Karol Mikuli

(1819-1897)

The first pianist of Armenian origin who gained recognition in the countries of Western Europe, was Karol Mikuli.

Multilaterally gifted, surprising with the breadth of spiritual interests, highly educated, and a forward-thinking musician, he has performed in a variety of musical fields of cultures as a pianist, conductor, choirmaster, teacher, composer, theorist, ethnographer, and musical public figure. He made a significant contribution to the Ukrainian, Romanian, and, especially, Polish national musical culture of the 19th century.

Karol Mikuli himself, a student of Frédéric Chopin, remained in the history of European pianism as a subtle interpreter and editor of the works of his great teacher. And what is important, is the editorial prepared by him the first Complete Works of Chopin (ed. In 1879) to this day is considered the most complete and closest to the author’s original.

Karol Mikouli was born on October 19 (31), 1819. In the family of Stepan Mikayelyan in the city Chernivtsi region Bukovina. According to some sources, the Mikuli clan comes from the noble Askinyan family, who migrated at the beginning of the 17th century from Western Armenia to Romania.

Mikuli’s father, Stepan, was the owner of a rich trading company. Their house, located on the central square of the city, was a real center of culture — the guests of this house were prominent writers and musicians. The first music teacher of Karol Mikuli was his mother, then — Polish pianist Kolbert. The subsequent life and work of K. Mikuli were associated with large cities in Western Europe.

At the request of his parents, the young Karol entered the medical faculty at Vienna University, where he studied from 1839 to 1844, although deep down he dreamed of a career as a pianist and did not interrupt piano lessons.

Soon his life changed dramatically: after graduating from a medical university, he moved to Paris, by the will of a happy fate, from 1844 to 1847 became a student of Chopin, whose proposal he simultaneously took lessons in harmony and composition from the outstanding French teacher Napoléon-Henri Reber (1807 — 1880), known as a composer, pianist, and theorist. From 1851, Reber taught at the Paris Conservatory — at first harmony, then composition.

All further fruitful activities of K. Mikuli, which lasted several decades were associated, one might say, with the holy name of Chopin for him. It is also known that Chopin often took his students with him on trips. So close relationships give grounds to assume that Mikuli communicated with those around Chopin with bright representatives of romantic art — George Sand, Heinrich Heine, Eugène Delacroix, Adam Mickiewicz, and others. Among this galaxy, Franz Liszt should also be noted, with whom Mikuli was associated with warm friendly relations that lasted until the end of the days of the great Hungarian composer.

Throughout his life, Mikuli was engaged in composition. His pen belongs to works of choral, chamber, and instrumental genres. Among the latter one can note the poetic, refined mood songs in the texts of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Heinrich Heine, Robert Burns, Ludwig Uhland, and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff. Fascinated by the genres most characteristic of Frédéric Chopin, Mikuli composes numerous mazurkas, etudes, polonaises, ballads, and waltzes.

Another area in which Mikuli’s talent was manifested was pedagogy. The remarkable results of his pedagogical activity were also highly appreciated by Liszt. In the 70s, Mikuli was entirely occupied with the work of editing piano Chopin’s compositions. This monumental work was begun in his youth at the lessons of Chopin when scrupulously wrote down statements, variants of performance, offered by the teacher. In the editing process, many of Chopin’s friends and students helped and supported K. Mikuli with advice. Among them, are the Norwegian Thomas Tellefsen, Princess Marcelina Czartoryska, Delfina Potocka, and others.

Chopin’s works edited by K. Mikuli were published in 1879 in 14 volumes, and in 1888 an additional edition was published in 17 volumes. In 1889, for his great contribution to the art of music, Karol Mikuli was awarded a high award of the Austro-Hungarian Empire — the Order of the Knight’s Cross of Franz Joseph. Mikuli was written about in the most authoritative European and Soviet encyclopedias of the 20th century.

K. Mikuli died on May 21, 1897, in Lviv and was buried under the southern arcade in the courtyard ancient Armenian cathedral of the XIV century, where the noblest people of the Armenian communities were.

On the tombstone with a marble bas-relief of the composer is carved: «To the outstanding pianist, composer, director of the Galician Musical Society from grateful students.

The works of Karol Mikouli were published in Romania, Poland, and Ukraine, as well as in Armenia. His life and work are devoted to publications in different languages — German, French, Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian, Russian, and Armenian.

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