About
Józef Nowakowski – pianist and composer, born on September 16, 1800, in the village Koryciska (vicinity of Radom). He came from a family of modest means. Józef owed his upbringing and education to his godfather, Jan Skibiński, who was reportedly his mother’s brother (Nowakowski called him “uncle”) and chapel master of the musical ensemble at the Cistercians’ in Wąchock. He obtained a general education in their sectional (high) school and studied singing, playing on the piano, violin, French horn, trombone, and other instruments, which proved very useful in his later compositional work. In the years 1821–26, he studied at the Warsaw Conservatory under the direction of Józef Elsner and Wilhelm Würfl. He also made close relations with Chopin. Frédéric’s second public concert in Warsaw (March 22, 1830) included a performance of Nowakowski’s Second Symphony, a work composed during his studies with Józef Elsner.
Józef Nowakowski
Józef Nowakowski – pianist and composer, born on September 16, 1800, in the village Koryciska (vicinity of Radom). He came from a family of modest means. Józef owed his upbringing and education to his godfather, Jan Skibiński, who was reportedly his mother’s brother (Nowakowski called him “uncle”) and chapel master of the musical ensemble at the Cistercians’ in Wąchock. He obtained a general education in their sectional (high) school and studied singing, playing on the piano, violin, French horn, trombone, and other instruments, which proved very useful in his later compositional work. In the years 1821–26, he studied at the Warsaw Conservatory under the direction of Józef Elsner and Wilhelm Würfl. He also made close relations with Chopin. Frédéric’s second public concert in Warsaw (March 22, 1830) included a performance of Nowakowski’s Second Symphony, a work composed during his studies with Józef Elsner.
In 1833, he went on a concert tour in Germany, Italy, and France. In 1836, together with Chopin, he paid a visit to Schumann in Leipzig. He also traveled to Paris several times (in 1838, 1841, 1846, and 1847). Nowakowski maintained friendly relations with Chopin. During a visit to Paris in 1846–47, he sought to publish his own 12 Ėtudes pour le piano op. 25 dedicated to Chopin, in which he was supported by his compatriot. The collection eventually appeared by the imprint of Kistner in Leipzig. Despite episodic artistic travel, he spent most of his life in Warsaw. There, he wrote his best-regarded mature work: the Piano Quintet in E flat major op. 17 (c. 1841), scored for piano, violin, cello, and double bass, published by Kistner in Leipzig.
It is a challenge today to evaluate Nowakowski’s output. Much of his work, including the symphonies, Clarinet Concerto, Thema und Variationen for piano and orchestra, and chamber works: Piano Quintet op. 10, the String Quintet, Piano Trio, and Duo for Violin and Piano, have not survived.
Nowakowski’s heritage includes larger piano works, including ballads, barcarolles, rondos, and polonaises, in which he sought to approach a more liberated, multi-sectional form recalling the mode of virtuosic rhapsody. He moreover authored many mood-oriented and dance miniatures, including shorter polonaises, mazurs, mazurkas, waltzes, contr’danses, cotillions, polkas, and less frequently, rondos (e.g. the one from 1827 dedicated to Elsner, published by Brzezina), nocturnes (e.g. Chant d’Amour op. 33), an impromptu, elegie, variations (with two books published in Leipzig), and marches (e.g. the funeral march Crown of Thorns op. 60 from 1861, often reprinted). Nowakowski also wrote romances for piano, and combined dances into quasi-cycles. He was a master of transcription and all types of related settings.
Another large part of his output are songs. In the history of Polish solo song, two of Nowakowski’s collections have significance. The first is titled Twelve Polish Songs to Piano Accompaniment op. 31, published by Stanisław Strąbski in 1849 (after Nowakowski’s death reprinted by Józef Kaufmann in the 1860s and Rudolf Friedlein in the 1880s). The second collection, Seven Polish Songs op. 50 was published in 1860 by Gebethner i Wolff.
In his late years, Nowakowski readily engaged in the organization of cultural life in the capital. In 1857, he made close relations with the valued critic Józef Sikorski and a group of other musicians meritorous for Warsaw, and together founded the weekly Musical Movement (Ruch Muzyczny). In parallel, he participated in the operations of a social committee whose aim was to resuscitate in Warsaw a music school of genuine dimensions. In 1861, when Warsaw’s Musical Institute was eventually founded, Nowakowski became its board memeber and professor of a piano class. He was a very engaged pedagogue, and authored the School for Piano (1847), popular in the nineteenth century and based on the method of François Hünten.
In his last years, Józef Nowakowski fell to serious illness and was paralyzed. He died on August 27, 1865, and was buried at Warsaw’s historic Powązki Cemetery.