Music and Freemasonry in Warsaw during the early nineteenth century. New information concerning Józef Elsner’s Masonic activities (from the Masonic Archive in the Central Archives of Historical Records (AGAD))

Małgorzata Sieradz

Abstract

Some barely researched episodes of Józef Elsner’s activities as a Freemason have so far been known from an article published years ago in Kwartalnik Muzyczny by Stanisław Małachowski-Łempicki titled ‘Józef Elsner jako wolnomularz‘ [Józef Elsner as a Freemason]. In several other studies published between the wars, the same author included a number of further details concerning the links between Elsner – as well as other members of the Warsaw music scene – and Freemasonry in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, as well as information about Elsner’s involvement in politics. Masonic episodes in the composer’s life are discussed in an Elsner monograph by the Polish musicologist Alina Nowak-Romanowicz, published in the 1950s, and information about the role of music in Masonic rituals is scattered throughout the fundamental work on the history of  Freemasonry in Poland around the turn of the nineteenth century: Stanisław Załęski’s O masonii w Polsce od roku 1738 do 1822 na źródłach wyłącznie masońskich [Freemasonry in Poland from 1738 to 1822 in the light of Masonic sources alone].

Józef Elsner was a member of the Freemasons like many other eminent artists, aristocrats and intellectuals of his time. He joined a lodge while still in Lviv, so before 1805. In Warsaw, he belonged to the Golden Candlestick lodge from 1805; in the years that followed, he climbed the organisational hierarchy and held responsible functions in his parent lodge Zur Halle der Beständigkeit (Temple of Persistence; another member of that lodge – although not in Warsaw – was one of Mozart’s sons, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart), also receiving honourable membership of other local lodges: Temple of Minerva, Temple of Equality, Torch of the North and Temple of Isis. By virtue of his position in the organisation, he participated in the activities of the Grand Orient, including helping to organise the Warsaw Music Society.

Our knowledge of Elsner’s involvement in Freemasonry can now be supplemented with data obtained by the author of the article during preliminary research conducted in the Central Archives of Historical Records (AGAD) in Warsaw. The investigated material has made it possible to reconstruct the complete texts and establish the authorship of most of the Masonic songs composed by Elsner, to examine examples of poetry dedicated to Elsner by his fellow Freemasons from Warsaw lodges and to identify another collection of his compositions (known from other sources), written for Masonic lodges, not previously mentioned in any studies, as well as an unsigned, handwritten copy of the so-called ‘apprentices’ song’ ‘Bierz się śmiało do podróży’ [Go boldly on your journey].

In everyday Masonic activity, music was an indispensable and important element of rituals and ceremonies; one of the members held the function of Director of Harmony, appointed by the Grand Master himself. Music both vocal (mostly choral) and vocal-instrumental (usually for a voice or voices to the accompaniment of piano or chamber ensemble, most often composed of wind instruments – flutes, clarinets, oboes, bassoons and horns – but also cellos) enriched various ceremonies: ‘chain songs’ accompanied the forming of a circle at the end of a lodge meeting, ‘banquet songs’ were sung after the prayer during shared meals, and specially-composed songs were performed before the lodge was closed. Evidence of these musical activities can be found in the AGAD collection (lodge songs, banquet songs and mourning songs mentioned in a catalogue of the Skimborowicz Collection).

When Masonic activists appealed for new texts to Masonic songs in the early nineteenth century, numerous Freemason poets responded: Ludwik Dmuszewski, Kajetan Koźmian, Ludwik Osiński, Kazimierz Brodziński, Józef Dionizy Minasowicz, Franciszek Wężyk, Tomasz Zan, Ignacy Chodźko and many others; music was provided by the local composers Józef Elsner, Antoni Weynert, Karol Kurpiński and Jan Stefani.

The large number of professional writers and amateur poets, in addition to a large group of musicians active in the lodges, favoured the creation of a variety of songbooks, collections and volumes of works to be performed during various Masonic ceremonies. They were published in print or copied by hand, including Pieśni wolnomularskie w liczbie 11 przez br. Feliksa Gawdzickiego [Eleven Masonic songs by Brother Feliks Gawdzicki] (1814) and Tragiczne śpiewy masońskie [Tragic Masonic songs] (1821). It should be noted that collections of music from Masonic circles are rare, which makes it even more remarkable that Skimborowicz’s archive contains several manuscripts with scores.

In 1810, the common practice of singing during Masonic ceremonies encouraged Józef Elsner to publish his own collection of songs to be performed by Masonic brethren, modelled on similar publications abroad. The collection, titled Muzyka do pieśni wolnomularskich [Music to Masonic songs], comprised thirty compositions (apart from Elsner’s, it contained music by Mozart, Stefani and Cherubini, as well as anonymous works): twenty-four Polish, three French and three German songs. The clear majority of the compositions were written for a single voice with the accompaniment of a keyboard instrument. Due to their function, which was not to provide an artistic setting, but rather to unite the members of a lodge in the joyous moments of ritual and celebration, the songs had a simple stanzaic structure, usually not exceeding twenty or thirty bars. Several of Elsner’s songs from this collection are held in the AGAD as manuscript copies, as is also noted in the article.