The first “great word” was and had to be a “sound”... The new edition of memoir notes by Stanisław Morawski

Abstract

Reflections on music presented in Stanisław Morawski’s reminiscences published by Danuta Danek and illustrated by Krzysztof Hejke (Warsaw 2013) reflect the need of Romantic spirituality. It is not a tractate, as the author has an ironic attitude towards “philosophizing sluggards”, but rather an informal literary description written by amateur penman. The work mirrors the set of popular opinions, estimations and aesthetic ideas which existed in the epoch. Moreover, the author does not hide the purpose of his work, which was created in the middle of the nineteenth-century, in the twilight of his life, and presented as a peculiar synthesis of views on the essence of music. The opinions concerning music were expressed in many booklets and/or articles and became enriched with Morawski’s experiences as a failed artist and witness to the epoch in which Maria Szymanowska’s talent flourished, shone like a star, and passed into oblivion. Placed in the foreground, reminiscences about the pianist are the link which bonds Stanisław Morawski’s reflections on music.