Tadeusz Szeligowski (13 September 1896 - 10 January 1963) was a Polish composer, educator, lawyer and music organizer. His works include the operas The Rise of the Scholars, Krakatuk and Theodor Gentlemen, the ballets The Peacock and the Girl and Mazepa ballets, two violin concertos, chamber and choral works. [1]
As a music teacher, Szeligowski was very well established in Vilnius, Lublin, Poznań and Warsaw. He was also a respected music writer who frequently wrote for journals and magazines specialized in music such as the Kurier Wileński , Tygodnik Wileński , Muzyka and the Kurier Poznański . His achievements include the creation of the Poznan´ Philharmonic, where he served as its first director between the years 1947–1949, and the founding of the Poznań Musical Spring, one of the most important festivals of contemporary music at the time.
Tadeusz Szeligowski was born on 13 September 1896 in Lemberg, then in Austro-Hungarian Galicia and now in western Ukraine. Szeligowski's first music and piano teacher was his mother. Later he began studying music at the Conservatory of Music of the Polish Society in L'vov in the years 1910–1914, where he studied piano under the direction of Vilem Kurz, [2] and then from 1918 to 1923 in Kraków, where he studied piano with H. Peters, and composition with Bolesław Wallek-Walewski. [3] Szeligowski's further education included musicology with Zdzisław Jachimecki and law at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, where he received his doctorate in 1922. There he found work as repetiteur at the Kraków Opera House, allowing him to become well acquainted with the opera repertoire. [2]
He complemented his studies in music in the years 1929–1931 in Paris, where he met many composers of his time such as Sergei Prokofiev, George Enesco and Arthur Honegger. There he studied composition with Nadia Boulanger and orchestration with Paul Dukas. [4] There he attended many concerts and intensely experienced the latest compositions by Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, ballet productions of many famous companies, as well as highly acclaimed performances by Jascha Heifetz, Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubinstein and Ignacy Jan Paderewski. [2]
In 1923 Szeligowski worked in Vilnius, Lithuania (then part of the Second Polish Republic), as lawyer and lecturer at the Conservatory of Music. There he met Karol Szymanowski and became a great admirer of his music. He also worked with a dramatic theatre called Reduta, composing music for many of its productions. [2] Shortly after his return to Poland in 1931, [2] [5] he began teaching music in Poznań until 1939, and then moved to Lublin for a little while after World War II. [2] From 1947 to 1962 he worked for The State Higher School Of Music (Państwowa Wyzsza Szkoła Muzyczna) in Poznań, [1] and from 1947 to 1950 he became director of the National Opera Academy, when on his own initiative the Poznań Philharmonic was created. [6] In addition, he was the initiator of the festival of contemporary music, the "Poznań Musical Spring", where modern music was then presented in all its glory, [4] and one of the organizers of the H. Wieniawski International Violin Competition. [2] From 1951 to 1962 Szeligowski worked in Warsaw, first for the faculty of the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, and later as director of the Polish Society of Composers. [2]
A large group of his graduates on composition include: Zbigniew Bargielski, Augustyn Bloch, Joanna Bruzdowicz, Wojciech Lukaszewski, Tadeusz Wojciech Maklakiewicz, Boleslaw Ocias, Witold Rudzinski, Marek Sart, Janina Skowronska, Aleksander Szeligowski and Antoni Szuniewicz. See: List of music students by teacher: R to S#Tadeusz Szeligowski .
Lvov's musical scene at that time included a city opera, a symphonic orchestra, a music society and also a conservatory of music, and there Szeligowski was very active as a social organizer. Musicians such as Felix Weingartner and Oscar Nedbal usually visited the city and frequently performed works by Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner. From 1951 to 1954 he served as chairman of the Polish Composers Union, and from 1953 he worked for the Board of Polish Music Publishers and the Central Pedagogical Office for Arts Education (COPSA). [7] Tadeusz Szeligowski died in Poznań on 10 January 1963 and since 1965 he has been buried in the Poznań Skalka crypt of Merit. [7]
Szeligowski received numerous awards, among them:
Also, he received numerous prizes and awards, including:
Grażyna Bacewicz Biernacka was a Polish composer and violinist of Lithuanian origin. She is the second Polish female composer to have achieved national and international recognition, the first being Maria Szymanowska in the early 19th century.
Tadeusz Baird was a Polish composer.
Boris Blacher was a German composer and librettist.
Kazimierz Serocki was a Polish composer and one of the founders of the Warsaw Autumn contemporary music festival.
Jean Absil was a Belgian composer, organist, and professor at the Brussels Conservatoire.
Ferenc Farkas was a Hungarian composer.
Józef Koffler was a Polish composer, music teacher, musicologist and musical columnist.
Rafał Augustyn is a composer of classical music, and a pianist, music critic, writer and scholar of Polish philology. As a composer he has written symphonies, chamber orchestra works, vocal and electronic music, as well as music for theatre. Since the mid-1990s, Augustyn has collaborated with visual artists, architects and photographers on numerous multimedia art works.
Jadwiga Szajna-Lewandowska was a Polish pianist, music educator and composer.
Bernadetta Matuszczak was a Polish composer. She was born in Toruń, Poland, and studied with Zygmunt Sitowski for music theory and with Irena Kurpisz-Stefanowa for piano at the State Higher School of Music in Poznan. Later she studied with Tadeusz Szeligowski and Kazimierz Sikorski for composition at the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw. She continued her education in composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. After completing her studies, she worked as a composer. Her works have been performed internationally.
Aleksander Robert Szeligowski was a Polish composer, conductor, organist and pedagogue. He studied in Poznań and Warsaw, later working as assistant conductor for the Poznań Philharmonic. Son of Tadeusz Szeligowski, he is the author of numerous compositions for piano, female and mixed choirs and others.
Marek Stachowski was a Polish composer. He received many awards and won many competitions for composers, including first prize at the K. Szymanowski Competition in 1974.
Agata Zubel is a Polish composer and singer.
Igor Jankowski – Polish-Belarusian composer, teacher and music activist.
Ryszard Bukowski was a Polish composer, teacher, and music critic.
Janina Skowronska was a Polish composer who is best remembered for her arrangements of folk songs, and for creating Little Chopin, a children’s musical based on the life and works of Frederic Chopin.
Tadeusz Szeligowski.