Władysław Tarnowski

Tarnowski in an Arab headdress, carved in wood by Aleksander Tadeusz Regulski in 1878 and based on a portrait by Franciszek Tegazzo Tarnowski in an 1877 wood engraving by Jan Styfi Tarnowski by Maurycy Gottlieb, 1877 Władysław Tarnowski (June 4, 1836 – April 19, 1878), also known by his pen name Ernest Buława, was a Polish pianist, composer, poet, dramatist, and translator. Tarnowski was born in Wróblewice, an administrative district of Drohobycz in present-day Ukraine, to Count Walerian Spycimir Tarnowski and Ernestyna Tarnowska. As a young prodigy, he was introduced to Frédéric Chopin. Tarnowski studied in Lviv and Kraków, and with Daniel Auber at the Conservatoire de Paris. During the January Uprising of 1863-64 he wrote the song "Jak to na wojence ładnie" ("Isn't the War Fun"), which remains popular in several iterations. Tarnowski traveled widely, giving concerts in Wrocław in 1860 and 1875, Vienna, Venice and Florence in 1872, Paris in 1873, and Lviv in 1875. He toured the Middle East and Asia, lived in India, China, and Japan, and died near San Francisco on the steamer SS Pacific while returning from Japan.

Compositions