Composer, music professor, pianist and music writer
Employer
Państwowa Wyzsza Szkoła Muzyczna
Notable work
The peacock and the girl
Sonata for flute and piano
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.
Life and work
Musical education
Tadeusz Szeligowski was born on 13 September 1896 in Lemberg, then in Austro-HungarianGalicia 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]
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]
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]
Awards
Józef Kopczyński's 1966 commemorative plaque for Polish composer Tadeusz Szeligowski.
Szeligowski received numerous awards, among them:
1949 (1949): Third prize at the Second Chopin Composition Competition for his Piano Sonata in D minor[8]
1949 (1949): Second prize at the Polish Radio Competition for the song The Prince and the girl[8]
1950 (1950): State prize of the second degree for The peacock and the girl, Arion, and the Lublin Wedding[4]
1951 (1951): State prize of the first degree for the opera stage Rise of the scholars[4]
1963 (1963): Prize Prime Minister of Poland for his music for children and youth[7]
1963 (1963): Music Award of the PCU, awarded every 17 January by the Polish Composers' Union (ZKP — Zwiazek Kompozytorow Polskich) for lifetime achievement (posthumous)[9]
Also, he received numerous prizes and awards, including:
This article is based on the translation of the corresponding article on the Polish Wikipedia. A list of all contributors can be found there at theHistorysection.
