Authors
Zygmunt Mycielski
Composer and music journalist. He was born in 1907 in Przeworsk, into an aristocratic family. His musical training began in Kraków with the Franciscan friar Bernardino Rizzi. From 1928, following the advice of Karol Szymanowski, he studied at the École normale de musique in Paris with Paul Dukas and Nadia Boulanger, and formed a lasting friendship with the latter. He was an active member of the Association of Young Polish Musicians in Paris.
He took part in the Polish Campaign of September 1939 and the subsequent fights in France. As a Polish army soldier, he ended up in a German prisoner-of-war camp, from which he was sent to do forced labour on farms. When the war ended, he returned to Poland. From 1946 he helped to set up the periodical Ruch Muzyczny, of which he was editor in chief from 1962 to 1968. He also co-edited other music periodicals and was active in the Polish Composers’ Union.
He was one of those Polish intellectuals who openly criticised communist Poland’s cultural policies. When the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia, he published an open letter to Czech and Slovak musicians in the Paris-based periodical Kultura – an act for which he met with tough restrictions for several years.
He wrote a great many texts, mainly columns and articles on music, which were also published in book collections: Ucieczki z pięciolinii (Fleeing the Stave), Notatki o muzyce i muzykach (Notes on Music and Musicians), and Postludia (Postludes). For several decades, between 1950 and 1987, he kept diaries. Apart from chronicling the composer’s personal fortunes and providing a picture of the times, they are also an exceptional literary work. Mycielski, however, saw himself first and foremost as a composer, though his music was not widely known and it was only his last works, Three Psalms and Liturgia sacra, that brought him wider recognition. Also performed today are Five Wedding Songs, Polish Symphony, and his settings of 13 Choral Preludes for orchestra. The search for his own musical language led him through expressionism, folklorism, and serialism. He created his own intimate music world, which was largely a reflection of his extramusical, mostly literary inspirations.
He died in 1987 in Warsaw. He was buried on the family estate of Wiśniowa, in the Podkarpacie region.
He took part in the Polish Campaign of September 1939 and the subsequent fights in France. As a Polish army soldier, he ended up in a German prisoner-of-war camp, from which he was sent to do forced labour on farms. When the war ended, he returned to Poland. From 1946 he helped to set up the periodical Ruch Muzyczny, of which he was editor in chief from 1962 to 1968. He also co-edited other music periodicals and was active in the Polish Composers’ Union.
He was one of those Polish intellectuals who openly criticised communist Poland’s cultural policies. When the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia, he published an open letter to Czech and Slovak musicians in the Paris-based periodical Kultura – an act for which he met with tough restrictions for several years.
He wrote a great many texts, mainly columns and articles on music, which were also published in book collections: Ucieczki z pięciolinii (Fleeing the Stave), Notatki o muzyce i muzykach (Notes on Music and Musicians), and Postludia (Postludes). For several decades, between 1950 and 1987, he kept diaries. Apart from chronicling the composer’s personal fortunes and providing a picture of the times, they are also an exceptional literary work. Mycielski, however, saw himself first and foremost as a composer, though his music was not widely known and it was only his last works, Three Psalms and Liturgia sacra, that brought him wider recognition. Also performed today are Five Wedding Songs, Polish Symphony, and his settings of 13 Choral Preludes for orchestra. The search for his own musical language led him through expressionism, folklorism, and serialism. He created his own intimate music world, which was largely a reflection of his extramusical, mostly literary inspirations.
He died in 1987 in Warsaw. He was buried on the family estate of Wiśniowa, in the Podkarpacie region.
