Photo by Betty Freeman, Los Angeles, 1993

He certainly does not write heart-rending melodies wrapped in slush-pump harmonies. He obviously refuses to court a potentially hostile public with easy effects or to reap the perverse pleasures of hand-me-down shock manuevers. The secret of Lutosławski's enduring, and endearing, success may lie in his uncanny ability to use unabashedly progressive techniques to achieve unabashedly conservative ends.

Put simply, Witold Lutosławski was the most inspirational composer I have ever met. His music, which is strong, clear, lyrical, serene, highly personal and innovative, will endure. To have been able to work with Witold Lutosławski, to conduct his music and to get to know him a little, was my great fortune. I join the entire musical world in missing him dearly."

Mischakoff in the 1920s. Collection of Anne Mischakoff Heiles.

The editor of the Polish American Journal, the largest English- language monthly newspaper dedicated to Polish American heritage, was inducted into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame at a ceremony last November. Mark Kohan was recognized for his work as the leader of the Steel City Brass, one of western New York's most prominent polka bands. The Polish American weekly "Straz" stated that he is, "highly regarded within American Polonia for his expertise on not only the polka, its history and derivations, but also as a Polish and Polish- American historian." His band has released five LPs and specializes in music for Polish-American functions. In addition, Kohan was project coordinator for several New York State Council on the Arts' recording projects including "Polkas for children" and "A Kolberg Sampler."

Madeleine Forte: Photo by Allen Forte.

Forte's Chopin recording, on an Erard Piano from 1881, at the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, was issued on Romeo Records 7214 and is available from Qualiton Imports, Ltd., fax: 718-729-3239, email: qualiton@qualiton.com. The recording includes Ballade No. 4, Etude Op. 25/6, Etude, Op. 10/5; Nocturne, Op. 15/1, Nocturne, Op. 55, 2; Barcarolle, Op. 60; Preludes Op. 28, nos 13-18; Prelude, Op. 45; Mazurkas Op. 17, nos 2-3; and Polonaise, Op. 53. The pianist considers Chopin's music to be crucial to French musical culture, because of its wide-ranging and long-lasting influence on French composers, including Ravel, Fauré and Debussy.

Forte's previous Chopin recordings received rave reviews from the New Yorker, Clavier, American Record Guide and Fanfare. She was praised for "gorgeous tone and sensuous line" and her Chopin interpretations were considered "elegant" (New Yorker), "outstanding" (Clavier), "generous and polished (Turok's Choice), reminding listeners of Artur Rubinstein (ARG). Fanfare called her performances "nuanced, controlled, and unaffected . . . with a full bodied tone, with great power and even majesty." Her previous recording of Bartok, Barber, Liszt and Beethoven was highly praised in Fanfare for her "Exceptional control of textures" "remarkable transparency" and "unique personal style." According to Fanfare, she is "a notable colorist, fully alert to the shadings of the music and (an even more rare skill) able to trace out the mood swings of the program. . . even at its peaks of high romantic intensity, the playing remains refreshingly direct." For more information on Forte, please visit her web page at www.madeleineforte.com.

Her love of Chopin's music translated into her teaching and selection of Polish students for her class. Two notable young pianists recently started their professional careers and we'd like to introduce these pianists to our readers.

• Pianist Anna Kijanowska has distinguished herself internationally as a recitalist, chamber player and concerto soloist. Appearances this year have included a recital at the Szymanowski Museum in her native Poland, concertos with the Kiev and Czernigov Philharmonic Orchestra in Ukraine, and several solo recitals in the New York Metropolitan area. She has received numerous prizes, including First Prize in the MTNA Northern Division Competition, and scholarships, from the Kosciuszko Foundation and the Manhattan School of Music among others, in recognition of her skill.
  Ms. Kijanowska began her musical education in Poland at the age of seven, and gave her first recital the following year. After receiving her Master of Music Degree in Piano Performance and Piano Pedagogy from the Wroclaw Music Academy, Ms. Kijanowska was invited by Dr. Madeleine Hsu (Forte) to the United States. She holds a Doctorate and Master of Music degree in Piano Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied under the tutelage of Byron Janis and Mykola Suk.

