Polish Piano Music for Children and Youth of the Nineteenth and First Half of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

The history of the Piano Pedagogy literature development is represented by a variety of outstanding composers who have written wonderful pieces for beginners. Along with the classical piano repertoire, on which more than one generation of musicians grew up, the research interest is aroused by the pieces for youth written by composers of different national schools during the XIX – early XX centuries – the period of active formation of pedagogical thought in the piano art. The relevance of this paper is constituted by the necessity of updating the pedagogical repertoire for children, in which little-known works written by composers of the past are of considerable interest, along with contemporary music.

Literature review. The piano pieces of the brightest representatives of the Polish School of Composition of the XIX – early XX centuries have been studied by M. Brulinski, E. Osiak, H. Harley, M. Adamek-Kurhan, Y. Domahala, I. Dulish, M. Renat, M. Schleser, and others. Among the Ukrainian art historians, such studies were conducted by L. Kyianovska, T. Krulikovska, N. Revenko, A. Ozymovska, I. Shatkovska, O. Vereshchahina-Biliavska, and others.

The purpose of this article is to review the piano music written by Polish composers for children and youth during the XIX – first half of the XX centuries.

The piano music of the studied period, suitable for students of different learning stages, can be divided into three types: 1) piano schools with the arrangement of music in the relevant content sections; 2) piano cycles; 3) collections of easy-to-follow piano miniatures and etudes.

Famous didactic publications of that time included the piano schools issued by Ignacy Platon Kozłowski (1832), Jan Nowiński (1839), Josef Nowakowski (1840), Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyński (1842), Zygmunt Noskowski (1886), and Aleksander Różycki (1894).

Similar to other educational materials, their content and sequence were built on the principle of gradual complication. They contained both elementary exercises and piano pieces. These piano schools’ peculiarity was reliance on dance genres and vocal melodies, intonation, the use of Polish composers’ popular opera fragments, etc.

The most famous examples of Polish piano albums for children of the studies period are Henryk Pachulski’s "Album for Youth" op. 23 (1906), Ignaz Friedman's "Children's Scenes for Piano" (1912), and Feliks Rybicki's "Piano Album" op. 25 (1951).

To conclude, the history of the Polish "didactic music", initiated by the first basic methodological manuals, was developed by the XIX–XX centuries’ composers. It is represented by the piano cycles and pieces collections that are based on popular genres and melodies with artistic images and moods, familiar to children. At the same time, this repertoire embodies the national features of Polish music.

The popularization of the Polish composers’ piano heritage and its support by the Polish government today are excellent examples of providing art education with a high-quality pedagogical repertoire.