SOCIETY FOR POLISH MUSIC



Zygmunt Krauze

ZYGMUNT KRAUZE

| Biography | Selected Works | Discography |

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

Born in Warsaw on September 19, 1938, Zygmunt Krauze is a composer and pianist with strong ties to his home city, the capital of Poland, where he still resides. A graduate of the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw (now the Chopin Academy of Music), Krauze studied piano with Maria Wi³komirska and received his diploma in 1962. Simultaneously, he embarked upon compositional studies with Tadeusz Szeligowski and Kazimierz Sikorski, graduating with a second degree in 1964. In 1966, the young composer followed in the footsteps of many great Polish musicians and went to Paris to continue his studies in composition with the legendary teacher, Nadia Boulanger. In 1973 he received the prestigious DAAD grant from the German Academy of the Arts (Deutsche Akademischer Austauschdienst) and, for one year, became an artist-in-residence in Berlin.

Over the years, Krauze has lectured and given master classes for pianists and composers in new music centres and universities around the world, including the U.S., France, Germany, Sweden, Croatia, India, Japan, and South Korea. He taught at Internationale Ferienkurse in Darmstadt (1974), Académie de Musique of Stockholm (1975), University of Basel (l979), Indiana University in Bloomington (1979), Yale University (1982), and University of Southern California (2002). He has organized and attended many international seminars for young composers, musicologists and instrumentalists, held in Poland (Courses of the Polish Society for Contemporary Music in Kazimierz Dolny and Radziejowice, since 1983), as well as Croatia and Israel. He has served as a jury member at important competitions for composers and performers in Amsterdam, Bilthoven, Johannesburg, Munich, Pittsburgh, Rotterdam, Taipei, Trieste, Warsaw, including the jury of the ISCM/SIMC World Music Days (Athens, Oslo, Warsaw). In 1984 he initiated, together with the Polish Society for Contemporary Music (where he served as a vice-president and then president), an International Composers' Competition commemorating a prominent Polish composer, Kazimierz Serocki (1922­1981); he has chaired the jury of all six editions of this Competition held so far. In 1980s he intiated and produced two series of films on music for Polish TV: The creation of music and Music and Silence.

Zygmunt Krauze is also a distinguished performer of new music. In 1967 he founded the Music Workshop (Warszat Muzyczny), an ensemble of four musicians (clarinet, trombone, piano, cello) dedicated to performance of most recent works, including a range of commissions. In its 21 year-long history, the group gave over 300 concerts in many European countries, the United States and Canada. It participated in international festivals, including the Warsaw Autumn. Over 100 works by Polish and foreign composers were written especially for the Music Workshop.

As a pianist, Krauze has appeared in about 30 countries, with orchestras, chamber ensembles and string quartets, performing music of his own and composed by others. He has also made a name for himself as an organizer of highly interesting artistic events, such as a cycle of concerts of Polish 20th-century music at the Pompidou Centre in Paris (1983), a series of weekly programmes on Radio France-Musique devoted to avant-garde music (1983-84), a series of films about modern music OSilence and Sound1 for Polish tv (1988-89), and Warsaw festivals: Takemitsu Days (1992), Kagel Days (1994), OPassage1 ­ Panorama of 20th-Century Music (1997, 1998).

In 1998 Zygmunt Krauze was elected chairman of the Polish Society for Contemporary Music. He served as a Board member of ISCM/SIMC (1985­87) and a member of the Warsaw Autumn Repertoire Committee (1970­81). He was a co-founder of the Assoziation für Neue Musik Europa-Europa in Rheinsberg, Germany (1994). Between 1982­88 he lived in Paris, working as a musical adviser at IRCAM; he was invited to this post by Pierre Boulez. He participated in two congresses organised by the European Parliament: L'Inedita Culturale Europe (Venice, 1984) and El Espacio Cultural Europe (Madrid, 1985). Krauze's honors and awards include: First Prize at the National Contemporary Music Piano Competition (1957), Second Prize at the Young Composers' Competition of the Polish Composers' Union (for String Quartet, 1965), First Prize at the International Gaudeamus Contest for Performers of Contemporary Music (Utrecht, 1966), Silver Cross of Merit awarded by the Polish Council of State (1975), Chevalier dans L'Ordre des Arts et des Letters awarded by the French Government (1984), the annual award of the Polish Composers' Union (1988), and awards of the Ministry of Culture and Art (1989 and 1994).