• In 1997, Mrs. Anna Rutkowska-Schock was awarded a scholarship to attend Boise State University by Dr. Madeleine Hsu Forte, and studied for a Bachelor's degree under Dr. Hsu. She also studied at Boise State under Dr. James Cook. During her studies at Boise State she won the Concerto Aria Competition, and after just one and a half years, received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Piano Performance. At present, she gives solo and chamber recitals and regularly works as an accompanist for the K. Lipinski Academy of Music in Wroclaw.
  In June 2001, Mrs. Rutkowska-Schock graduated with a Master of Arts degree with honors from the K. Lipinski Academy of Music in Wroclaw, Poland. In 2002-03, she also received awards for Best Accompanist from 2 national vocal competitions in Poland. She was invited to accompany singers and instrumentalist during the IBLA International Music Competition in Sicily in 2003 and was awarded the Best Accompanist award with special mention for her performance of C. Franck's Sonata for Violin and Piano. As the recipient of this award, she has been invited to take part in an international concert tour which is crowned by performances at New York University and Carnegie Recital Hall at the beginning of 2004.

The Seattle Chamber Players is proud to announce Icebreaker II: Baltic Voices — a three-day international festival and conference of contemporary music from the countries that surround the Baltic Sea: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Sweden. The festival will take place from February 13-15, 2004, at Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle.

Czesław Niemen, née Wydrzycki, was born in 1939. Niemen was a popular singer, composer, instrumentalist and sculpture. His most famous songs were: Pod papugami [Beneath the parrots], Czy mnie jeszcze pamiętasz [Do you still remember me], Dziwny jest ten świat [This world is strange] and Sen o Warszawie [Dream about Warsaw].

					PADEREWSKI AND CHANT D'AMOUR

An Essay for Valentine's Day by Maja Trochimczyk

The phenomenon of the "immortal Paderewski" surrounded by the adulation of crowds of his female listeners emerged during the young pianist's first British tours in 1890. In May and June that year Paderewski gave his first London concerts; he also sat for a series of portraits, including two by the most important members of British pre-Raphaelite and Aestheticism movements, Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912). The 1890 silver-point drawing by Burne-Jones resembled a profile photograph of Paderewski used for promotion during his concert tours at that time. The drawing repeatedly appeared in Paderewski's promotional literature including numerous magazine covers, such as the cover of The Etude magazine from 1915 reproduced below. (Paderewski was 55 at that time, and certainly did not look like a blushing youth as depicted here).

By 1895, the Paderewski recital assumed its final form, unchanged through the remainder of the composer's career. A lone spotlight highlighted the golden hair of the pianist at the center of the stage. The concert hall was shrouded in darkness and emptied of sensory stimuli other than Paderewski's piano, heard in hushed silence. It is interesting to note that a report from Paderewski's 1895 concerts in Paris mentions the "brilliance of electric light" as a characteristic trait of his recital there. In contemporaneous America, this brilliance gave way to a mysterious darkness. Furthermore, Paderewski enjoyed performing for audiences whose love for the music and concentration on his artistry was palpable through their silence. In his Memoirs he twice mentioned giving recitals in the home of a certain Mrs. Bliss of Santa Barbara, whose "love and appreciation of music were very rare. To play in her house was an experience unlike anything else I found — it was like celebrating a Mass. The atmosphere of silence was like that of a temple. It was beautiful and inspiring."

The pianist, a lone focal point for his listeners, also revealed his "playful" side by capricious changes of the program depending on his mood, by arriving late, or by interrupting performances in response to the slightest disturbances in the concert hall. He overwhelmed and exhausted his audiences by mammoth programs of twelve to seventeen pieces, up to three hours of music, including as many as five to seven encores. He did not allow anyone to come in or leave the hall while he was playing in order to maintain his focus and preserve the "sacred" atmosphere that transformed his performances into artistic rituals. Praised for his personal charisma, Paderewski knew how to direct his emotional energy towards those who seemed indifferent and distracted at first. Of course, there were few and far between absent-minded listeners at his recitals; his attendees were his faithful. The pianist offered the following description of his audiences in The Paderewski Memoirs (p. 277):

I think that an audience is like a colossal collective individual, and primitive to the excess. It is never guided by reasoning, but always by intuition, by feeling and instinct. Audiences, no matter how large (the larger the more so), feel just like a collective personality; they always feel whether the one to whom they show their sentiment loves them or not. I have always loved them, and I love them still — the thousands I have played for through the long years.

