Kontski, Antoine de

1817-1899

Polish pianist and composer; born at Cracow. He studied with Johann Markendorf at Warsaw and Field at Moscow. He was a great traveler, living, respectively, at Paris, Berlin, where he was Court pianist; St. Petersburg, from which city he made many concert tours; London, where he taught and produced an opera, Les Deux Distraits; Buffalo, N. Y., where  he lived after touring the United States, and Warsaw, where he settled after a professional tour around the world. In 1899, the year of his death, he appeared at concerts in St. Petersburg. His compositions, most   of which are chamber-music, are unimportant, the best known being The Awakening of the Lion.