Tadeusz Szeligowski

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.

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-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, and then from 1918 to 1923 in Kraków, where he studied piano with H. Peters, and composition with Bolesław Wallek-Walewski. 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.

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. 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.

Musical career

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. Shortly after his return to Poland in 1931, he began teaching music in Poznań until 1939, and then moved to Lublin for a little while after World War II. From 1947 to 1962 he worked for The State Higher School Of Music () in Poznań, and from 1947 to 1950 he became director of the National Opera Academy, when on his own initiative the Poznań Philharmonic was created. 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, and one of the organizers of the H. Wieniawski International Violin Competition. From 1951 to 1962 Szeligowski worked in Warsaw, first for the faculty of the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music

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