do we find there! These simple melodies clothed
in pure and truly holy harmonies, written, as Gomolka
said himself, not for the Italians, but for the Poles,
who are happy in their own country, are the best specimens
of the national style. “In speaking of the
early Polish church music I must not forget to mention
the famous College of the Roratists, [
footnote:
The duties of these singers were to sing Rorate masses
and Requiem masses for the royal family. Their
name was derived from the opening word of the Introit,
“Rorate coeli.”] the Polish Sistine Chapel,
attached to the Cracow Cathedral. It was founded
in 1543 and subsisted till 1760. With the fifteenth
of seventeen conductors of the college, Gregor Gorczycki,
who died in 1734, passed away the last of the classical
school of Polish church music. Music was diligently
cultivated in the seventeenth century, especially under
the reigns of Sigismund III. (1587-1632), and Wladislaw
iv. (1632- 1648); but no purpose would be served
by crowding these pages with unknown names of musicians
about whom only scanty information is available; I
may, however, mention the familiar names of three
of many Italian composers who, in the seventeenth
century, like many more of their countrymen, passed
a great part of their lives in Poland—namely,
Luca Marenzio, Asprilio Pacelii, and Marco Scacchi.
APPENDIX II.
Early performances of Chopin’s
works in Germany.
(Vol. I., p. 268.)
The first performance of a composition by Chopin at
the Leipzig Gewandhaus took place on October 27, 1831.
It was his Op. 1, the variations on La ci darem la
mano, which Julius Knorr played at a concert for the
benefit of the Pension-fund of the orchestra, but
not so as to give the audience pleasure—at
least, this was the opinion of Schumann, as may be
seen from his letter to Frederick Wieck of January
4, 1832. Chopin relates already on June 5, 1830,
that Emilie Belleville knew his variations by heart
and had played them in Vienna. Clara Wieck was
one of the first who performed Chopin’s compositions
in public. On September 29, 1833, she played
at a Leipzig Gewandhaus concert the last movement of
the E minor Concerto, and on May 5, 1834, in the same
hall at an extra concert, the whole work and two Etudes.
Further information about the introduction and repetitions
of Chopin’s compositions at the Leipzig Gewandhaus,
is to be found in the statistical part (p. 13) of
Alfred Dorffel’s Die Gewandhausconcerte.
APPENDIX III.
Madame Schumann on Chopin’s
visit to Leipzig.
(Vol. I., p. 290.)