Paderewski's selection of his repertoire contributed to the creation of his beautified image as a timeless messenger of love. His choice of love-themed compositions also served this purpose. Paderewski selected such sentimental music to please his female audiences, with the unexpected result of being censured by the male music critics who expressed impatience with his tendency to engage in "crowd-pleasing" sentimentality. His concert repertoire featured a variety of small "romantic" forms, especially transcriptions of seminal excerpts from Wagner's apotheosis of eternal love, Tristan und Isolde — the Prelude (transcribed by Paderewski's student, Ernest Schelling) and Isolde's Liebestod (arranged by Liszt). When heard now, due to the dearth of better recordings, these staples of overwrought romanticism sound quite horrid, indeed. Yet, with the flowing melodies, passionate themes of ecstasy and eternal love-to-death, and ambiguous sequences of unsolved dissonances, these works are suffused with love symbolism and we may only imagine the impact they had on the female listeners.

Women crowded his concerts, eager for a glimpse of Paderewski's "immortal beauty." The New York Daily Tribune noted that at the final concert of his first American tour, held at Carnegie Hall on March 26, 1892, "the cult of Paderewski" reached a new stage: "It became a crazied fashion, not responding either to reason, to common sense, nor to the sense of Justice." The New York Times reported from the Carnegie Hall recital of 9 November 1895 that "women were turned towards him in positions of such zealous devotion that it could be assumed that fanatics listen to a sermon of a prophet of a new religion." The Paderewski cult or "craze" continued, practically undiminished, until World War I. In November 1907, Olin Downes (1886-1955), the music critic of The New York Times thus described a Paderewski recital held on November 6, with a program including Paderewski, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and Zygmunt Stojowski's Chant d'amour:

A Paderewski recital — seance might be a better word — is an occasion that requires no signboard to identify. The crowded stage, the roped-in piano, the scurrying ushers, the excited twittering of the ladies, the matinee miss and her confidential friend, the whole rows of female colleges — for is not the mighty one meat and drink and bon-bons to them? — and finally, on the pianist's appearance, that species of hushed applause that voices the general spirit of reverential suspense and expectation — all these things combine to impart an atmosphere of rare novelty peculiar to the occasion. It might well be asked "Why this?" in these days of the Liszt rhapsody, of tiddling Chopinzees, of piano poets, prophets, and pedants, in short, in an age which provides every variety of knight of the keyboard. There is one explanation, and only one. It lies in the recognition of that subtle, elusive, indescribable essence that for want of a better term is usually called "personality." That vital spark that made possible a Paganini and a Liszt, that has enabled this Pole to enthrall and subjugate his audiences until whatever he does, they cry "Ave imperator!"

Other aspects of Paderewski's skill as a performer come to the fore in an account written several years later by a female listener, Nellie Cameron Bates, who described herself as a "country girl" and attended a recital by Paderewski in 1914. The report comes from a later phase in Paderewski's tours, just prior to the outbreak of World War I, but reflects the subjective response of one member of his female audience that typifies the Paderewski cult begun twenty years earlier.

There was music to see as well as hear! Oh! the poetry and grace of the swiftly flying supple hands and the ever-moving feet! Sometimes his arms were lifted as high as his head; sometimes they glided on the surface of the keys like foam on the waves, but always with absolute ease and precision. And the music! You soon forgot to note the amazing technic, the endless variety of tone quality, the kaleidoscopic change of effects. You felt only that a great soul was speaking to you and drawing you close to the heart of life. He was opening God's great book of human life for you and letting you read the pathos, the grandeur, the terror, the hope, the joy, the love which lie deep in the heart of this life of ours. You heard that song which has pulsed for so many years — old, old as the world and yet, forever new.

