Julian Fontana

Fontana left Warsaw in 1831, after the November Uprising and settled in Hamburg, before becoming a pianist and teacher in Paris in 1832.

[3] 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.

And when his profound diplomacy, allied to his extraordinary wit, concealed from the world what was not a secret to me, who lived with him for almost thirty years in confidence; on raising the veil, I would show him not entirely as general opinion wishes to have him;" (Julian Fontana to Stanisław Egbert Koźmian, 6 June 1851)[7]He then travelled to Cuba in an unsuccessful bid to recover his late wife's estate.

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

He succumbed to deafness and poverty, and committed suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide aged 59[2] in Paris.