Events 2012
Release of the CD
Maria Szymanowska, Ballades & Romances (world premiere)by Elisabeth Zapolska, mezzo-soprano & Bart van Oort, Broadwood piano 1825 (Joop Klinkhamer collection, Amsterdam), editor: Acte Préalable.
Release of the CD : 8 March – in Poland, 21 March – in France.
Presentation of the CD on the web page 'Opera Nederland', January 2014
Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831), Ballads and Romances - MusicWeb International, Jonathan Woolf , 12.12.2012
Maria Szymanowska, female composer of genius - ResMusica, Pierre Degott, 8.10.2012
Szymanowska Maria, Ballades&Romances – Polish Music Information Centre, August 2012
Recording of the month – MusicWeb International, Steve Arloff, 12.06.2012
Maria Szymanowska and her Songs – Maestro, Jacek Chodorowski , 24.04.2012
Maria Szymanowska ”Ballades & Romances” –release of the CD
Presentation of the CD on the web page of the Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature in Warsaw (19.04.2012)
Songs of Mickiewicz’s mother-in-low -Rzeczpospolita , Jacek Marczyński , 13.04.2012
Maria Szymanowska – ballades & romances , Jean Marc Warszawski, 11.03.2012
Composer, pianist virtuoso and woman of letters, Maria Szymanowska had a fine career, especially at the court of Russia; she captivated Goethe himself, although music was not his strong point… But she didn’t enter the history books. Surely because she was a woman; historians and musicologists admitted only a male history: and also history whose aim would be to produce great masters (according to the official doctrine) – a mirror of the history of princes and battles.
It is amazing that Maria Szymanowska -"Chopin before Chopin "- had no place in the commemoration of the Polish pianist in 2010. No more than John Field, initiator of the nocturne-style, nor Julius Schulhoff, nor even Alkan.
That raises a problem - like for the works of the composers murdered by the Nazis - because it is not really a question of doing justice, nor of remembering the forgotten. It is a question of writing history as we should, and moreover of enjoying or discovering music whose glory is not due to its archaeological or forgotten aspect, but to its beauty and interest.
This is true for the ballads and romances of Maria Szymanowska, elegant and delicate, composed to please the salon society of her time. While overall the Songs are rather in the French style of the period, here and there Italianisms or accents in the Classical and Romantic style “à la viennoise” or “à l’allemande” can be heard, especially in the piano part. In this music there is an echo of the good lively cosmopolitan taste, from the social circles which made Maria Szymanowska's success. It is all flavoured with a particular and personal taste, a restrained and delicate genius, which charmed Goethe so much, with very beautiful effects of spoken or declaimed passages.
Translated by Frederick Goodman