Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska 1829–1861 Born probably in 1829, she was a Polish pianist and composer of salon piano pieces. She was married to Jan Baranowski, they had five children. Bądarzewska wrote 35 small compositions for piano, of which the most famous was “A Maiden’s Prayer”. The score for that composition was printed as a supplement to the French periodical “Revue et Gazette Musicale”. Since that time, “A Maiden’s Prayer” has been an international hit which is popular to this day. Twenty years ago, the International Astronomical Union named a crater on Venus after her. Bądarzewska’s life remains a mystery – she died young in 1861 in Warsaw, but the cause of her death has never been revealed. Her obituary appeared the next day in one of Warsaw’s daily newspapers, Kurier Warszawski. Tekla Bądarzewska was buried in the Baranowski family vault in the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw. Her grave, built a year after her death, features a statue ...