Julian Fontana

Julian (or Jules) Fontana (31 July 1810 — 23 December 1869) was a Polish pianist, composer, lawyer, author, translator, and entrepreneur, best remembered as a close friend and musical executor of Polish composer Frédéric Chopin.

Life Born in Warsaw to a family of Italian origin,

In 1835, in London, he participated in a concert with music played by 6 pianists, the others including Ignaz Moscheles, Johann Baptist Cramer and Charles-Valentin Alkan.

From 1836 to 1838, he lived together with Chopin in his apartment on Chaussée-d'Antin no. 38.

In 1840, Chopin dedicated his 2 Polonaises, Op. 40, to Fontana. These included the "Military Polonaise" in A major.

He took up a wandering life that included: England and France (1833–1837); Their son Julian Camillo Adam Fontana was born in Paris on 10 July 1853. He then travelled to Cuba in an unsuccessful bid to recover his late wife's estate. He spent some years travelling between Havana, New York, Paris and Poland. In 1859, he published 16 of Chopin's Polish Songs, as Op. 74 (a later edition increased this to 17 songs).

In 1860, Louis Moreau Gottschalk dedicated two compositions to Fontana, La Gitanella and Illusions perdues.

In the 1860s Fontana translated Cervantes' Don Quixote into Polish. In 1869, he published a book of folk astronomy.

He succumbed to deafness and poverty, and committed suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide aged 59 in Paris. He was buried in Montmartre Cemetery. He had arranged, prior to his death, to have his son looked after by his wife's family in England.