Exhibition at The Georgian House, Edinburgh
Music and Migration in Georgian Edinburgh: The Story of Felix Yaniewicz
25 June - 22 October 2022
Opening times 10.00 - 17.00 daily
Entry to the exhibition will be included with admission to The Georgian House. Tickets may be booked in advance. Please check the Georgian House website for occasional closures.
The Georgian House
7 Charlotte Square, Edinburgh EH2 4DR
The Georgian House | National Trust for Scotland (nts.org.uk)
Tel 0131 225 2160
Opening times 10.00 - 17.00 daily
Entry to the exhibition will be included with admission to The Georgian House. Tickets may be booked in advance. Please check the Georgian House website for occasional closures.
The Georgian House
7 Charlotte Square, Edinburgh EH2 4DR
The Georgian House | National Trust for Scotland (nts.org.uk)
Tel 0131 225 2160
This exhibition in the beautiful setting of Edinburgh's Georgian House will showcase the remarkable story of Felix Yaniewicz (1762-1848), the celebrated Polish-Lithuanian violin virtuoso who settled in Scotland and founded the first Edinburgh music festival in 1815. Yaniewicz's cosmopolitan career offers a wealth of colourful detail, beginning in the Polish royal chapel, featuring encounters with Mozart and Haydn in Vienna, an escape from the French Revolution, and a lost Stradivarius. The exhibition will be a unique opportunity to see historic musical instruments, portraits, letters, autographs, silver and gold personal possessions, many of them heirlooms on loan from members of his surviving family. Few of these exhibits have ever been seen in public before.
A programme of talks, lecture-recitals and performances will be held alongside the exhibition in the Drawing Room at the Georgian House. Click here for more information and to book tickets.
A programme of talks, lecture-recitals and performances will be held alongside the exhibition in the Drawing Room at the Georgian House. Click here for more information and to book tickets.
You can preview some of the exhibits in this slideshow:
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- The Yaniewicz & Green square piano c.1810, recently purchased for this project by The Friends of Felix Yaniewicz, will be on display in the Drawing Room
- The Yaniewicz & Co Apollo lyre guitar, dating from the same period, will be on special loan from the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter
- Yaniewicz’s inlaid double violin case, which once contained his Stradivarius and Amati violins, will be on loan from the museum of historical instruments at St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh, and displayed in public for the first time
- The portrait of Yaniewicz aged 37 by De L0ngastre
- Portraits of his wife, Eliza Breeze
- Yaniewicz's gold snuff box
- Silver cutlery and his seal on a gold fob bearing his crest and motto ‘Pro Lithuania’
- Memorabilia from his musical activities in Edinburgh include An Account of the First Edinburgh Musical Festival (first edition), published in 1816 and inscribed ‘To Mrs Yaniewicz as a small mark of the author’s esteem and friendship’
- Letters and autographs from Yaniewicz's correspondents, Nicolo Paganini and Angelica Catalani
The Friends of Felix Yaniewicz are working with National Trust for Scotland and exhibition managers Matassa Toffolo.
Exhibition events programme
A programme of events held alongside the exhibition will animate Yaniewicz's story in talks, lecture recitals and musical performance. Events in the Drawing Room at the Georgian House will include:
- Felix Yaniewicz: Life and Legend
- The Story of the First Edinburgh Music Festival
- Music and Migration in Georgian Edinburgh
- Every Instrument tells a Story
- 'Pro Lithuania': Patriotism in Exile
- Mr Yaniewicz and Mme Catalani
- Armando Iannucci in conversation, on music, migration and Scotland