Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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808 SYEINX SZYMANOWSKA
SYRINX. [See Pandean Pipe, vol. ui.
pp. 611, 612.]
SYSTEM. The collection of staves necessary
for the complete score of a piece—in a string
quartet, or an ordinary vocal score, four ; a
PF. trio, four ; a PF. quartet, five ; and so on.
Two or more of these will go on a page, and
then we speak of the upper or lower system,
etc. a.
SZARVADY, Madame. See Olatjss-Szar-
VADT, vol. i. p. 548, and add date of death,
in Paris, Sept. 1, 1907.
SZYMANOWSKA, Makie, a distinguished
pianist of her day, who would, however, hardly
have been remembered but for Goethe's infatuation
for her. She was born about 1790, of
Polish parents named Wolowski, and was a
pupil of John Field's at Moscow. She ti-avelled
much in Germany, France, and England, and
died at St. Petersburg of cholera in August 1831.
One of her daughters married the famous Polish
poet Miokiewicz, whom she had introduced to
Goethe in July 1829. Goethe knew her as
early as 1821, and even then overpraised her,
setting her above Hummel '
; but those who
do so,' says Felix Mendelssohn, who was then
at Weimar,^ think more ' of her pretty face
than her not pretty playing.' Goethe renewed
the acquaintance in August 1823, at Eger, where
she and Anna Milder were both staying, calls
her 'an incredible player,' and expresses his
excitement at hearing music after an interval
of over two years in a remarkable letter to
Zelter of August 24, 1823, again comparing her
with Hummel, to the latter's disadvantage.
Mme. Szymanowska appears to have helped to
inspire the 'Trilogie der Leidensohaft,' and the
third of its three poems, called Aussbhnung,
'
is a direct allusion to her. In 1824 she was in
Berlin. 'She is furiously in love (rasend
verliebt) with you,' says Zelter to the poet,
'and has given me a hundred kisses on my
mouth for you.
Her compositions were chiefly for the PF.,
with a few songs. G.
1 Ooethe and 3fendelM0lvn, p. 25.
END OF VOIi. IV