Antoni Kątski (1816-1899)
Piano Works 3
Sławomir Dobrzański (piano)
rec. 2025 Państwowa Szkoła Muzyczna 1 stopnia w Sieradzu, Sieradz, Poland
Acte Préalable AP0594 [78]

Acte Préalable are certainly invested in Antoni Kątski as they move on to a third volume of his piano music (volumes one and two are reviewed at AP0388 and AP0424). I cannot imagine that they are considering a complete edition but if they are there is quite some way to go; imslp.org, where he listed as Antoine de Kontski as he is often called outside of Poland, lists 401 opus numbers and a decent number of works without opus

He was born in Kraków and began to travel early in his career. Studies with John Field in Moscow and with Sigismond Thalberg in Vienna, even, according to Kątski, with Beethoven somewhere along the line. Though an associate of Chopin from 1845, the more famous Pole was wary of this composer with an audiographic memory and tendency to pinch ideas. He travelled widely – some 164,000 kilometres in his lifetime according to musicologist Agnieszka Tołoczyńska – even touring Australia, New Zealand and the far east at the age of eighty, travels which are recalled in many of the works on this disc. It is worth quoting Harold Schonberg in the Great Pianists (Victor Gollanz 1978) for a short but vicious portrait. The Lion of Poland was Antoine de Kontski and audiences shuddered under his impact. Apparently he could not play two correct notes in succession, and he never played under a fortissimo…’from battle, murder, sudden death and from the Lion of Poland’s piano playing, Good Lord, deliver us’ wrote one critic. This is in stark contrast to the listing in Wilson Lyle’s Dictionary of Pianists (Robert Hale 1985) which says his perfect technique made his concert tours triumphant. One has to wonder if his career could have had such longevity if he were really as bad as Schonberg suggests.

The first of three romance sans paroles, effectively songs without words is Souvenir de Bukoviec, a memory of the town in Silesia and rather attractive it is. Another souvenir, this time of Dantzig, now called Gdańsk, is more extensive. It is a nocturnal piece in D flat whose lilting melody is highly decorated in the manner of Chopin but with elements of Thalberg’s piano writing, notably his Art of song as applied to the piano, as the work develops. Over to Roscoff in northern France for the third romance, the lilt of its 12/8 time signature and triplet accompaniment possibly evoking its location by the sea. The booklet says it is dedicated to Anton Rubinstein though the score in front of me says a mon ami Nicolas Rubinstein, Anton’s less famous brother. We return to Poland for three more works, the Polish National Alliance march, jaunty and militaristic with rumbling timpani in its middle section and the polonez, written when Kątski was just nine years old, very classical in style, elegant and quite charming. Finally a mazurka, La dolce Rimembranza, the sweet memory, not quite Chopin but quite effective in its own way. Melancholy outer sections give way to a more energetic trio section. When the melancholy tune returns Kątski places it in the left hand changing the timbre of the piece.

Travelling further field we have the souvenir de Berlin, a grand waltz that consists of a series of short waltz melodies. Far less imaginative than Chopin’s waltzes it nonetheless would have been popular fare in soirées of the time. The Souvenir de l’Exposition is subtitled Fantaisie sur les aires russes and is rather shorter than one might expect. A brief fast introduction leads to a barcarolle-like melody that goes through just one variation before a faster theme brings the piece to a close. La Chute du Rhin, the Rhine Waterfall could evoke any one of the six countries it visits on its trip from the Swiss Alps to the North Sea though the booklet suggests Schafhausen on the Swiss German border. Its melody is suitably adorned with sparkling, cascading arpeggios. The three Lithuanian flowers pay homage to his trips to Vilnius, both as a soloist and as a duo with his violinist brother Apolinary (1824-1879). Angelus, hymn-like and evocative of bells with its keyboard spanning textures, has a simple and heartfelt melody. The quite sentimental melody of the second piece, Evening Dew is only emphasised by having it played in right hand tremolos throughout, while the third piece, a conversation between Grandmother and Granddaughter is a genial rondo in the form of a waltz mazurka.

Despite his globe-trotting Kątski would at times settle down; Paris in the 1840s, a couple of years in Berlin as Royal Pianist, his Souvenir de Berlin waltzes presumably coming in useful at court social events, a decade and more in St Petersburg, sixteen years in London and, in 1883, a trip to the United States where he settled in Buffalo, New York and latterly became a professor at the Grand Rapids Conservatory. He became a US citizen in 1892, the year he wrote the Polish National Alliance March, a work that was based on the Grant Funeral March, written in 1885 in memory of president Ulysses Grant. The theme of the Polish National Alliance March, so full of pomp and major key splendour, is heard in this work in the minor key, stentorian and grandly funereal. The middle section is in the major key and brings a spirit of optimistic lyricism; doubtless the march is a tribute that the dedicatees, the American Nation, would have taken to their hearts when Kątski played it in concert. In an altogether lighter vein, Die Kaiser-Wilhelms-Jagd opens with a jaunty march which is soon overtaken by hunting horns and a skipping hunting tune. After just a few bars a high-kicking can-can takes over and, not content with this excitement, a full blown galop ensues to bring the piece to a dramatic close. The subtitle is brilliant galop in the form of a tone poem – I’ll go with brilliant galop but tone poem is a bit of stretch. Probably good for publicity though.

The last stop on our travels is Persia. Kątski visited the Caucasus in the early 1870s and he was the first Western musician to notate Persian folk music; Nine Persian Airs can be found amongst his works without opus number. He arranged the Persian National Anthem and wrote the Shah of Persia’s Grand March in addition to the Persian March that we hear on this disc. There is no hint of the exotic in this sturdy little march that I have to say I could imagine appearing as incidental music in a Gilbert & Sullivan production.

Rob Barnett in his review considered Kątski’s music not the most striking or original but still with the capacity to charm and I can’t imagine anything here changing his mind about that. Kątski wrote what people wanted to hear or even to play themselves in a domestic setting and he stuck to that and did it well though it must be said that his travels were certainly vaster than his imagination. Sławomir Dobrzański explores this music with a quiet passion and he presents it in a good light and very good sound.

Rob Challinor

Contents

Souvenir de Bukoviec – Romance sans paroles Op.145 (1855)
La Chute du Rhin – Morceau de Concert Op.281 (1890)
Die Kaiser-Wilhelms-Jagd – Brilliant Galopp in form eines Tongemäldes
Souvenir de Berlin – Grande Valse Op.146 (1852)
Souvenir de Dantzig – Romance sans paroles Op.142 (1852)
La dolce Rimembranza – Mazurka Op.158 (1856)
Grant Funeral March Op.326 (1885)
Fleur Lithuaniennes – Trois morceaux charactéristiques Op.178 (1893)
Souvenir de Roscoff – Romance sans paroles Op.293 (1879)
Persian March Op.369 (1891)
Polish National Alliance march Op.374 (1892)
Souvenir de l’Exposition – Fantaisie sur les aires russes op.315 (1875)
Polonez (1825)