Maria Szymanowska ‒ Nocturne in B flat Major

Maria Szymanowska (1789 - 1831), Nocturne in B flat Major Performed by Roberto Piana Maria Szymanowska was born Marianna Agata Wołowska in Warsaw on December 14, 1789 to a Jewish Frankist family. She was a Polish composer and one of the first professional virtuoso pianists of the 19th century. She toured throughout Europe, before settling permanently in St. Petersburg and continued to compose for the Court, gave concerts, taught music. Her compositions were largely piano pieces, songs, and other small chamber works. In addition were also the first piano concert etudes and nocturnes in the brilliant style reminiscent of the era before Chopin. Her performances were widely acclaimed by audiences and critics everywhere. She garnered a reputation for having a delicate tone and lyrical sense of virtuosity. She was one of the first professional piano virtuosos in 19th-century Europe. After years of touring, she returned to Warsaw and remained for some time before relocating in early 1828 to St. Petersburg, where she was appointed court pianist to the tsarina. Her work is categorized as part of the pre-romantic period of Polish Sentimentalism. Like other women composers of her era, she wrote music largely for the instrumentation she had access to, such as solo piano pieces and miniatures, songs, and some chamber works. Sławomir Dobrzański describes her playing and its historical significance as follows: “Her Etudes and Preludes show innovative keyboard writing; the Nocturne in B flat is her most mature piano composition; Szymanowska’s Mazurkas represent one of the first attempts at stylization of the dance; Fantasy and Caprice contain an impressive vocabulary of pianistic technique; her polonaises follow the tradition of polonaise-writing created by Michal Kleofas Ogiński. Szymanowska’s musical style is parallel to the compositional starting point of Frederic Chopin; many of her compositions had an obvious impact on Chopin’s mature musical language.“ Although scholars have debated the extent of her influence on her compatriot Chopin, her career as a pianist and composer strikingly foreshadows his own as well as the broader trend in 19th-century Europe.