‘Judging by my baptismal certificate, I am already a jolly old guy.’ The Discovery of Wincenty Lessel’s Baptismal Certificate

Peer-Reviewed

Tomasz Fatalski


University of Warsaw (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3838-9942

Abstract

Wincenty Lessel was a pianist and composer born in Bohemia, conductor of the Czartoryski Princes’ court orchestra in Puławy. Based on the scanty information found in his biography and correspondence, Hanna Rudnicka-Kruszewska hypothesised that he was born around 1740–50 in Jílové u Prahy. Archival research has revealed the musician’s baptismal certificate. He was born in Riegersdorf (now Modrá, a district of the town Jílové u Děčína) as the son of Hans Christoph Lössel (an outworker, not a burgrave, as Lessel himself claimed) and his wife Rosina. Baptised on 17th June 1756 in the parish church in Jílové u Děčína (Germ. Eulau), Wincenty had seven siblings: Hans Joseph, Christoph, Anton, Hans Franz, Franz (Anton), Ignatz, and Maria Theresia, born in 1738–53. Their parents probably died in 1759–60. Most likely after the Seven Years’ War, the Lössels moved from Jílové to Dresden, joining their family in that city, which included Georg Albert Lössel, the would-be founder of the famous Lessel coffee house in Warsaw’s Saxon Palace. Along with his successors, Wincenty Lessel applied for an indygenat (granting nobility to foreign nobles) for his family in 1819.


Keywords:

Wincenty Lessel, Franciszek Lessel, Puławy, genealogical Research

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Published
2023-07-17

Cited by

Fatalski, T. (2023). ‘Judging by my baptismal certificate, I am already a jolly old guy.’ The Discovery of Wincenty Lessel’s Baptismal Certificate . Muzyka, 68(2), 119–126. https://doi.org/10.36744/m.1774

Authors

Tomasz Fatalski 

University of Warsaw Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3838-9942

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