Warsaw Music Salon Arte dei Suonatori Piano Quartet

• Józef Elsner (1769 - 1854): Piano Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 15:
• 1 Piano Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 15: I. Moderato 11:50
• 2 Piano Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 15: II. Romance. Andantino 05:43
• 3 Piano Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 15: III. Rondo. Allegro assai 05:02
• Maria Szymanowska (1789 - 1831):
• 4 Fantaisie in F Major for Piano 10:21
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791): Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, K. 478:
• 5 Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, K. 478: I. Allegro 10:55
• 6 Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, K. 478: II. Andante 07:17
• 7 Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, K. 478: III. Rondo. Allegro moderato 08:14
• Franciszek Lessel (1780 - 1838): Piano Trio in E Major, Op. 5:
• 8 Piano Trio in E Major, Op. 5: I. Allegro brillante 08:58
• 9 Piano Trio in E Major, Op. 5: II. Rêve. Adagio 04:16
• 10 Piano Trio in E Major, Op. 5: III. Rondo. Allegro di molto 04:39
• Total Runtime 01:17:15

Info for Warsaw Music Salon

Every composer whose piece appears on this recording was an essential figure in the very best of the late eighteenth- and the early nineteenth-century salon culture. Each participated in a variety of ways: as hosts, guests, performers or composers.

The word “salon” referred both to a place and an event. Salons were usually weekly or fortnightly gatherings of noblemen, artists, writers, philosophers, politicians, scholars, scientists, musicians and youthful talent, who talked, read aloud, listened to music, ate and sometimes danced. They took place in the richly furnished drawing rooms or boudoirs of the aristocracy or more modest sitting rooms of the emerging bourgeoisie. In most cases, these were exclusive events for a carefully chosen group of guests.(...)

These Warsaw salons took their inspiration from those of the French Enlightenment, thanks to the last Polish king, Stanisław August Poniatowski. Prior to taking the crown, he absorbed the atmosphere of the Madame Geoffrin Paris salon, frequented by French encyclopaedists and thereafter, he founded the Thursday Dinners salon at his Warsaw palace, to which he invited scholars and artists. In the first decades of the nineteenth century, around the time when Fryderyk Chopin lived in Warsaw, there were about a dozen salons where music played a significant role. Their hosts were, among others, the families of Wołowskis, who play a prominent role in the music on this album: Barbara and Franciszek Wołowski were the parents of Maria Szymanowska. Both Józef Elsner and Franciszek Lessel were guests at their salons.

Arte dei Suonatori Quartet:
Katarzyna Drogosz, pianoforte
Ewa Golińska, violin
Natalia Reichert, viola
Maciej Łukaszuk, cello

No biography found.

Booklet for Warsaw Music Salon