Julian Fontana

Julian Fontana was a Polish pianist, composer, and music educator born in Warsaw in 1810, with sources noting his birth on 31 July 1810. Of Italian descent and raised as a Lutheran, he completed his studies at the Warsaw Lyceum before pursuing law at the University of Warsaw. He also studied at the Warsaw Conservatory under Józef Elsner, a formative period that shaped his artistic development and fostered lifelong friendships, including a close relationship with Frédéric Chopin, with whom he lived from 1836 to 1838 in an apartment on Chaussée-d'Antin in Paris.

Fontana was an active participant in the Polish November Uprising of 1830. Following the defeat of the insurrection, he fled to Hamburg and later emigrated to France. By 1832 he had settled in Paris, where he joined the vibrant musical scene. In 1840 Chopin dedicated his Two Polonaises, Op. 40, to him, including the well-known Military Polonaise in A major, highlighting the importance of their friendship both personally and professionally.

Fontana performed extensively across Europe and the Americas. In 1835 he took part in a notable London concert featuring six pianists, including Ignaz Moscheles, Johann Cramer, and Charles-Valentin Alkan. His international career brought him to England and France between 1833 and 1837, and later to New York, Cuba, and even Hawaii, often performing alongside Italian violinist Camillo Sivori. On July 8, 1844, he introduced Chopin’s music to Cuba for the first time with a performance in Havana.

During his stay in Cuba from 1844 to 1845, Fontana worked as a music teacher, mentoring several students who would become prominent musicians and composers, including Nicolás Ruiz Espadero. After returning to New York, he married Camilla Dalcour Tennant on September 9, 1850, and their son, Julian Camillo Adam Fontana, was born in Paris in 1853. Following Camilla’s death in 1855, he arranged for her children from her first marriage to be cared for by their English relatives, and later made similar provisions for his own son. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1855. That same year he controversially published a collection of Chopin’s previously unpublished manuscripts, Opp. 66–73, including the famous Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Op. 66, and considered revealing private aspects of Chopin’s life in print.

Fontana continued to travel frequently between Havana, New York, Paris, and Poland during the late 1850s, also returning to Cuba in an unsuccessful attempt to secure his late wife's estate. In 1859 he published Chopin’s set of sixteen Polish Songs and Op. 74, further contributing to the preservation of his friend’s musical legacy. Composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk dedicated two works—La Gitanella and Illusions perdues—to Fontana in 1860, acknowledging his influence and stature in the international music community. During his time in Montgeron near Paris in the early 1850s, he entered the literary milieu and befriended Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz.

In addition to his musical achievements, Fontana engaged in literary work. During the 1860s he produced a Polish translation of Cervantes’s Don Quixote, demonstrating his versatility and intellectual range. In 1869 he published a book on folk astronomy, reflecting his continued curiosity and scholarly pursuits beyond music.

Towards the end of his life, Fontana suffered from progressive hearing loss and fell into poverty. His declining circumstances led him to take his own life in Paris on 23 December 1869 by inhaling carbon monoxide. He was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery. Fontana left behind a body of salon music, including caprices, rêveries, mazurkas, nocturnes, and romances, works that complement his legacy as one of the important figures connected to Chopin’s musical circle.

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