Recordings of Zygmunt Krauze's works have been released by Muza, ORF, Nonesuch, Thesis, and EMI. His music has been published by Universal Editions and Polish Music Publishers (PWM); for more information contact the publisher: www.pwm.com.pl.


SELECTED WORKS

  • Five Piano Pieces (1958)
  • Ohne Kontraste for piano (1960),
  • Malay Pantuns for alto voice and three flutes (1961),
  • Five Unitary Piano Pieces (1963),
  • Triptych for piano (1964),
  • Esquisse for piano (1967),
  • Spatial Composition No. 1 for six tapes (1968),
  • Spatial Composition No. 2 for two tapes (1970),
  • Falling Water for piano (1971),
  • Folk Music for orchestra (1972),
  • Gloves Music for piano (1972),
  • Stone Music for piano (1972),
  • Aus aller Welt stammende for five violins, three violas and two cellos (1973),
  • Automatophone, spatial version for three or more mandolins, three or more guitars, three or more mechanical instruments (1976),
  • Fête galante et pastorale, spatial version I for six instrumental ensembles and 13 tapes (1974), concert version for orchestra (1975), spatial version II for 13 instrumental ensembles, five voices and 13 tapes (1984),
  • Idyll for four soloists playing folk instruments and for tape (1974),
  • Soundscape for four soloists playing zithers, melodicas, recorders, sheep bells, glasses and mouth harmonicas, with amplification and tape (1975),
  • Piano Concerto No. 1 (1976),
  • Suite de danses et de chansons for harpsichord and orchestra (1977),
  • Violin Concerto (1980),
  • The Star, a chamber opera to a libretto by Helmut Kajzar (1981, version for symphony orchestra 1994),
  • Tableau vivant for chamber orchestra (1982),
  • Commencement for harpsichord (1982),
  • Piece for Orchestra No. 1, (1969)
  • Piece for Orchestra No. 2 (1970),
  • Piece for Orchestra No. 3 (1982),
  • String Quartet No. 1 (1965),
  • String Quartet No. 2 (1970),
  • String Quartet No. 3 (1982),
  • Arabesque for piano and chamber orchestra (1983),
  • Quatuor pour la naissance for clarinet, violin, cello and piano (1984),
  • Je préfère qu'il chante for bassoon (1985),
  • Blanc-rouge / Paysage d'un pays for two large orchestras (1985),
  • Symphonie parisienne (1986),
  • From Keyboard to Score for piano (1987),
  • Rivière souterraine, concert version (1987), spatial version (1987),
  • For Alfred Schlee with admiration for string quartet (1991),
  • Refrain for piano (1993),
  • Piano Quintet (1993),
  • Terra incognita for 10 strings and piano (1994),
  • Rhapsod for string orchestra (1995),
  • La Terre for soprano, piano and orchestra (1995),
  • Piano Concerto No. 2 (1996),
  • Trois chansons for mixed choir (16 singers), set to texts by Claude Lefebvre (1997),
  • Serenade for orchestra (1998),
  • Five Songs to the poetry of Tadeusz Ró¿ewicz for baritone and piano (2000),
  • Emille Bell for string orchestra (2000),
  • Adieu for out-of-tune upright piano and the symphony orchestra (2000),

  • Incidental music for theater: Corneille's Polyeucte (1987), Lorca's Le Public (1988), Billetdoux's Réveille toi, Philadelphie! (1988), Gombrowicz's Operetta (1988), Ionesco's Macbett (1992).


    Copyright 2004 by Maja Trochimczyk
    Updated in September 2004.