Maria Agata Szymanowska

Maria Agata Szymanowska, née Wołowska, was a Polish pianist and composer who divided her career between Warsaw, the major capitals of Europe and St Petersburg. She was born in Warsaw on 14 December 1789 and died in St Petersburg on 25 July 1831. Her significance lies in the fact that she represents the composer-virtuoso of the first half of the nineteenth century, and that her piano music anticipates features which Chopin would later develop.

She was trained in Warsaw by Antoni Lisowski and T. Gremm between 1798 and 1804. She made her debut in her native city in 1810 and that same year travelled to Paris, where she probably performed at private salons. From 1815 she devoted herself professionally to the piano. Between 1822 and 1823 she toured numerous cities in the Russian territories, among them Moscow, Kiev and Riga, and above all St Petersburg, where she performed at the imperial court and was granted the title of first pianist. There she also met Hummel and played with him in a concert. Between 1823 and 1826 she undertook a tour of Western Europe that took her to Germany, France, England, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands. In London she performed before the Royal Philharmonic Society and at Hanover Square, in the presence of members of the royal family, as well as at private houses of the nobility. She shared the stage with leading musicians of the day, such as Pierre Baillot and Giuditta Pasta. After returning to Poland, she went back to Russia in 1827 and settled permanently in St Petersburg in March 1828. There she gave concerts, taught music and kept a salon frequented by the city's artistic and social elite. Her acquaintances included Goethe, with whom she stayed in Weimar, Cherubini and Rossini.

Her output amounts to roughly one hundred pieces, mostly miniatures for piano of simple and symmetrical structure, usually in the form of a rondo or a lied. Her works embody the brilliant style of the period before Chopin. She was the first to introduce the piano study and the nocturne to Poland, and in the development of the nocturne she may be regarded as a link between Field and Chopin, especially in her Nocturno en si, written after the works Chopin could have known. Her Vingt exercices et préludes contain textural devices that Chopin would later develop; the ending of his étude in A minor, op. 25 no. 1, clearly recalls Szymanowska's étude no. 18 in E. Her 24 mazurkas are based on elements of popular music and combine features of functional music with those of art music. She was, moreover, the first Polish woman composer to explore the vocal ballad. Her legacy places her name among the precursors of Polish Romantic music.