Działalność i twórczość Karola Mikulego: pomiędzy uniwersalizmem romantycznym a pozytywistycznym

Abstrakt

The achievements of Karol Mikuli in all areas of musical culture – composing, performing as a concert pianist, concertmaster, chamber musician, teacher, founder of the unique “Chopin school”, animator of the musical life of Galicia, director of the Galician Music Society and the Conservatory in Lviv, theorist – arouses true admiration and requires reflection: what predispositions inspired Mikuli's extremely fruitful and varied artistic work? This article seeks an answer to this question, taking into account the principles of Romantic aesthetics on the one hand, and Positivism on the other hand.

A milestone is the way how the artist is perceived in these periods – as a poet, musician and painter. Special adoration for priests in Romanticism and “grassroots work” addressed to a wider audience in Positivism are highlighted. The figure of the “universal artist” has been particularly exposed as an ideal, especially in stateless countries. This is the role played by Karol Mikuli during his almost forty-year stay in Lviv. An additional stimulus for its multidirectional activity was the whole atmosphere of the city and the extremely rich traditions of the multinational Lviv society.