Raoul von Koczalski
1885-1948

The Pianist

Raoul von Koczalski, a pianist little-known in the United States even today, recorded the selections on these CDs in the 1920s. By his own admission they were among his favorites of the Chopin repertoire that he studied with Karol Mikuli, the person most influential in his musical development. Koczalski’s career spanned the years from the height of romantic pianism to the development and acceptance of a neoclassic style of performance. Who was this pianist and how did he become a beacon in our attempts to find a basis for contemporary Chopin appreciation and performance?

Raoul was born on 3 January 1885 in Warsaw. Early evidence of the unusual talent of their son convinced his parents to have him study piano. First lessons were with his mother followed by study with Julian Gadomski. After a debut in a private salon in Warsaw on 15 March 1888, in which his program included some small pieces of Chopin, Raoul performed regularly in public and began to compose. A concert tour to Russia followed. Unexpectedly the great pianist Anton Rubinstein gave Raoul some instruction, during which Rubinstein invited other professors at the St. Petersburg Conservatory to witness the youth’s remarkable playing.

On 12 January 1891, when Raoul was barely six years old, the influential music critic Edward Hanslick wrote in the Neue Freie Presse of Vienna: “Who among the concertizing virtuosos of the last week has created the greatest sensation? The youngest pianist, Raoul Koczalski.”⁽¹⁾ During this year Raoul studied in Lwów: piano with Ludwig Marek, student of Liszt, and composition with Henryk Jarecki, student of Stanislaus Moniuszko. But 1892 was decisive: the young boy sought lessons from Karol Mikuli, Chopin’s student from 1844–1848, during which time Chopin had favored him by inviting him to observe lessons of other students. Although retired from teaching in the conservatories of both Warsaw and Lwów, the 73-year-old Mikuli accepted Raoul as a student, possibly seeing an opportunity to pass on the “Chopin tradition,” as he understood it, through this exceptional prodigy.

Thus the formative part of Koczalski’s training began. It consisted of daily two-hour lessons from May through September 1892–1895 with “perhaps…the greatest professional musician” among Chopin’s students.⁽²⁾ After the first summer of these lessons, the critic Ludwig Hartmann of the Dresdner Zeitung (8 November 1892) declared Koczalski to be “not a virtuoso, [but] a musician, or perhaps still higher: he is a musical genius.…With astonishing strength” he makes the “magnificent Bechstein piano” sing as Anton Rubinstein does.⁽³⁾

Mikuli’s rigorous teaching was based on Chopin’s method. Koczalski reported that no aspect of performance—technical or musical—was neglected. These included, among others, posture at the piano; the shaping of a phrase; the singing tone of a musical line; legato, staccato, and portato touches; rhythm; the use of the pedals; and “above all, the fidelity with which one approached the works of composers.”⁽⁴⁾ Koczalski later said of his revered teacher, “He led me into the wondrous world of his master.”⁽⁵⁾

During the months in which he was not having lessons, Koczalski concertized actively in Europe. On 17 February 1893, an anonymous reviewer wrote from Berlin to the Deutsche Reichs-Anzeiger:

His playing has nothing mechanically acquired; much more wonderful than his obviously advanced technique and the great strength of his touch is the intelligent interpretation, the careful phrasing, and his spontaneous deviation in the movement of the tempo that characterizes his excitement while playing, and which, at the same time, always corresponds to the contents of the pieces.⁽⁶⁾

In September 1894, an anonymous critic of the Badeblatt in Baden-Baden wrote of Koczalski’s Chopin-playing: “Generally he plays with absolute equanimity; he has complete command of his purpose....It is unbelievable.” Then in a kindly manner he stated that the young artist was not yet mature enough to do justice to Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata. Raoul was nine!⁽⁷⁾ At this same concert he conducted his just composed first orchestral work, Symphonic Legend, Op. 53.

