Maria Agata Szymanowska

Who was Maria Agata Szymanowska?

Maria Szymanowska was a Polish composer and one of the first professional virtuoso pianists of the 19th century. She toured extensively throughout Europe, especially in the 1820s, before settling permanently in St. Petersburg. In the Russian imperial capital, she composed for the court, gave concerts, taught music, and ran an influential salon.

Her compositions—largely piano pieces, songs, and other small chamber works, as well as the first piano concert etudes and nocturnes in Poland—typify the stile brillant of the era preceding Chopin. She was the mother of Celina Szymanowska, who married the Polish Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz.