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Bogusław Schaeffer's Jubilee
2009-06-08
Bogusław Schaeffer, one of the most original twentieth century Polish artists - composer, musicologist, playwright, director and educator, celebrated his 80th birthday on June 6.He was born in 1929 in Lviv. He began to learn the violin before the war, and then continued in Opole with E. Sygnatowicz and R. Maliszewski. From 1949-53 he studied composition at the Krakow State Academy of Music with Artur Malawski and musicology at the Jagiellonian University under the direction of Zdzisław Jachimecki. In the years 1955-57 he lectured in the Department of History and Theory of Music at Jagiellonian University. In the years 1963-98 led the composition class at the Krakow State Academy of Music (since 1989 as professor). In 1970 he earned a doctorate in humanities from the University of Warsaw. Between 1986-2002 he taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Kunst Darstellende "Mozarteum" in Salzburg. Until the ‘70s he worked as a music critic and columnist with a number of cultural magazines in the country and abroad. In the years 1967-74 together with Teresa Chylińska he edited the "Forum Musicum" magazine. From 1956-92 he published books, essays and articles related to the teaching of new music, for example: Almanach of Contemporary Polish Composers (1956, PWM), Little Musical Newsletter of the XX Century (1958, PWM), New Music. The Problems Of Contemporary Compositional Techniques (1958, PWM), Classics of Dodecaphonia (1961-64, PWM), Introduction to Composition (1976, PWM) - a unique guide for beginner composers, Lexicon of Composers of the Twentieth Century (2 volumes, 1963-65, PWM), The History of Musical Culture (1987, Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne) and Composers of the XX Century (1990, Wydawnictwo Literackie).
In the sixties and seventies he created graphic art related by varying degrees to music, displayed in art galleries mainly in Europe and North America. Since 1980 he has written over 40 plays. In 1990 he founded his own publishing house in Salzburg, Collsch Edition. His creative output consists of over 500 compositions. The two parallel strands of his art - music and theatre - inspire and influence each other. Within the formal structure of plays and the way material is treated the rules of musical functions can be felt, and in musical compositions elements arise which reveal the experience of the playwright.
As a theorist and composer of new music he fulfilled the role of spiritus movens in the Polish composing environment, especially in the sixties. He transferred innovative trends and types of music to the Polish musical scene, among others, dodecaphonic music, ‘happening’ or instrumental theatre (in 1960 he created the first Polish happening - Non stop and, in 1963, the earliest Polish example of instrumental theatre – TIS MW2). His books have played an important role and are still used in teaching practice. His theatrical works, representing a novel species - "music for actors” – have found many excellent performers throughout the world and enjoy ongoing success. Schaeffer - the master of innovation - has become a universal creator who does not skip any areas in which new music is worth developing. He creates his own, original concepts (experimental music genres, new compositional techniques, innovative textual, colouristic, and notational ideas), opening possibilities to date unknown for contemporary music.
J.M. Hodor, Encyclopedia of Music PWM]
Photo: B. Lutosławski, PWM Archive
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