An extensive and enthusiastic review of a concert from the Journal de St. Petersbourg of 8 November 1895 singled out the Nocturne in D-flat, Op. 27, No. 2, as played “with a true feeling in its genuine style, and in order for it to seem that way after Rubinstein [had played it], it was surely necessary that the interpretation be good.”⁽⁸⁾ (There are two recordings of this Nocturne on these CDs: CD 1, Track 15 and CD 2, Track 26) As a 12-year old, Raoul’s playing was highly acclaimed from Paris to Persia. His unusually large repertoire at this age included, among others, works by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Hummel (then a popular composer much admired by Chopin), Schubert, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Weber, and Paderewski, as well as a wide variety of Chopin’s works. He also played some of his own compositions including nocturnes, mazurkas, and polonaises.

In commemoration of Chopin’s 100th birthday, Koczalski presented a series of four Chopin evenings in several major cities. His comments about each piece were published in a centennial book, Frédéric Chopin: 1809–1909.⁽⁹⁾ At the end of his Preface, Koczalski wrote that he offers “the most faithful possible guidance— according to Chopin’s wishes—for the correct understanding and playing of Chopin’s creations according to Mikuli’s instruction.” And then with humility: “I will neither represent my execution as perfect nor press my interpretation as the only good one; still, it seems to me that my years-long zealous study of Chopin’s music with Mikuli justifies, indeed almost obliges me to write these analyses.”⁽¹⁰⁾

In October 1909, the Berlin critic Alfred Schattmann wrote in Die Musik (p. 249): “[Koczalski] played Chopin as he ‘is’, not (as so many others) as he ‘can be’; at least for connoisseurs of the genuine tradition.” Twelve years later, in his book Meister des Klaviers, Walter Niemann wrote that during the 1890s Koczalski had become far more than an early-blooming wunderkind. Now he is a sober, serious young man “who already belongs as a Chopin player of history.”⁽¹⁾

Koczalski continued to tour until his internment in Germany, during the First World War. Following the war, he remained in Germany, where he was especially popular; he also played widely in Europe. Unfortunately he never accepted any of his invitations to play in the United States. From 1926–1934 Koczalski studied musicology, foreign languages, and philosophy at the Sorbonne. Returning to Germany, he garnered many superlative reviews, including one from August Kruhm reporting to Zeitschrift für Musik from Frankfurt (December 1935, p. 1401): Koczalski’s “virtuoso technique, combined with an astonishing wealth of tonal nuance and a rare, sparkling, effortlessly soaring [schwebend] manner of playing, fascinated.… [He] is the Chopin interpreter.”

In 1936, a year in which Koczalski gave no fewer than 30 Chopin recitals in Berlin alone, a considerably enlarged version of his earlier commentaries on Chopin’s works was published, this time under the title Frederic Chopin: Betrachtungen, Skizzen, Analysen [Reflections, Sketches, Analyses].⁽¹²⁾ In this volume the works performed in an enlarged cycle of five Chopin evenings were discussed and a section describing his studies with Mikuli was added.

World War II caused another hiatus in Koczalski’s career: in Germany, the Nazis did not find the enormous success of the Polish pianist and of Chopin’s music congenial. Although forbidden to play in public, he organized private concerts for his friends and students. In 1945 he moved to Poznan´ where he became a professor at the Academy of Music and concurrently taught at the Warsaw Conservatory. Koczalski’s repertoire included all the works of Chopin, all the Beethoven sonatas, and works by the composers mentioned above. His pupils at the Poznan´ Academy included Detlef Kraus, Monique de la Bruchollerie, and Regina Smendzianka

The year 1948 was one of great activity for Koczalski, with many concerts, the beginning of an intended recording of Chopin’s entire oeuvre, and planning for the Chopin Competition in 1949, which was the first since 1937 and was to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Chopin’s death. Numerous concerts were also planned for 1949, both in Poland and in Germany.⁽¹³⁾ Tragically, Koczalski died on 23 November 1948 in Poznan´, in the university building where he was preparing for a concert. According to Peter Seidle (Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 2003), Koczalski prepared an edition of Chopin’s Collected Works for Breitkopf & Härtel. Although the publisher received it in 1939, the edition was never produced—probably another casualty of the war.

The Recordings

From ca. 1923–1948 Koczalski recorded many of Chopin’s works, re-recording some, occasionally twice, as the technology improved. The repertoire on these discs, transferred with today’s most advanced technology, offers an unexcelled opportunity to enjoy Chopin’s music as presented by Koczalski in the 1920s. Chopin was known for never playing the same piece twice alike. Here the listener can find much of interest in listening to two recordings of many selections.

