Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831): A Bio-Bibliography (review)

Polish pianist-composer Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831) is one of the most fascinating figures of the early-nineteenth-century musical scene. She was one of the earliest international performing artists of the time, influential as a performer and composer, and, perhaps most incredibly, she advanced her career despite being a divorced woman with three young children. Respected by the foremost musicians of her day (including Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Gioacchino Rossini, and Luigi Cherubini), admired by aristocracy, she was also a muse of the great romantic poets Johan Wolfgang Goethe and Adam Mickiewicz.

Szymanowska scholarship in Polish and Russian is rather extensive, with major biographies on the composer already a half century old (in Russian by Igor Belza, Mariia Shimanovskaia [Moscow: Izdvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1956]; in Polish by Teofil Syga and Stanislaw Szenic, Maria Szymanowska i jej czasy [Warsaw: Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1960]). The same cannot be said about Anglo-American musicology, where interest in the Polish virtuosa began only in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Only recently, in 2006, has an English biography of the composer appeared: Maria Szymanowska: Pianist and Composer by Slawomir Dobrzanski (Los Angeles, CA: Polish Music Center at USC: Figuero Press, 2006). Anna Kijas's biobibliography is thus an important new research tool for scholars of Szymanowska, providing an indispensable up-to-date guide for anyone interested in investigating the sources related to her, including her compositions and correspondence.

Unlike Dobrzanski's work, Kijas's book is not an attempt at a comprehensive biography of the artist. Her approach also differs from what we see in Polish studies, which often consider Szymanowska in relation to other great Polish composers including Chopin, Elsner, and Oginski. Instead, in the 128-page biography section the author focuses on two specific areas of Szymanowska's professional life: the daily aspects of her grand tours in the 1820s and the last three years of her life (1828-31) spent in Russia. The treatment of touring is particularly illuminating. Engaged in such trivia as transportation, lodging, and finances, it offers valuable insight into the day-to-day aspects of the careers of nineteenth century performers. Kijas discusses not only the repertoire, ticket prices, and critical reception of Szymanowska's concerts, but also more broadly considers the crucial role patrons and musicians' networks played in a performer's life.

Kijas brings sources to her work that were unavailable at the time of the classic Polish and Russian biographies, or earlier American studies. The rediscovered diary of Szymanowska's daughter Helena, considered lost until the 1980s (published as Helena Malewska, Dziennik: 1827-1857, ed. Zbigniew Sudolski [Warsaw: Ancher, 1999]), as well as Kijas's own recent discovery of Helena's correspondence with Eliza Middleton (a daughter of Henry Middleton, American Ambassador to Russia), shed light on the period between Szymanowska's leaving Warsaw and her premature death from cholera in St. Petersburg in the summer of 1831. The letters, comprising the time period 1830-46 and located at the Historical Society in Charleston, South Carolina, "include passages written by Maria Szymanowska, Celina Szymanowska, and other members of their circle" (p. 126). These newly discovered sources are able to offer us, as Kijas writes, "a vivid portrayal of Szymanowska's life as a performer, composer, teacher, and mother as viewed and experienced by her daughter Helena" (p. 112).

The engrossing chapter on Szymanowska as concert pianist (which includes a table with her concert repertoire) is preceded by a short presentation of her musical background, education, and life prior to her international concert tours. The chapter on her concert tours (1822-28), based on the artist's letters and newspaper reviews, gives detailed accounts of the individual stages of her professional journeys throughout Europe. A brief review of Szymanowska as composer is followed by an important discussion on her last years in Russia, focused on musical activities of her household, including concerts, piano lessons, and musical evenings called tableaux vivants...