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Madame Szymanowska and Goethe – a burning love?

On her tour of Europe, which began in June 1823 and which also took her to Carlsbad in Bohemia, the Polish pianist Maria Szymanowska was looking to make contact with the German poet and Weimar minister Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who was taking the waters in nearby Marienbad. At this point, the ageing Goethe was confronted with the ruins of his love for the young Ulrike von Levetzow. But Szymanowska, whom he met during a concert in Marienbad, introduced him to a new love: the love of music. He dedicated a famous poem to the pianist, in which he adjured “atonement” with his lost love through the power of music. When Szymanowska visited Weimar a few months later, Goethe’s deep admiration and affection for the Polish musician grew deeper, a fact which did not escape his contemporaries. Szymanowska, who continued her tour of German towns, royal courts and the Prussian capital Berlin shortly afterwards, never met Goethe again.

Walenty Wańkowicz (1799-1842): Portrait of the pianist Maria Szymanowska, 1828. Oil on canvas, Bibliothèque polonaise de Paris/Biblioteka Polska w Paryżu
Walenty Wańkowicz (1799-1842): Portrait of the pianist Maria Szymanowska, 1828. Oil on canvas, Bibliothèque polonaise de Paris/Biblioteka Polska w Paryżu
©
Public Domain

Literature:

Doris Bischler: “Ein weiblicher Hummel mit der leichten polnischen Fazilität”. Konzertreisen und kompositorisches Werk der Klaviervirtuosin Maria Agata Szymanowska (1789-1831), zugleich Dissertation Hochschule für Musik Würzburg, Berlin 2017

Maria Stolarzewicz: Goethe’s connections with Maria Szymanowska and her sister Kazimiera Wołowska. Several comments, in: Annales. Académie Polonaise des Sciences à Paris, Volume 16, Paris/Warsaw 2014, pages 115-124

Anna E. Kijas: Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831). A Bio-Bibliography, Lanham/Toronto/Plymouth 2010

Dagmar von Gersdorff: Goethes späte Liebe. Die Geschichte der Ulrike von Levetzow (Insel-Bücherei, 1265), Leipzig 2005

Anne Swartz: Goethe and Szymanowska. The years 1823–1824 in Marienbad and Weimar, in: Germano-Slavica. A Canadian journal of Germanic and Slavic comparative studies, Vol. 4, No. 6 (autumn), Waterloo, Ontario 1984, pages 321–330

Johannes Urzidil: Goethe in Böhmen (1932/1962), Zürich, Munich, third edition 1981

Józef Mirski: Maria Szymanowska 1789-1831. Album. Materiały biograficzne, sztambuchy, wybór kompozycji, Krakau 1953

Maria Iwanejko: Maria Szymanowska, Krakau 1959

Gustav Karpeles: Goethe in Polen. Ein Beitrag zur allgemeinen Literaturgeschichte, Berlin 1890

Gustav von Loeper: Zu Goethes Gedichten “Trilogie der Leidenschaft”, in: Goethe-Jahrbuch, published by Ludwig Geiger, Volume 8, Frankfurt am Main 1887, pages 165-186

 

Online:

Website of the Maria Szymanowska Society, Paris: http://www.maria-szymanowska.eu/index-de (multiple languages)

Jacqueline Leung: Maria Szymanowska – The Polish Pioneer, in: Revisiting History, Volume 5, spring 2017, on: Piano Performer Magazine (with music example), http://magazine.pianoperformers.org/revisiting-history-maria-szymanowska-the-polish-pioneer/

Maria Stolarzewicz: Goethe’s connections with Maria Szymanowska and her sister Kazimiera Wołowska. Several comments, 2014, http://www.maria-szymanowska.eu/pub/files/Maria_Stolarzewicz.pdf

Danuta Gwizdalanka: Maria Szymanowska, on: MUGi Musik und Gender im Internet (Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg), https://mugi.hfmt-hamburg.de/old/A_lexartikel/lexartikel.php%3Fid=szym1789.html

Jasmin Jablonski: Szymanowska, Maria (Europäische Instrumentalistinnen des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, 2011), on: Sophie Drinker Institut für musikwissenschaftliche Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung, https://www.sophie-drinker-institut.de/szymanowska-maria

Sylwia Zabieglińska: Maria Szymanowska 1789-1831 (English/Polish), on: Dziedzictwo Muzyki Polskiej, https://portalmuzykipolskiej.pl/en/osoba/6777-Maria-Szymanowska

(All links cited here and in the comments were last accessed in September 2021.)