The first impression is often one of the fluency and grace of his execution, coupled with subtlety of phrasing and a smooth legato—all required by Chopin of his students. The breadth of Koczalski’s dynamic palette, his use of rubato (which some critics considered overdone), and his skillful pedaling used with notable economy, are equally evident. Although it is probable that he worked from Mikuli’s edition, published in 1879 by Kistner in Leipzig, Koczalski adapted the indicated pedaling to the exigencies of the early acoustic and electric recording technologies as well as to the piano at hand.

The make of piano used for most pieces on these discs is not known, due to loss of documentation during World War II. However, we know that Koczalski played a Blüthner for his first recording of the Etude in C-sharp Minor, Op. 25, No. 7 (CD 1, Track 11) and a Steinway for the later recording of that piece (CD 2, Track 23). Aside from differences caused by the two recording technologies and changes in interpretation, there is also a recognizable difference between the sounds of the two instruments. Blüthners of the turn of the twentieth century were known for their mellow sound. Because of differences in construction their sound was lighter and more soft-spoken than the Steinways of that era. The cases of Steinways were built of laminated planks glued together, then bent and held in shape by an innovative brace. The solidity of the case is credited with reflecting sound waves back into the piano, one aspect of construction that gave Steinway sound both more depth and brightness than that of Blüthners. Because Koczalski was able to adjust his pedaling to whatever instrument he was playing, he often, as in the Berceuse (CD 2, Track 4) and the Nocturne in D-flat (CD 1, Track 15 and CD 2, Track 26) achieved those “mother-of-pearl tints” that were frequently mentioned in descriptions of Chopin’s playing.

Much has been written in the ongoing discussion of Chopin’s use of tempo flexibility. Since Koczalski’s rhythmic practices were an element of performance style for which he was criticized, they deserve consideration here. From Mikuli, Koczalski, and many others we learn of Chopin’s credo that “a performer should never neglect strict rhythm.” On the other hand, writer and critic Henry F. Chorley, pianist Aleksander Michałowski,, composer and close friend Ferdinand Hiller, and others have left written evidence that tempo flexibility was one of the most characteristic elements of Chopin’s playing. Are these statements in conflict? What did “strict rhythm” mean for Chopin? According to Koczalski “This does not mean that any…acceleration or slowing of rhythm is forbidden; on the contrary, they are sometimes advisable in certain melodic phrases, yet any kind of exaggeration should be strictly avoided.”⁽¹⁴⁾ Here the pianist of moderation is speaking.

During the nineteenth century, all types of tempo flexibility were subsumed under the rubric tempo rubato, of which there were two principal types. In the often unmarked accelerando-rallentando affect or structural rubato, the entire texture of the music moves together. In melodic rubato the melody wanders freely above a steady accompaniment, a practice of bel canto singing that Chopin, an opera devotee, had heard throughout his life. A third type, important here in the Mazurka in B Minor, Op. 33, No. 4 (CD 2, Track 2) and with more subtlety in the performance of the Waltz in A Minor, Op. 34, No. 2 (CD 2, Track 13) involves the shifting of accents within the measure and the changing of beat length, both characteristic of the Polish national dances.

In his book Koczalski embraced structural rubato but was more restrictive about melodic freedom above a steady bass. Yet, when the right hand plays ornamental notes, or when, “gripped by the warmth of the feelings that it expresses, it tries, hesitatingly or energetically to free itself from the left hand, only then can there be a difference in the attack of both hands.”⁽¹⁵⁾ In his discussion of the Prelude in G-sharp Minor, Op. 28, No. 12 he wrote that its “pronounced rhythm” suggests a dance and that the entire piece should be played “rhythmically to measure 70, where a ritenuto must begin.” But in Koczalski’s recording (CD 2, Track 8), “rhythmically” allowed the music to be shaped with nuanced elasticity as long as the beat and the meter remained clear. It was controlled freedom.

