Authors
Eugeniusz Knapik
Eugeniusz Knapik was born on 9 July 1951 in Ruda Śląska. He studied composition with Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and piano with Czesław Stańczyk at the State Higher School of Music (now the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music) in Katowice. From 1975 to 1980 he was associated with the Młodzi Muzycy Młodemu Miastu (Young Musicians for a Young City) festival in Stalowa Wola.
He was the first pianist in Poland to perform Olivier Messiaen’s piano cycle Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus; his recording of the work received the Diapason d’Or in 2012. In 1976 he began teaching at his alma mater, where he later served as rector from 2002 to 2008. His works are performed on major stages around the world.
Knapik’s output falls into two phases, the principal dividing line being the beginning of his collaboration with Jan Fabre, the Flemish artist who in 1987 invited him to create a monumental operatic trilogy to his libretto. In the first phase, Knapik wrote compactly constructed chamber and orchestral works, including La Flûte de jade for soprano and orchestra (1973), Corale, interludio e aria for flute, harpsichord and string ensemble (1978), String Quartet (1980), Partita for violin and piano (1980), and Wyspy (Islands) for chamber string orchestra (1984). The second phase is dominated by large-scale forms for and vast vocal-and-instrumental performing forces: the operatic trilogy The Minds of Helena Troubleyn (1987–1995), the song cycle Up into the Silence (1996–2000), the mystery opera Moby Dick (2010), Concerto of Song Offerings for piano, mixed choir and orchestra (2014), the oratorio Canticum puerorum for soprano, baritone, choir and orchestra (2016), and Blessing gentle breeze (2018).
The aesthetic of Knapik’s works, usually associated with so-called New Romanticism, is determined by its ethical dimension: the categories of creative freedom, responsibility and artistic sincerity, as well as the classically conceived ideals of beauty, goodness and truth. Knapik takes up themes abandoned by the apologists of the artistic avant-garde, while the concept of ‘originality’, central to his work, is understood not as being unconditionally different, but — in keeping with the etymology of the word — as a grasping of the essence, roots and inner nature of things and ideas.
Eugeniusz Knapik has been honoured, among other distinctions, with the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta and the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture — Gloria Artis.
He was the first pianist in Poland to perform Olivier Messiaen’s piano cycle Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus; his recording of the work received the Diapason d’Or in 2012. In 1976 he began teaching at his alma mater, where he later served as rector from 2002 to 2008. His works are performed on major stages around the world.
Knapik’s output falls into two phases, the principal dividing line being the beginning of his collaboration with Jan Fabre, the Flemish artist who in 1987 invited him to create a monumental operatic trilogy to his libretto. In the first phase, Knapik wrote compactly constructed chamber and orchestral works, including La Flûte de jade for soprano and orchestra (1973), Corale, interludio e aria for flute, harpsichord and string ensemble (1978), String Quartet (1980), Partita for violin and piano (1980), and Wyspy (Islands) for chamber string orchestra (1984). The second phase is dominated by large-scale forms for and vast vocal-and-instrumental performing forces: the operatic trilogy The Minds of Helena Troubleyn (1987–1995), the song cycle Up into the Silence (1996–2000), the mystery opera Moby Dick (2010), Concerto of Song Offerings for piano, mixed choir and orchestra (2014), the oratorio Canticum puerorum for soprano, baritone, choir and orchestra (2016), and Blessing gentle breeze (2018).
The aesthetic of Knapik’s works, usually associated with so-called New Romanticism, is determined by its ethical dimension: the categories of creative freedom, responsibility and artistic sincerity, as well as the classically conceived ideals of beauty, goodness and truth. Knapik takes up themes abandoned by the apologists of the artistic avant-garde, while the concept of ‘originality’, central to his work, is understood not as being unconditionally different, but — in keeping with the etymology of the word — as a grasping of the essence, roots and inner nature of things and ideas.
Eugeniusz Knapik has been honoured, among other distinctions, with the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta and the Gold Medal for Merit to Culture — Gloria Artis.
