DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.23229#0134
CHOPIN'S YEARS AT THE UNIVERSITY
128. Jan Feliks Piwarski, Portrait of Professor
Kazimierz Brodzinski, watercolour, ca. 1832,
private collection. Jelowicki, an older col-
league of Chopin, so wrote about Brodzinski:
"[He], then only a rising star, was quiet, se-
rene, affectionate, a soldier and a poet [...]
One went to a Brodzinski lecture as if to a fa-
miliar friend, and one always left with an af-
fectionate heart and a tear in the eye".
third, La zingara delle Asturie, played at La Scala. Neither were received
with great warmth, and in 1818 Giulia e Sesto Pompeo was quite a fiasco;
Soliva saw no future for his musical style and focused on a career as a
conductor and teacher. He continued composing sacred vocal works,
however, as well as orchestral, chamber and piano music.
In 1821 Soliva moved to Poland and became director of singing at the
Conservatory in Warsaw. There he married one of his students, Maria
Kralewska, whom Chopin mentioned in his letters55. He was the conduc-
tor for the first performance of Chopin's piano Concerto in E-minor on 11th
October 1830; next day the composer wrote to his friend Woyciechowski:
"Soliva conducted well and it made a great impression. Really, the Italian
has shown me so much kindness this time that it is difficult to thank him
enough"56. Another letter indicates that when Chopin was leaving Poland,
the Italian gave him some letters of recommendation, for instance to an Ital-
ian violinist named Rolla resident in Dresden57. In the turmoil which followed
the defeat of the November Uprising Soliva moved to St. Petersburg, from
1841 he lived in the Ticinese village of Semione in the Val di Blenio, and
subsequently he moved to Paris where he met Chopin again58. In 1851 he
became one of the members of the Academy of St. Cecilia in Rome.
Famous professors
of the Faculty of Sciences
and Fine Arts
—j—he Faculty of Sciences and Fine Arts could indeed be, as rector
Szweykowski put it in his report, "a foundation for all the academ-
ic professions" - not only because its curriculum was a compre-
hensive course in the humanities, but also because there were men
of outstanding quality among its professors. Some, such as Ludwik
Osihski (1775-1838), the lecturer in the Classics and Comparative Lit-
erature, were appreciated only by their contemporaries; for others, the
depth of their thought is still amazing today. One of the latter was Ka-
zimierz Brodzinski (fig. 128), the author of the treatise 0 klasycznosci i
romantycznosci tudziez o duchu poezji polskiej [On Classicism, Romanti-
cism and the Spirit of Polish Poetry] and Wiestaw, among many others59.
Osihski, the son-in-law of Wojciech Bogusfawski and director of the Na-
tional Theatre, an author of graceful odes and a literary critic, was ap-
pointed to the Chair of General and Comparative Literature in April 1818.
In 1821 he was appointed tenured professor, and in 1830 he became
the Dean of the Faculty. He lectured, among other topics, on Homer,
Sophocles, Aeschylus, Tasso, Ariosto and Shakespeare60. Contrary to the
opinion of some contemporary men of letters, who wrote that Osihski's
lectures "did not yield any positive effects"61, he profoundly influenced
numerous students, as well as the choice of topics taken up by the Uni-
versity's professors of the Department of Fine Arts and their pupils62; this
side of his activity will be discussed in the next chapter of this book.
140
128. Jan Feliks Piwarski, Portrait of Professor
Kazimierz Brodzinski, watercolour, ca. 1832,
private collection. Jelowicki, an older col-
league of Chopin, so wrote about Brodzinski:
"[He], then only a rising star, was quiet, se-
rene, affectionate, a soldier and a poet [...]
One went to a Brodzinski lecture as if to a fa-
miliar friend, and one always left with an af-
fectionate heart and a tear in the eye".
third, La zingara delle Asturie, played at La Scala. Neither were received
with great warmth, and in 1818 Giulia e Sesto Pompeo was quite a fiasco;
Soliva saw no future for his musical style and focused on a career as a
conductor and teacher. He continued composing sacred vocal works,
however, as well as orchestral, chamber and piano music.
In 1821 Soliva moved to Poland and became director of singing at the
Conservatory in Warsaw. There he married one of his students, Maria
Kralewska, whom Chopin mentioned in his letters55. He was the conduc-
tor for the first performance of Chopin's piano Concerto in E-minor on 11th
October 1830; next day the composer wrote to his friend Woyciechowski:
"Soliva conducted well and it made a great impression. Really, the Italian
has shown me so much kindness this time that it is difficult to thank him
enough"56. Another letter indicates that when Chopin was leaving Poland,
the Italian gave him some letters of recommendation, for instance to an Ital-
ian violinist named Rolla resident in Dresden57. In the turmoil which followed
the defeat of the November Uprising Soliva moved to St. Petersburg, from
1841 he lived in the Ticinese village of Semione in the Val di Blenio, and
subsequently he moved to Paris where he met Chopin again58. In 1851 he
became one of the members of the Academy of St. Cecilia in Rome.
Famous professors
of the Faculty of Sciences
and Fine Arts
—j—he Faculty of Sciences and Fine Arts could indeed be, as rector
Szweykowski put it in his report, "a foundation for all the academ-
ic professions" - not only because its curriculum was a compre-
hensive course in the humanities, but also because there were men
of outstanding quality among its professors. Some, such as Ludwik
Osihski (1775-1838), the lecturer in the Classics and Comparative Lit-
erature, were appreciated only by their contemporaries; for others, the
depth of their thought is still amazing today. One of the latter was Ka-
zimierz Brodzinski (fig. 128), the author of the treatise 0 klasycznosci i
romantycznosci tudziez o duchu poezji polskiej [On Classicism, Romanti-
cism and the Spirit of Polish Poetry] and Wiestaw, among many others59.
Osihski, the son-in-law of Wojciech Bogusfawski and director of the Na-
tional Theatre, an author of graceful odes and a literary critic, was ap-
pointed to the Chair of General and Comparative Literature in April 1818.
In 1821 he was appointed tenured professor, and in 1830 he became
the Dean of the Faculty. He lectured, among other topics, on Homer,
Sophocles, Aeschylus, Tasso, Ariosto and Shakespeare60. Contrary to the
opinion of some contemporary men of letters, who wrote that Osihski's
lectures "did not yield any positive effects"61, he profoundly influenced
numerous students, as well as the choice of topics taken up by the Uni-
versity's professors of the Department of Fine Arts and their pupils62; this
side of his activity will be discussed in the next chapter of this book.
140