In the Nocturne in D-flat (CD 2, Track 26) (and the Più lento of the Waltz in C-sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2 (CD 2, Track 15), Koczalski played with both kinds of rubato, often simultaneously. His use of structural rubato varied greatly, depending on the genre and on his response to each piece. In the Prelude in A-flat, Op. 28, No. 17 (CD 2, Track 9), characterized by him as a “love song accompanied by guitar or mandolin,” the rhythmic flux is almost continuous, supporting the vocality of the melody. Only occasionally, as in the Waltz in G-flat, Op. 70, No. 1 or the Waltz in C-sharp Minor (CD 2, Tracks 16 and 15), does a ritard become an affectation and come close to losing the momentum of the music. In 1909 Martin Frey, a critic in Halle, had already mentioned that in three Chopin evenings in which Koczalski “sent the audience into raptures,” he endangered the “unified coherence” of several pieces through “excessive Tempo rubato….”⁽¹⁶⁾

The breadth and refinement of Koczalski’s dynamic palette is evident in many of these recordings, including the wonderful performances of the Nocturne in D-flat (CD 1, Track 15 and CD 2, Track 26) and the Etude in C-sharp Minor, Op. 25, No. 7 (CD 1, Track 11). Yet his forte is never forced—no “barking dog” here. Not infrequently he treats Chopin’s hairpin signs for crescendo and decrescendo rather freely, even at times reversing them. He uses an ebb and flow of dynamics to enhance the shaping of a piece containing long stretches of unbroken (unendliche) melodic lines, as in the Etude in F Minor, Op. 25, No. 2 and “Minute” Waltz in D-flat, Op. 64, No. 1 (CD 2, Tracks 20 and 14). In the first of the Trois Nouvelles Etudes and the Nocturne in B, Op. 62, No. 1 (CD 2, Tracks 24 and 27) Koczalski accomplishes such shaping with a combination of fluid dynamics and flexible rhythm. Finally, he often brings out bass movement to emphasize an affect, as at the start of the second Più mosso of the Waltz Op. 64, No. 2 (CD 2, Track 15) and in the Prelude in G-sharp Minor, Op. 28, No. 12 (CD 2, Track 8) approaching climaxes.

Separation or asynchronous playing of the bass and its melody note is perhaps, for modern ears, the most obvious aspect of Koczalski’s late romantic pianism. It can be heard in many of these recordings, notably on strong beats and in slower, lyrical passages where it was believed that this practice would help the melody sing. Of the writers who criticized Koczalski for this and his other “Romantic mannerisms,” Stefan Kisielewski, a pianist and composer of the rising neo-classic school and a supporter of contemporary musical developments in Poland, was one of the most prominent.⁽¹⁷⁾ His review of Koczalski’s performance of Chopin’s Concerto in E Minor on 21 March 1947 in Kraków was better balanced than some:

“…notwithstanding different, old-time, entirely superfluous mannerisms of interpretation,…this pianist can dazzle with his unquestionably immense talents. A most beautiful mellow touch, consistent and polished technique, concentration and uniformity of conception […], everything bids us to forget the unnecessary additions in [his] interpretation and to delight in the pianistic art of a truly higher level.”⁽¹⁸⁾

Alfons Rösler, a music critic in Bydgoszcz, had written earlier that criticism of Koczalski for his Romantic mannerisms was “wrong and unjust;…one cannot appraise his playing according to the criteria of contemporary young pianists.” Koczalski “remained true to the ideal of romantic pianism, already a little foreign to contemporary norms.” However, “from behind those accessories of past romanticism, a pianist of genuine and brilliant technique shows through, one who can interest and dazzle.”⁽¹⁹⁾ Later, in a review condemning another pianist for the same romantic practices, Kisielewski had to admit that “Of course—it is a matter of taste.”⁽²⁰⁾ In fact, comparison of Koczalski’s performances of Chopin’s works with those of his contemporaries —Ignaz Friedman or Moriz Rosenthal for example— demonstrates a far greater sobriety in use of such mannerisms by Chopin’s “grandstudent.”

On 12 December 1948 Kisielewski reviewed Koczalski’s last public appearance. He was soloist in an unnamed work for a concert by the Filharmoni in Kraków.

