The Villa Atma in Zakopane

Zakopane

Zakopane , is a town in southern Poland. It lies in the southern part of the Podhale region at the foot of the Tatra Mountains. From 1975 to 1998 it was in of Nowy Sącz Province, but since 1999 it has been in Lesser Poland Province. It had a population of about 28,000 as of 2004. Zakopane is a...

, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, is a chalet

Chalet

A chalet , also called Swiss chalet, is a type of building or house, native to the Alpine region, made of wood, with a heavy, gently sloping roof with wide, well-supported eaves set at right angles to the front of the house.-Definition and origin:...

 housing the Karol Szymanowski

Karol Szymanowski

Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Polish composer and pianist.-Life:Szymanowski was born into a wealthy land-owning Polish gentry family in Tymoszówka, then in the Russian Empire, now in Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine. He studied music privately with his father before going to Gustav Neuhaus'...

 Museum, a department of the National Museum in Cracow. It was built about 1890 in 'Zakopane style' for Józef Kasprusie-Stoch to designs by the architect Stanisław Witkiewicz. The name 'Atma' is derived form the Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 word for 'soul'.

Museum

The composer Szymanowski visited Zakopane in his childhood and the Villa Atma became his permanent residence in 1930. He described the villa in a letter to his mother as "a small, humble mountaineer's cottage". Amongst the fellow artists who visited Szymanowski in Villa Atma were Artur Rubinstein, Serge Lifar

Serge Lifar

Serge Lifar ; 15 December 1986) was a French ballet dancer and choreographer of Ukrainian origin, famous as one of the greatest male ballet dancers of the 20th century.-Biography:Lifar was born in Kiev, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire...

 and Emil Młynarski.

After Szymanowski's death in 1937, his friends suggested making the Villa a museum in his honour, but this aim was not achieved until 1967. The exhibits include a close recreation of the composer's study, in which he wrote some of his most notable works including the Symphony

Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...

 no 4, (a sinfonia concertante

Sinfonia concertante

Sinfonia concertante is a musical form that emerged during the Classical period of Western music. It is essentially a mixture of the symphony and the concerto genres: a concerto in that one or more soloists are on prominent display, and a symphony in that the soloists are nonetheless discernibly a...

 for piano and orchestra dedicated to Rubinstein), and his second Violin Concerto

Violin concerto

A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin and instrumental ensemble, customarily orchestra. Such works have been written since the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, up through the present day...

.

The museum is located in Zakopane at ul. Kasprusie 19, and is open Wednesday through Sunday. Apart from the ground-floor permanent collection, there is a second-floor library and archive relating to Szymanowski. Occasionally concerts and recitals are held in the Villa.

Sources

• Maciej Pinkwart, Karol Szymanowski's Museum in the Chalet "Atma" in Zakopane, Cracow, 1997 ISBN 83-906334-4-2

External links

• Villa Atma Museum Karol Szymanowski website