Strona główna » Georgian House Museum in Edinburgh commemorates the Polish-Lithuanian-British violinist and composer

Georgian House Museum in Edinburgh commemorates the Polish-Lithuanian-British violinist and composer

by Dignity News
Scotland’s Georgian House Museum in Edinburgh is hosting an exhibition ‘Music and Migration in Georgian Edinburgh. The Story of Felix Yaniewicz’ dedicated to the Polish-Lithuanian-British violinist and composer Feliks Yaniewicz.

The exhibition is the first move in recalling the story of a gifted composer whose works are hardly known. In December 2022, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra will perform his ‘Violin Concerto No. 3’ in Dumfries, Edinburgh and Glasgow. An edition of his compositions is currently being prepared by the Musica Iagiellonica publishing house.

The exhibition dedicated to Yaniewicz contains only items directly related to the composer and his closest family.  Most striking items are the richly decorated instruments, both produced at the beginning of the 19th century: the table piano (The Yaniewicz & Green Square Piano) and the Apollo lyre guitar (Yaniewicz & Co. Apollo lyre guitar). Visitors can read in the exhibition catalogue prepared by Josie Dixon that the instruments were probably decorated according to the client’s order from available pattern books.

Other exhibits include Yaniewicz’s patriotic tableware – a silver bowl with a coin with the image of King August III of Poland in it (a ducat from 1753), spoons with the motto ‘Pro Lithuania’, and a seal for stamping letters with the same inscription and the composer’s initials. An important part of the exhibition is made up of memorabilia related to the first Edinburgh Music Festival and Yanievicz’s acquaintance with Angelica Catalani, one of the most outstanding singers of the time.

Another important object in the exhibition is a reminiscence of instruments whose exact fate is unfortunately unknown. It is a double case that once housed the violins of the most eminent violin makers: Stradivarius and Amati. Next to the case, as if as a consolation, there is a piece of colophony, which Yaniewicz probably touched.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński

You may also like