Antoni Katski Romances et Mélodies Molendowska Zuliani Mikolon Sawicka - AP0534

Antoni Katski was born in Kraków, Poland. He took his first piano lessons from his father, an amateur violinist. It is believed that Katski was a student at the Main School of Music in Warsaw. His piano and composition studies with John Field in Moscow in 1829–1830 are better documented, as they were reportedly arranged by Tsar Nicolas I himself. The young musician continued his education at the Vienna Conservatory with the celebrated pianist Sigismond Thalberg, himself a student of Ignaz Moscheles. In Vienna, Katski also studied composition with Simon Sechter. Later in his life, Katski repeatedly advertised himself as the only surviving student of Beethoven’s, with whom he supposedly undertook composition studies when he himself was just ten years old. Antoni Katski came from a family of very talented musicians. His brother, Karol (1813–1865) was a violinist and a composer, brother Apolinary (1824–1879) was a violinist, a student of the Paganini, founder and director of the Warsaw Institute of Music. His sister Eugenia (b. 1816) was a singer. His brother Stanislaw (1820–1886), was a pianist and a composer. Apolinary’s daughter, Wanda Katska, was an excellent pianist, while her brother Zygmunt was an excellent cellist.(...)