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Grażyna Bacewicz

Grażyna Bacewicz
  • Data urodzenia 05.02.1909 Łódź
  • Data śmierci 17.01.1969 Warsaw
#folkloric-national threads#timbral language#virtuosity

Despite her impressive playing and flawless technique, it was creative work that was to play first violin in the life of Grażyna Bacewicz. Combining Classical sonata form, Baroque-type orchestration and elements of folklore with contemporary techniques, to this day the composer remains one of the most important figures in Polish Neoclassicism.

I – if someone told me that I am to quit my violin career – would only be glad. […] I travel to give concerts, and compose only in passing, at night. That is not OK.

letter to her brother Witold, 1947

Trivia

  • As a teenager, Grażyna Bacewicz played the piano for silent film showings.

  • She was the critics’ favorite at the 1st Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition, which took place in 1935 in Warsaw. The day before the competition, her apartment was robbed, so that instead of giving herself over to practicing, she had to give depositions at the police station. The 1st Prize was won by Ginette Neveu; and the 2nd Prize, by David Oistrakh. Bacewicz played terribly, but did not admit to the audience why she was in such bad form.

  • She world-premièred her own violin works until the beginning of the 1960s. She abandoned violin-playing when her daughter adopted a cat who was horrifically afraid of the instrument’s highest notes.

  • The music community of Bacewicz’s day was extraordinarily masculinized; many people assumed that Grażyna Bacewicz was also a man. She received many letters beginning with such salutations as: ‘Dear Mister Bacewicz’ and ‘Cher Monsieur Grażyna Bacewicz’.

suggested works


This work, the first of Grażyna Bacewicz’s seven violin concerti, was written as her career was blossoming. It includes the composer’s entire store of knowledge and experience in the field of violin playing. The piece is written in a Neoclassical style.


length: 15'07'' I Moderato

Silesian String Quartet

Despite being numbered as the first, this was actually the fourth of Grażyna Bacewicz’s works scored for string quartet. The three-movement composition written in Neoclassical style is distinguished by a substantial load of lyricism, the source of which is a setting of a Lithuanians song melody.


length: 15'03'' I Allegro II Andante III Vivo

New London Orchestra; David Juritz (leader); Ronald Corp (conductor)

A masterpiece of Neoclassicism, magnum opus and one of Grażyna Bacewicz’s most frequently performed pieces. The work alludes to the Baroque concerto grosso and is sometimes compared to the Brandenburg Concerti of Johann Sebastian Bach.


length: 20'24'' I Allegro molto II Andante III Allegro giocoso

Silesian String Quartet

This work won the Grand Prix at the International Quartet Competition in Liège, bringing the composer worldwide renown. The three-movement composition is maintained in Bacewicz’s favored Neoclassical stylistic language, with clear influences from Polish folk music. This is the best-known and most frequently-performed of Grażyna Bacewicz’s seven string quartets.


length: 19'12'' I Allegro II Adagio III Vivace

New London Orchestra; David Juritz (leader); Ronald Corp (conductor)

A composition from the mature period of Grażyna Bacewicz’s œuvre. Because of the performance ensemble, bright colors and distinctive rhythms, the piece is often compared with Béla Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta.


length: 16'06'' I Allegro II Grave III Con vivezza

Silesian String Quartet

This work from the mature period of Grażyna Bacewicz’s œuvre was highly rated by Witold Lutosławski. In it, he heard an ‘extremely subtle sonorism’ that enriched Bacewicz’s Neoclassical language with newer means of expression. Grażyna Bacewicz’s last string quartet, written in 1965, combines traditional three-movement form with inquiries in the field of sound.
  • teachers
  • Kazimierz Sikorski (1895–1986)
  • Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979)
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  • Warsaw
  • Lodz
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