linking of Fryderyk Chopin and Artur Grottger in his Dwa szkice [Two sketches] justified? Well, the connection is substantiated by the “Romantic-leaning” point of view and the idea of the correspondance des arts that characterised the nineteenth century in which the two creative artists (and Tarnowski himself) lived, although they represented different creative fields. Both the musician Chopin and the artist Grottger were regarded as poets. The former on account of the poetic of his piano playing and musical works, the latter for the poetical dimension of his pictures devoted to the January Rising. Tarnowski called Chopin the fourth bard of Poland, alongside Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki and Zygmunt Krasiński, and Grottger the poet of the Rising, since - as he paradoxically stated - the poetical narrator of those events could only be an artist. Terminology of a literary character belonged to the lexicon of notions employed by critics of art and music at that time. Besides this, the national character is inscribed in the idiom of the work of both these creative artists - the thoroughly patriotic stance that was so strongly manifest in the output of Polish romanticism. Another common denominator in their work is the concept of the cycle. With Chopin, the 24 Preludes, Op. 28 comprise a cycle in which the bonding element is the succession of major keys and their relative minor keys according to the circle of fifths, but they are also an expressive cycle of various states of mind, from despair to joyous reverie. The Preludes show both the semantic capacities and the suppleness of Chopin’s musical language; that is, the ability to express the same feelings through various purely musical means, without any programmatic motto. With Grottger, we have the cycles Warszawa [Warsaw] (two cycles), Polonia, Lituania and Wojna [War]. In them, the metonymy of the narrative sequences is coupled with the notional exposition, with the symbolism. Grottger portrays not the historical scenes of the Rising, but the feelings of grief, despair and fear of individual people, reflecting their experiences. And so the concept is similar. Chopin’s Preludes are like sketches, aphoristic utterances; sketches are also important in the work of Grottger, partly as a self-contained genre. A third plane of analogy is the reduction of media. Chopin confines himself essentially to the piano, from which he produces startling tonal qualities, although he did write several works for chamber or orchestral forces. Grottger, meanwhile, draws his cycles solely in black pencil, using white only to heighten contrasts and give the effect of chiaroscuro. He did not wish to distract the attention of viewers, but wanted them to concentrate on the symbol.

Keywords

PL

Fryderyk Chopin; Chopin’s 24 Preludes; Op. 28; Artur Grottger’s graphic cycles; Stanisław Tarnowski; correspondance des arts

• Publisher: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu
• Journal: Interdisciplinary Studies in Musicology
• Year: 2010
• Issue: 9
• Pages: 101-114

Dates

published

2018-10-17

Contributors

author

Irena Poniatowska

• professor, habilitated doctor, associated with the Institute of Musicology o f the University of Warsaw from 1965 to 2003, where for ten years she also served as deputy dean for student affairs and for academic research and finances of the Department of History. From 1974 to the 1990s, she organised Polish-Italian musicological collaboration with the University of Bologna. From 1975 to 1985, she chaired the Academic Board and to 1990 was vice president of the Fryderyk Chopin Society. Since 1994, she has been chair of the Polish Chopin Academy, and since 2001 chair o f the Programme Committee of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute. She has written around three hundred studies, essays and scholarly reviews, including many books, such as Faktura fortepianowa Beethovena [Beethoven’s piano texture] (Warszawa, 1972), Muzyka fortepianowa i pianistyka w wieku XIX [Piano music and pianism in the nineteenth century] (Warszawa, 1991), Historia i interpretacja muzyki. Z badań nad muzyką od XVII do XIX wieku [The history and interpretation of music. Of research into music from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century] (Kraków, 1993, 2nd edn 1995 ), Słownik szkołny - Muzyka [School dictionary - Music] (Warszawa, 1991, 2nd edn 1993), W kręgu recepcji i rezonansu muzyki. Szkice chopinowskie [From the reception and resonance o f music. Chopin sketches] (Warszawa, 2008), the album: Chopin. Człowiek ijeg o muzyka [Chopin. The man and his music] (Warszawa, Polish- English version 2009, Polish-French version 2010), Romantyzm część druga A: 18501900. Twórczość muzyczna [Romanticism part two A: 1850-1900. Musical output] (vol. v in the series Historia muzyki połskiej [The History of Music in Poland]) (Warszawa, 2010); she is also co-author, together with Agnieszka Morawińska, of the ninelanguage publication Chopin i jeg o dzieło [Chopin and his work] (in the series Composers and the Art o f Their Time, Warszawa 2005-2009), and the separate publication Chopin ijeg o twórczość [Chopin and his oeuvre], in Arabic (Warszawa, 2010). An important area of her work is music editing: she has edited a facsimile edition of the autograph of Chopin’s 24 Preludes, Op. 28 (Warszawa, 1999), Etudes, Op. 10 (Warszawa, 2007), Allegro de concert (Warszawa, 2008) and co-edited, with Zofia Chechlińska, the following Chopin works: the Sonata in B minor (Warszawa, 2005), and 24 Preludes, Op. 28 (Warszawa, 2010). She is also editor of the five-volume (vol. v with Daniele Pistone) Chopin w kręgu przyjaciół [Chopin in his circle of friends] (Warszawa, 1995-1999) and the two volumes of material from the Chopin Congress of 1999: Chopin and his Work in the Context o f Culture (Warszawa, 2003). Her academic interests are centred on the history of piano music and pianism, musical culture and music reception, and Chopin studies.