Virtuosic ouvre of the 19th-century pPlish composer and cellist Samuel Kossowski as exemplified by the piece Souvenir de Chopin

Abstract

Samuel Kossowski – Polish virtuoso and composer, highly regarded in the 19th century both in Poland and abroad. He worked in the lands of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where his compositions were not well received by the occupying authorities. As a result, most of his works were not officially published at the time, and only manuscripts have survived. Two of these were first published by PWM and Eufonium at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. If some of his lost works were found, given the positive reviews in the 19th-century press, it would certainly be a groundbreaking discovery for Polish cello literature. Samuel was born in the Kielce Governorate and moved to Galicia to study the cello. Later in his career, he frequently performed in cities such as Lviv and Krakow. The nature of his known compositions, their technical and performance demands, and their aesthetic qualities, such as in Souvenir de Chopin, significantly align with the innovative style of Belgian cellist and composer Adrien-François Servais, who also performed in Krakow during Kossowski’s career.