Tekla Badarzewska-Baranowska
Encyclopedia
Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska was a Polish composer
.
Bądarzewska was born in 1834 in Warsaw
. She married Jan Baranowski and they had five children in their nine years of marriage. Bądarzewska-Baranowska died on 29 September 1861 at the age of 27. Her grave in the Powązki Cemetery
features a young woman with a roll of sheet music titled . One of her daughters, Bronisława, was enrolled at the Warsaw Institute of Music in 1875. A crater on Venus is named after her.
Percy Scholes
, writes in The Oxford Companion to Music
(9th edition, reprinted 1967) rather unkindly of Bądarzewska: "Born in Warsaw in 1838 and died there in 1861, aged twenty-three. In this brief lifetime she accomplished, perhaps, more than any composer who ever lived, for she provided the piano of absolutely every tasteless sentimental person in the so-called civilised world with a piece of music which that person, however unaccomplished in a dull technical sense, could play. It is probable that if the market stalls and back-street music shops of Britain were to be searched The Maiden's Prayer would be found to be still selling, and as for the Empire at large, Messrs. Allen of Melbourne reported in 1924, sixty years after the death of the composer, that their house alone was still disposing of copies a year."
The composition is short piano piece for intermediate pianists. Some have liked it for its charming and romantic melody, and others have described it as "sentimental salon tosh". The pianist and academic Arthur Loesser
described it as a "dowdy product of ineptitude."
The American musician Bob Wills
arranged the piece in the Western swing
style and wrote lyrics for it. He published it first in 1935 as "Maiden's Prayer
"; later, it became a standard
, recorded by many artists. It is also played on certain garbage trucks in Taiwan
.
In the 1930 opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, scene 9 in act 1 is satirically based on a pianistic paraphrase of the piece, whose theme is quoted by the men's chorus later in the following ensemble.
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
.
Bądarzewska was born in 1834 in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
. She married Jan Baranowski and they had five children in their nine years of marriage. Bądarzewska-Baranowska died on 29 September 1861 at the age of 27. Her grave in the Powązki Cemetery
Powazki Cemetery
Powązki Cemetery , also known as the Stare Powązki is a historic cemetery located in the Wola district, western part of Warsaw, Poland. It is the most famous cemetery in the city, and one of the oldest...
features a young woman with a roll of sheet music titled . One of her daughters, Bronisława, was enrolled at the Warsaw Institute of Music in 1875. A crater on Venus is named after her.
A Maiden's Prayer
Bądarzewska wrote about 35 small compositions for piano; by far her most famous composition is the piece Op. 4 ("A Maiden's Prayer"), which was published in 1856 in Warsaw, and then as a supplement to the Revue et gazette musicale de Paris in 1859.Percy Scholes
Percy Scholes
Percy Alfred Scholes was an English musician, journalist and prolific writer, whose best-known achievement was his compilation of the first edition of The Oxford Companion to Music...
, writes in The Oxford Companion to Music
The Oxford Companion to Music
The Oxford Companion to Music is a music reference book in the series of Oxford Companions produced by the Oxford University Press. It was originally conceived and written by Percy Scholes and published in 1938. Since then, it has undergone two distinct rewritings, one by Denis Arnold, in 1983,...
(9th edition, reprinted 1967) rather unkindly of Bądarzewska: "Born in Warsaw in 1838 and died there in 1861, aged twenty-three. In this brief lifetime she accomplished, perhaps, more than any composer who ever lived, for she provided the piano of absolutely every tasteless sentimental person in the so-called civilised world with a piece of music which that person, however unaccomplished in a dull technical sense, could play. It is probable that if the market stalls and back-street music shops of Britain were to be searched The Maiden's Prayer would be found to be still selling, and as for the Empire at large, Messrs. Allen of Melbourne reported in 1924, sixty years after the death of the composer, that their house alone was still disposing of copies a year."
| , MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface MIDI is an industry-standard protocol, first defined in 1982 by Gordon Hall, that enables electronic musical instruments , computers and other electronic equipment to communicate and synchronize with each other... rendition, 3:05 minutes, 13 KB Kilobyte The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information... |
The composition is short piano piece for intermediate pianists. Some have liked it for its charming and romantic melody, and others have described it as "sentimental salon tosh". The pianist and academic Arthur Loesser
Arthur Loesser
Arthur Loesser was an American classical pianist and writer.Born into a musical family, Loesser received early training from his father until he began lessons with Sigismund Stojowski at the Institute of Musical Art, now called the Juilliard School.Loesser was the author of the books Humor in...
described it as a "dowdy product of ineptitude."
The American musician Bob Wills
Bob Wills
James Robert Wills , better known as Bob Wills, was an American Western Swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader, considered by music authorities as the co-founder of Western Swing and universally known as the pioneering King of Western Swing.Bob Wills' name will forever be associated with...
arranged the piece in the Western swing
Western swing
Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands...
style and wrote lyrics for it. He published it first in 1935 as "Maiden's Prayer
Maiden's Prayer
"A Maiden's Prayer" is a composition of Polish composer Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska , which was published in 1856 in Warsaw, and then as a supplement to the Revue et gazette musicale de Paris in 1859.The piece is a medium difficulty short...
"; later, it became a standard
Standard (music)
In music, a standard is a tune or song of established popularity.-See also:* Blues standard* Jazz standard* Pop standard* Great American Songbook-Further reading:* Greatest Rock Standards, published by Hal Leonard ISBN 0793588391...
, recorded by many artists. It is also played on certain garbage trucks in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
.
In the 1930 opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is a political-satirical opera composed by Kurt Weill to a German libretto by Bertolt Brecht. It was first performed in Leipzig on 9 March 1930.-Composition history:...
by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, scene 9 in act 1 is satirically based on a pianistic paraphrase of the piece, whose theme is quoted by the men's chorus later in the following ensemble.