Marcelina Czartoryska

Marcelina Czartoryska (1817-1894)

Often described as a favorite student Fryderyk Chopin’s closest friend maintained close and constant contact with the composer during the last years of his life.

At the age of 30, seven years younger than Chopin, she aroused the composer’s unique admiration for her piano skills acquired earlier in Vienna during her youthful studies with Karl Czerny and for her sophisticated artistic expression resulting from her personality, full of tenderness, affection, natural depth, and intelligence.

Chopin himself and the accounts of many witnesses of the princess’s musical performances at the time confirm that she was the nearest to the unique expression and sound of the composer and pianist. Artistic evenings at the Lambert Hotel, Czartoryski’s residence, or at Chopin’s place, in the circle of his dearest friends in his living room at the Square D’Orleans, allowed for frequent sharing of musical emotions at the keyboard of Pleyel be- tween the Master of souls and hearts and the privileged listeners present at those evenings.

Friendship and mutual devotion found its extension in England, where Chopin decided to flee from the plague, the changing political climate, and from the emotional shock of breaking up his almost ten year long affectionate relationship with George Sand. The return of the Princess and Chopin to Paris after the revolution in 1848 allowed for the musical and personal friendship to continue.

The rapid deterioration of Chopin’s health brought these two persons even closer together. Marcelina Czartoryska, surrounded her friend with the deepest and constant care until Chopin’s death less than a year later when she was one of the few closest people on his deathbed on October 17, 1849. This bond of friendship and devotion never broke.

When the Czartoryski Museum was established in Kraków years later, Chopin found his place in it in a specially created room of remembrance dedicated to him, through numerous documents, objects, and the Pleyel-Wolff piano, as well as through concerts, lectures, and musical and pedagogical activities initiated and conducted by Marcelina Czartoryska, who thus conveyed the secrets of the Master’s brilliant spirit which he passed to her. Marcelina Czartoryska’s legacy connected the recent past with the then times, and today it has become a message for us who attempt to reach the cultural and spiritual sources of our present reality.