The words of Nellie Cameron Bates echo some sentiments from Paderewski reviews, emphasizing the emotional fulfillment and spiritual illumination awaiting the devoted listeners at their Master's recitals. Bates wrote in first person, describing the music, heard in a public recital as communicating intimately and directly with her inner self. This immediacy of an individual experience suspended the awareness of the external world and transformed attending a piano recital into a quasi-religious occasion. Bates's description of her state of mind during the concert (and the preceding narrative of traveling to this concert as if it were a pilgrimage) is a document of a Paderewski cult that had spawned forms of cultural expression virtually unchanged since its inception in 1891 until World War I. She may be considered an exemplar of a cultural phenomenon — young female fans of his music and artistry — dubbed by the press the "Paderewski girl." Their enthusiasm for the handsome pianist took many unusual forms (attacking him with scissors to clip his hair, stalking him, crowding around him after concerts, demanding never-ending encores, etc.).

The listeners' frenzy sometimes put the object of all this devotion in danger. The Polish periodical Scena i Sztuka [Stage and Art] reported in April 1908 that after Paderewski's recital in San Francisco on 1 March 1908, the virtuoso was virtually mobbed by his female admirers:

During the concert in San Francisco, Paderewski was so ardently admired by his audience, that ladies and misses filled with delight threw themselves upon the artist to congratulate him and shake his hand. In the crowd, Paderewski lost his breath and nearly fainted. He was liberated with the greatest difficulty. After being taken to the hotel, he suffered a nervous breakdown, following which he had to rest for several days.

An ultra-romantic addition to Paderewski's repertoire, Zygmunt Stojowski's Chant d'amour, may have served as an important stimulus for this frenzy of enthusiasm. The San Francisco program included also works by Paderewski (Variations and Fugue in E-flat minor), Beethoven (Sonata in E-flat major Op. 27 No. 1), and Chopin (Two Nocturnes Op. 15; the whole Op. 10 of his Etudes, and Scherzo in B-flat minor Op. 31). Three arrangements of Schubert's songs by Liszt complemented the concert that ended, as most Paderewski recitals, with the "tonal typhoons" of one of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies (this time no. 13). The scope of the program and its sheer size could make one swoon and faint; no wonder that mass hysteria of female listeners occurred at this, and many other concerts given by Paderewski.

Zygmunt Stojowski, ca. 1910.

The author of Chant d'amour, Op. 26, No. 3, Zygmunt Stojowski (1870-1946), was Paderewski's friend and associate: a fellow Pole and an immigrant to America (see the biography by Joseph Herter in Polish Music Journal 5, no. 2). Chant d'amour, first published in Europe in 1903 (in America in 1907), appeared on Paderewski's concert programs between 1899 and 1931 and was publicly heard over eighty times between its premiere on 2 May 1899 at the Erard Hall in Paris and its final performances during the 1931 American tour. The work was one of the featured compositions for Paderewski's 1907-08 American concerts. Its polished tranquility and dreamlike sweetness of emotion destined this miniature to become one of the musical symbols of the artist who was greeted by his female public as a living embodiment of Love, Art and Beauty. Paderewski recorded Chant d'amour on 11 December 1926 on Victor 6633.

The intended amorous content of Chant d'amour is indicated by the work's cover of the 1908 Schirmer edition, featuring a stylized image of a loving couple surrounded by music in a 18th-century pastoral landscape. In 1907, after its New York premiere Olin Downes described Chant d'amour as merely "a pleasant parlor piece with harmonic reminiscences of Chopin's E-minor Prelude." However, its "singing" tone, sequentially ascending melody, and a variety of expressive and narrative symbols, place this composition in entirely different company, that is the "love-themed" music found in Paderewski's repertoire. The work features such staple gestures of romantic music as flowing melodic lines and appoggiaturas, tension-inducing sequences, and tranquil, repeated accompaniment figures.

