{"id":3433,"date":"2024-04-24T13:58:12","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T13:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dtifcwroclaw.pl\/staging\/?page_id=3433"},"modified":"2024-09-19T15:45:10","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T15:45:10","slug":"frederic-chopin","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.dtifcwroclaw.pl\/staging\/en\/frederic-chopin\/","title":{"rendered":"Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric\u00a0Chopin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Wroc\u0142aw & Fryderyk Chopin<\/h1><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Wroc\u0142aw (known as Breslau during Chopin’s times) was visited several times by the young composer, likely four times.

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Together with his mother, he traveled to Lower Silesia at the turn of July and August 1826, to the native region of his professor, J\u00f3zef Elsner. This trip was not merely for tourism but also a health retreat. Accompanied by his mother, Chopin set off towards Duszniki (Reinertz), joining Ludwika Skarbkowa who was already in the area.

On the way, which Fryderyk detailed in a letter sent that summer to Wilhelm Kolberg, he listed Wroc\u0142aw as the twelfth „stop” on the route. The fact that a rest in the city was planned may be indicated by Professor J\u00f3zef Elsner, who had been connected with the city for many years, entrusting his pupil with letters for his friends in Wroc\u0142aw. Fryderyk partly fulfilled this task when they stayed overnight in Wroc\u0142aw on the way to Duszniki; as he wrote – „Mr. Latzel was very pleased with the letter.” On the return journey from the spa, he visited Friedrich W. Berner – an organist at St. Elizabeth’s Church, and Joseph I. Schnabl, a conductor active at the Wroc\u0142aw Cathedral. It is assumed that Fryderyk demonstrated his pianistic skills to the recipients of the letters.

It is unknown if, during his brief stays, Chopin managed to visit anything in Wroc\u0142aw besides the two mentioned churches. A similar visit occurred three years later when Fryderyk returned from Vienna, where he had gone in the summer with several friends. Only in November 1830 did he stay longer in the city. Together with Tytus Woyciechowski, they stayed at the „Zur Goldenen Gans” (Golden Goose) inn at Junkernstrasse (now Ofiar O\u015bwi\u0119cimskich Street). On the evening of their arrival, they went to the Municipal Theatre, located at Taschenstrasse (now at the intersection of O\u0142awska and Piotra Skargi streets), to see „The Alpine King.” Maria Zduniak writes about this stay of the two friends, identifying the places visited by Chopin:
’On Sunday, November 7, Chopin and Woyciechowski went to the Wroc\u0142aw Cathedral to meet Joseph I. Schnabl, a conductor and composer whom he had met personally in 1826. Schnabl, pleased with the meeting, invited the guests to a morning rehearsal of a concert scheduled for the next evening in the Great Redutowa Hall on Biskupia Street, then known as the „Hotel de Pologne” hall.’|

What happened next during the rehearsal at the resort is best described by Fryderyk’s own words, taken from a letter to his family in Warsaw, written from Wroc\u0142aw on Tuesday, November 9, 1830: 'I found there, as usual, a sparsely gathered orchestra for rehearsal, a piano, and a gentleman named Hellwig, an amateur, preparing to play Moscheles’ first E-flat major Concerto. Before he sat down at the instrument, Schnabl, who had not heard me for four years, asked me to try the piano. It was hard to refuse, so I sat and played a few variations. Schnabl was immensely delighted, Mr. Hellwig chickened out, and others began to ask me to perform in the evening. Especially Schnabl insisted so earnestly that I did not dare to refuse the old man. He is a great friend of Mr. Elsner’s; but I told him I would do it only for him, as I had not played for several weeks, nor did I intend to show off in Wroc\u0142aw. The old man replied that he knew all about it and that he wanted to ask me yesterday, seeing me in church, but he did not dare. So, I went with his son to fetch the music and played them the Romance and Rondo from the Second Concerto. At the rehearsal, the Germans were amazed by my playing: 'What easy play he has,’ they said, about the composition nothing. Even Tytus heard one say, 'he can play, but not compose.”

There are no detailed accounts of the places visited by Fryderyk and Tytus. It is known that their guide in Wroc\u0142aw was a merchant named Scharff, whom they met by chance. It turned out amusingly, as this gentleman, wanting to properly host the young men in his city, decided to invite them to a concert: 'The next day he signed us up for the Bursa and finally got us Fremdenkarten, for yesterday’s concert – Fryderyk recalls in the same letter. [\u2026] What must have been his [\u2026] surprise when this Fremder was the main figure of the musical evening. Besides the Rondo, I improvised for connoisseurs on the theme of 'La muette de Portici.’ After which, an overture was played, followed by dances.’ [3] During his several visits to Wroc\u0142aw (in 1826, 1829, and 1830), the composer visited, among others: the Municipal Theatre (at the then Taschenstrasse, at the intersection of present-day O\u0142awska and Piotra Skargi streets), the Great Redutowa Hall, then known as the „Hotel de Pologne” hall (on Biskupia Street), the „Ruciany wreath” inn („Rautenkranz” on O\u0142awska Street), and the „Under the Golden Goose” inn (at the then Junkernstrasse, now Ofiar O\u015bwi\u0119cimskich), which was destroyed during World War II [4]. Chopin also visited St. John the Baptist’s Cathedral on Ostr\u00f3w Tumski and St. Elizabeth’s Church on \u015aw. Miko\u0142aja Street.




[1] M. Zduniak, Fryderyk Chopin we Wroc\u0142awiu i popularyzacja jego dzie\u0142 w dziewi\u0119tnastowiecznej stolicy Dolnego \u015al\u0105ska, w: Mi\u0119dzynarodowe Festiwale Chopinowskie w Dusznikach Zdroju 1946-1999, Wroc\u0142aw 2000, s. 17-27.
[2] Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina, red. B. E. Sydow, T. I, s. 148
[3] ibid.
[4] Patrz: Maria Zduniak, Muzyka i muzycy polscy w dziewi\u0119tnastowiecznym Wroc\u0142awiu, Wroc\u0142aw 1984, s. 93-99. Autorka pisze te\u017c, \u017ce „dotychczas podawane miejsce wyst\u0119pu Chopina we Wroc\u0142awiu w sali przy Pl. Teatralnym (…) jest b\u0142\u0119dne”, s. 95.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wroc\u0142aw & Fryderyk Chopin Wroc\u0142aw (known as Breslau during Chopin’s times) was visited several times by the young composer, likely four times. Together with his mother, he traveled to Lower Silesia at the turn of July and August 1826, to the native region of his professor, J\u00f3zef Elsner. This trip was not merely for tourism […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"normal-width-container","site-content-style":"unboxed","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3433","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.dtifcwroclaw.pl\/staging\/author\/admin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Wroc\u0142aw & Fryderyk Chopin Wroc\u0142aw (known as Breslau during Chopin’s times) was visited several times by the young composer, likely four times. Together with his mother, he traveled to Lower Silesia at the turn of July and August 1826, to the native region of his professor, J\u00f3zef Elsner. This trip was not merely for tourism…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dtifcwroclaw.pl\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dtifcwroclaw.pl\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dtifcwroclaw.pl\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dtifcwroclaw.pl\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dtifcwroclaw.pl\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3433"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.dtifcwroclaw.pl\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4057,"href":"https:\/\/www.dtifcwroclaw.pl\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3433\/revisions\/4057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dtifcwroclaw.pl\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}