Maria Gabrys-Heyke - J. Andrychowicz, Emilia Potocka, Jozefina Wejnert, Maria Szymanowska: Piano Works

This album presents piano compositions by Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831) and three students of Jozef Elsner (1769-1854): Miss Andrychowicz, whose name is unknown, Emilia Potocka and Jozefina Wejnert. This recording contributes to the restoration of the memory of forgotten works and marks the presence of women in the musical life of the first half of the 19th century.

Maria Gabrys-Heyke not only revives Polish piano music, but also gives it an authentic sound, performing it on a historical grand piano from the 1830 Krall & Seidler factory in Warsaw. Both Chopin's pupils and Maria Szymanowska could play and compose on pianos of this company, or those of Antoni Leszczynski's company before it, but she had already learned instruments from foreign manufacturers while giving concerts in Europe. [...]

The works presented on the album in the period of early Romanticism met the demand for a new, easy but valuable piano repertoire, performed most often by women in the privacy of the salon. The simplicity, elegance and a certain conventionalism of these compositions testify to the delicacy of manners, but they also herald a virtuoso trend, which was co-created with great success by Maria Szymanowska in Europe.

- Ewa Slawinska-Dahlig