Adam Jarzębski

Polish composer Adam Jarzebski was one of the most prominent musicians in Warsaw in the first half of the 17th century. Born in the town of Warka, which is located about 40 miles south of Warsaw, Jarzebski made his debut at the Berlin-based court of John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg in 1612. In 1615, Jarzebski was permitted to leave for a year in order to study music in Italy, the center of the latest musical fashions and the birthplace of the then-emerging Baroque style. After a year or two spent in sunny Italy, however, Jarzebski decided to bypass Berlin and made straight for Warsaw, where he worked as a musician until he signed his last will and testament on December 26, 1648, presumably dying within a few days. Adam Jarzebski's complete known works were collected and published in 1989, though a handful of his pieces appeared somewhat earlier, including a two-voice Canon that appeared in an Italian print in 1643. The main manuscript source of his work is headed by the rubric Canzoni é concerti; compiled in 1627, it contains 27 instrumental pieces and is considered a principal resource for the understanding of early, Central European Baroque chamber music. Certain pieces also exist in keyboard tablatures as well. They demonstrate the impact of the Italian music that Jarzebski studied and some pieces even utilize known compositions by Italian composers as a sort of jumping off point. Jarzebski also developed a fondness for the strange, highly chromatic harmony favored by Monteverdi, Caccini, and others, perhaps best noted in his three-part composition Chromatica.