The "love-duet" characteristics of the Chant d'amour were first noticed by the music critic Henry E. Krehbiel. He described Chant d'amour in his "Analytical Notes on Mr. Paderewski's Programmes" (reprinted in Polish Music Journal 4, no. 2, 2001) prepared for the pianist's American tour of 1907 in the following way:

The piece is in the key of G-flat, and is marked by a formal feature of an original nature: The principal melody dies away in a cadenza in D-flat which leads to a middle part of a duet-like character, which, after working itself up to an impassioned climax, gives way to a return of the first theme by means of the same cadenza, this time in G-flat.

Paderewski's recording of Chant d'amour, besides the usual flexibility of rhythm and exaggerated rubato (as well as much faster tempo than could be expected from the marking of Andante), features one textural change. The final two tonic triads in G-flat are shifted an octave higher. Thus, instead of a definite closure with morendo tranquility, the Chant d'amour ascends into the silence. The singing tone quality, so important in establishing the "narrativity" of Chant d'amour, was one of the main characteristics of Paderewski's piano technique. Throughout his career, starting from the earliest concerts in Buffalo in 1892, reviewers emphasized his "singing tone." On 18 February 1982, the Milwaukee Sentinel wrote that "his use of pedals is free and continuous; it creates marvelous effects. With their assistance he sings at the piano..." Paderewski often emphasized the significance of pedaling in the accomplishment of the singing tone quality; his remarks on this subject appear, for instance, in The Paderewski Memoirs (p. 329) where he states:

The pedal is the strongest factor in musical expression at the piano, because first of all it is the only means of prolonging the sound. The piano is a percussion instrument, you know, and the only way of making it appear prolonged is the pedal... Whenever learning a new piece, one must learn also the proper effect of the pedaling. Each new piece requires a new pedaling, adaptable to the character of the music.

It would be easy to ascribe the presence of Stojowski's Chant d'amour in Paderewski's repertoire to a gesture of collegiality: according to Stojowski's biographer Joseph A. Herter (see Polish Music Journal, vol. 5, no. 2, 2002), Paderewski generously introduced his younger colleague to American audiences in order to help him establish himself as a professional music teacher, composer, and concert pianist. This purpose, though, could be served by any other work from Stojowski's profuse output of solo piano pieces, not necessarily by the Song of Love. By adding this work to the repertoire in 1907, Paderewski stimulated the cult of his artistic persona as the "archangel" with golden hair and a sweet message of ecstatic fulfillment in pure emotion. He could have replaced it with his own composition of the same title, Chant d'amour from Op. 10 no. 2 (published in the U.S. in 1904 by G. Schirmer, New York). However, this work did not frequently appear in Paderewski's concert repertoire. It is easy to observe that the formal model for Songs of Love by Paderewski and Stojowski was the genre of the nocturne. The outer sections of the ABA' form in the Paderewski piece are to be played lento con sentimento while the middle one, where the feelings stirred and the texture thickened into parallel octaves and chords is marked animato ed appassionato.

A toned-down version of Stojowski's three-partite sentimental gem (actually, being composed earlier, it provided the model for Stojowski's more sophisticated and virtuosic composition), Paderewski's Chant d'amour is a lesson in the use of the pedal to accomplish a singing quality. The long-lasting resonance of the piano with the pedal may be linked to the "inwardness" of emotional experience and a contemplative mood associated with the fantasy of perfect love. Yet, the miniature is not accomplished or refined enough to be presented in public. Thanks to this publication, Paderewski's admirers had an accessible "take-home" version of the Songs of Love and Death that transported them into heavenly realms of delight during his concerts. For the more accomplished amateurs, Stojowski's Chant d'amour was available in a variety of editions; by playing the "Song of Love" at home, Paderewski's admirers could indulge in their fascination.

NOTE: This article contains material from a research paper Dr. Trochimczyk presented at the annual meetings of the American Musicological Society (2002) and Society for American Music (2003), "How Paderewski Plays: Chant d'amour and the Aestheticism of America's Gilded Age." In this abridged version of the material, notes to various sources have been omitted.