A Polish family in music - Prince Michal Kleofas Oginski's musical gene lives on

Contemporary Review, Feb, 1997 by Iwo Zaluski

In the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, in south eastern Poland, stands the spa village of Iwonicz, the estate of the Zaluski family until its confiscation by the Communists in 1948. Its centre, among the prettiest anywhere in eastern Europe, is a masterpiece of 19th century timber architecture. The spa was established in the 1830s in what was then Austrian Galicia by Count Karol Zaluski and his wife, Amelia, the daughter of Prince Michal Kleofas Oginski, who was born in Guzow, near Warsaw, in 1765. He was a pianist, violinist - taught by Viotti - and composer. Today he is remembered in Poland for his polonaises. Chopin's first published composition, the Polonaise in G Minor, written in Warsaw when he was seven, shows Oginski's influence on the young boy's early development. It bears little resemblance to the vast, dramatic tone poems of Chopin's later treatment of the form. Oginski's most famous example is the melancholy Polonaise in A Minor, entitled Farewell to the Fatherland. Today it is played by every pianist, orchestra, street busker and dance band in the country.

Oginski's mainline career as a diplomat initially included collaboration with Napoleon in creating the Duchy of Warsaw, which he saw as a stepping stone to eventual full Polish independence. His only opera, Zelis et Valcour, about Napoleon in Cairo, was dedicated to the Emperor. After the final defeat of Napoleon, Oginski settled in Florence, where he died in 1833. The Polish State Music Publishing House had just published a volume of his complete piano works, after a lull during which it was difficult to find copies of anything of his other than Farewell to the Fatherland.

The Oginski music gene was passed down to the princess, his daughter Amelia Zaluski, herself a pianist and composer. With the exception of one manuscript, a sketchy piano piece entitled Souvenir, her compositions are now lost. It is impossible to assess her value as a composer on this one remnant, reminiscent of Beethoven at his most average. It was probably knocked up for her children to play. Her output, which is documented, is said to have included polonaises for piano duet, which she played with her children, a set of waltzes entitled Echoes of Iwonicz, and some songs. At Iwonicz she established a tradition of family music making, which continues to this day. She ensured that her father's works, as well as those of Chopin, Beethoven and Mozart, were regularly heard at concerts and soirees in and around Iwonicz.

Karol and Amelia Zaluski had nine surviving children, all of whom received a musical education at home. Michal, the eldest, inherited and developed Iwonicz very successfully as a stylish and romantic health resort for the remainder of the century. He was responsible for most of the timber villas that make up the centre of the town today. The Oginski music gene bypassed Michal, but of his siblings, there were three inheritors. His younger brother, Karol Bernard, represented the second generation of the music makers of Iwonicz - and the world. He was the Austrian Imperial Ambassador to Sweden, Egypt, Turkey, Siam, Persia and Japan. As a brilliant pianist, polyglot, explorer and cultured socialite, he was seen and heard at all the best salons of Europe, as well as the most exotic courts of Asia and Africa. He counted Liszt and Mikuli among his musical acquaintances. His repertoire was considerable, and his performances invariably included compositions of his own. At the turn of the century, Karol Bernard Zaluski retired to Iwonicz, where he devoted his time to writing his memoirs and editing his compositions for publication by K. Wild of Lvov and Otto Maas (now taken over by Haslinger) of Vienna. He died in 1919, in time to witness Paderewski's role in the germination of a free Poland.

In 1992 I discovered 'great grand-uncle' Karol Bernard's music at Ladzin Manor, home of my cousin Antoni Bojanowski, near Iwonicz. The yellowing sheet music consisted of three Mazurkas, two Nocturnes, in A minor and E flat, and a Funeral March. I took photocopies home, and set about the task of 're-discovering' great grand-uncle's compositions. The Mazurkas owe a debt to Chopin, although there is a balletic feel to them, and I could not help hearing a symphony orchestra in the writing. The folk idiom, so strong in Chopin, had been stylised in the manner of Delibes and Rozycki, with only a passing hint of 'Sylphides' Chopin. The chromaticism, too, looked to Faure and Szymanowski. Of the two Nocturnes, the E flat is unashamedly and gorgeously Chopinesque, whereas the A minor hints at Faure, and contains sentimental Christmas carol phrases in amongst the sparse but sweet and sour impressionistic harmonies. This is a very elusive and ethereal work, in which familiarity breeds rich rewards. The brooding Funeral March, in F minor, recalls the opening of Chopin's Fantasia in the same key. It contains two trio sections, a lighter, sparsely harmonised melody in D flat, and a Nocturne-like breath of fresh air in A flat, before returning to the lugubrious F minor and a fading coda. There were also three series of piano arrangements, designed for easy 'home' use, of ethnic material that Karol Bernard had collected during his extensive travels on and off the beaten tracks of the then known world.