New Year’s Day marked the 70th anniversary of Różycki’s death. The year 2023 also marks the 140th anniversary of his birth.
Różycki was one of the most outstanding figures in Polish music of the first half of the 20th century. He is particularly remembered for his achievements in symphonic music and opera as well as the founder of the Polish national ballet.
He displayed an extraordinary musical talent from his early days. In 1904, he graduated with a gold medal from the Warsaw Conservatory, where he studied composition with Zygmunt Noskowski and piano with Aleksander Michałowski.
He made his debut as a composer before graduation with the symphonic scherzo Stańczyk. Shortly afterwards, with a letter of recommendation from Polish composer Emil Młynarski to German composers Engelbert Humperdinck and Richard Strauss in his hand, he went to Berlin, where he wrote two symphonic poems, Bolesław Śmiały (Boleslaus the Bold) and Pan Twardowski (Master Twardowski).
From 1908 to 1912, Różycki held the post of conductor at the Lviv Opera. He then returned to Warsaw for a brief period before moving to Paris for a few years, and subsequently taking up residence in Berlin. It was there that he penned the opera Eros and Psyche and his Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor.
After Poland regained independence in 1918, Różycki returned to Warsaw. In the interwar period, he pursued a wide range of activities as a composer, writer on music, teacher and organiser of musical life.
He also developed a career as a pianist. It was during this period that Różycki enjoyed his greatest popularity. The ballet Master Twardowski, which became a huge box-office hit at Warsaw’s Grand Theatre, and the opera Casanova, were among his most spectacular achievements.
Różycki spent the years of Nazi German occupation mainly in Warsaw. His output from that time includes Piano Concerto No. 2. Following the collapse of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, during which his house was burnt and many of his manuscripts were lost, Różycki and his wife found temporary shelter near the southern city of Kraków.
After the war, they settled in Poland's southern city of Katowice, where Różycki worked as a professor at the State Higher School of Music.
When Różycki was close to retirement from his teaching position, the Polish Ministry of Culture and Art granted him a lifetime salary as well as a villa for perpetual use.
The beautiful house, dubbed Pan Twardowski (Master Twardowski) by the composer, was picturesquely located in a village near Jelenia Góra in southwestern Poland. It was there that Różycki spent the last years of his life, devoting most of the time to reconstructing his lost compositions.
(mk/gs)