Walenty Wańkowicz (1799-1842): Portrait of the pianist Maria Szymanowska, 1828. Oil on canvas, Bibliothèque polonaise de Paris/Biblioteka Polska w Paryżu
©
Public Domain
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  • Fig. 1: Szymanowska, 1816

    Zofia Woyno (ca. 1810-1830): Portrait of the pianist Maria Szymanowska, miniature, 1816. Gouache over pencil on paper, 14 x 10,4 cm, Inv. No. Min.628 MNW, National Museum in Warsaw/Muzeum Narodowe w W...

  • Fig. 2: Serenade for Anton Radziwiłł, 1819

    Marie Szymanowska: Serenade for piano and accompanying cello, composed for and dedicated to His Highness, Prince Anton Radziwiłł, Leipzig: Breitkopf and Härtel 1819, National Library of Warsaw/Bibliot...

  • Fig. 3: Marienbad, ca. 1815

    The “Kreuzbrunnen” in Marienbad, ca. 1815. From: Franz Satori, Oesterreichs Tibur, oder Natur- und Kunstgemählde aus dem oesterreichischen Kaiserthume, Vienna 1819, frontispiece, Austrian National Lib...

  • Fig. 4: Marienbad, ca. 1820

    View of Marienbad, ca. 1820. Copperplate engraving, 8 x 13 cm. Title page to: List of spa guests arriving in Marienbad in 1823, Eger 1823

  • Fig. 5: Marienbad, ca. 1820

    Ludwig Ernst von Buquoy (1783-1834): View of Marienbad, ca. 1820. Copperplate engraving, coloured, 28.5 x 44 cm, privately owned

  • Fig. 6: Goethe, 1823

    Orest Adamowitsch Kiprensky (1782-1836): Portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Marienbad 1823. Lithograph based on a pencil drawing

  • Fig. 7: Goethe, 1823/26

    Henri Grévedon (1776-1860): Portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Paris 1826. Based on a drawing by Orest Adamowitsch Kiprensky (1782-1836) from 1823, lithograph, Inv. No. his-Port-G-0077, The Unive...

  • Fig. 8: Goethe, 1828

    Joseph Karl Stieler (1781-1858): Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1828. Oil on canvas, 78 x 63.8 cm, Inv. No. WAF 1048, Bavarian State Painting Collections – Neue Pinakothek Munich

  • Fig. 9: Brösigke’sches Haus, um 1821

    Unknown: Brösigke’sches Haus (Palais Klebelsberg) in Marienbad, ca. 1821, coloured lithograph, 44.9 x 65.1 cm, Klassik Stiftung Weimar

  • Fig. 10: Ulrike von Levetzow, ca. 1821

    Unknown: Portrait of Theodore Ulrike Sophie von Levetzow, ca. 1821. Pastel, 43.4 x 33.5 cm, Klassik Stiftung Weimar

  • Fig. 11: Szymanowska, 1825

    Aleksander Kokular: Portrait of Maria Szymanowska/Portret Marii Szymanowskiej, 1825. Oil on canvas, Inv. No. K.839, Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza, Warsaw

  • PDF 1: List of the Marienbad spa guests, 1823
    List of the spa guests arriving in Marienbad in 1823, Eger 1823, Eger 1823 (cover page missing), Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar

  • PDF 2: Kurjer Warszawski, 1822
    Nowości Warszawskie. Kurjer Warszawski, No. 77, 31 March 1822, page 1, Biblioteka Jagiellońska w Krakowie

  • PDF 3: Kurjer Warszawski, 1823
    Nowości Warszawskie, in: Kurjer Warszawski, No. 183, 3 August 1823, page 1, column 2, Biblioteka Jagiellońska w Krakowie

  • PDF 4: Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 1824
    News. Leipzig, from Michael 1823 to March 1824, in: Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, No. 13, 25 March 1824, column 204, Münchner Digitalisierungs-Zentrum

  • PDF 5: Journal für Literatur, Kunst, Luxus und Mode, 1823
    Madam Szymanowska – zu Weimar. Journal für Literatur, Kunst, Luxus und Mode, Volume 38, No. 109, November 1823, pages 889-892, Klassik Stiftung Weimar

  • PDF 6: Kurjer Warszawski, 1824
    Nowości Warszawskie, in: Kurjer Warszawski, No. 14, 16 January 1824, page 1, column 1 f., Biblioteka Jagiellońska w Krakowie
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