The late Raoul Koczalski, the soloist of the concert, was dead two days later. The death of this famous European artist, one of the last of those who continue the grand tradition of pianists of the last century (student of Karol Mikuli) is a serious loss for Polish music.⁽²¹⁾

More recently, Stanisław Dybowski, a scholar of the playing of Koczalski and his contemporaries, has written that in comparison with Michałowski and Rosenthal, “Koczalski took a different approach.… He looked at [Chopin’s] works through the composer’s eyes, [and] identified himself with the composer….”⁽²²⁾ His training, his recordings, and his writings place Koczalski in a privileged position among Chopin interpreters of the romantic school, for as Rösler wrote, he “combines romantic fantasy with the coolness of mature reflection.”⁽²³⁾ Hearing these performances from the perspective of Koczalski’s reflections on Chopin creates a unique listening experience.

© Sandra P. Rosenblum, 2010

Endnotes

¹ Bernhard Vogel, Raoul Koczalski: Skizze (Leipzig: P. Pabst [1896]), 28.

² Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, interviewed by Bogdan M. Jankowski in Ruch Muzyczny, Vol. XLIX, No. 14 (July 10, 2005), 30-34.

³ Vogel, op. cit., 34.

⁴ Raoul Koczalski, “Jak Grał i Uczył Karol Mikuli?” in Muzyka, Vol. 78 (1937), 217.

⁵ Zenon Keller, “Koczalski, kompozytor nieznany” [Koczalski, an unknown composer], Ruch Muzyczny, Vol. 38, No. 14 (July 10, 1994), 1.

⁶ Vogel, op. cit., 67.

⁷ Ibid., 85.

⁸ Ibid., 102.

⁹ Raoul Koczalski, Frédéric Chopin: 1809–1909 (Leipzig: P. Pabst, 1909). At this time many thought that Chopin had been born in 1809. The booklet was published in its entirety in French, edited, and provided with much valuable prefatory material by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, Frédéric Chopin: Conseils d’interprétation (Paris: Buchet/Chastel, 1998).

¹⁰ Koczalski, Chopin: 1809–1909, op. cit., 8. This declaration also concluded the Preface of his later volume, Frederic Chopin: Betrachtungen, Skizzen, Analysen (Köln-Bayenthal: Verlag Tischer & Jagenburg, 1936), 6.

¹¹ Walter Niemann, Meister des Klaviers: Die Pianisten der Gegenwart und der Letzten Vergangenheit (Berlin: Schuster & Loeffler, 1921), 241.

¹² Raoul Koczalski, Frederic Chopin: Betrachtungen…(Köln-Bayenthal: Verlag Tischer & Jagenberg, 1936) 6.

¹³ Keller, op. cit., 8. From 1951 to 1994, the date of the mentioned article, occasional memorial concerts were given to honor Koczalski.

¹⁴ Raoul Koczalski, “Jak Grał i Uczył Karol Mikuli?” op. cit., 217. Koczalski had written similarly in his book of 1909, op. cit., 27.

¹⁵ Koczalski, Frederic Chopin, 1936, op. cit., 58.

¹⁶ Die Musik, Vol. 9, No. 6 (1909), 382.

¹⁷ Adrian Thomas, “Kisielewski, Stefan,” New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians II, ed. Stanely Sadie (New York: Macmillan, 2001) Vol. 13, p. 632.

¹⁸ Stefan Kisielewski, in Tygodnik Powszechny, 1947, No. 17; quoted from Stanisław Dybowski, Raul Koczalski: chopinista i kompozytor (Warszawa: Selene, 1998) 176.

¹⁹ Alfons Rösler in Muzyka Polska, 1938, Pt. III, 141–142; quoted from Dybowski, ibid., 145.

²⁰ Stefan Kisielewski, “Z˙ycie Muzyczne” [Musical Life] in Tygodnik Powszechny, Vol. IV, Nos. 13–14 (March 28–April 4, 1948), 22.

²¹ Kisielewski, “Koncerty w Krakowie,” ibid., Vol. IV, No. 50 (December 12, 1948), 10.

²² Stanisław Dybowski, “The Inheritors of Chopin’s Art [of] Performance—Koczalski, Michałowski, Rosenthal,” in Chopin[‘s] Works as a Source of Performance Inspiration (Warsaw: Akademia Muzyczna im. Fryderyka Chopina, 1999), 422.

²³ Alfons Rösler in Muzyka Polska, 1936, Pt. III, 221; quoted from Dybowski, Raul Koczalski, op. cit., 96.