Bolesław Woytowicz (5 December 189911 June 1980) was a Polish pianist and composer. Woytowicz was born in

Dunaivtsi Dunaivtsi (, , pl, Dunajowce) is a city in Kamianets-Podilskyi Raion, Khmelnytskyi Oblast (province), Ukraine. It is located on the river Ternavka, 22 km away from the railway station Dunaivtsi and 68 km from the Khmelnytskyi. Rein ...

. In 1924 he was appointed a piano and music theory teacher in the

Warsaw Conservatory The Chopin University of Music ( pl, Uniwersytet Muzyczny Fryderyka Chopina, UMFC) is a musical conservatorium and academy located in central Warsaw, Poland. It is the oldest and largest music school in Poland, and one of the largest in Europe.

, where he had been trained under

Aleksander Michałowski Aleksander Michałowski (17 October 1938) was a Polish pianist, pedagogue and composer who, in addition to his own immense technique, had a profound influence upon the teaching of pianoforte technique, especially in relation to the works of Chopi ...

and

Witold Maliszewski Witold Maliszewski (russian: Витольд Осипович Малишевский, uk, Вітольд Йосифович Малішевський; 20 July 1873 – 18 July 1939) was a Polish composer, founder of Odessa Conservatory, and a profe ...

. He won an honorable mention at the inaugural

I International Chopin Piano Competition The I International Chopin Piano Competition ( pl, I Międzynarodowy Konkurs Pianistyczny im. Fryderyka Chopina) was the inaugural edition of the International Chopin Piano Competition, held from 23 to 30 March 1927 in Warsaw. Soviet pianist Lev ...

. For the next 15 years he combined his pedagogical labour with a concert career through Europe and the United States and further composition studies under

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

. Once Poland was freed from

German occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

Woytowicz resumed his teaching in the Higher State School of Music in Katowice, where he retired in 1975 and died at the age of 80. A versatile pianist, Woytowicz was renowned for his intellectual approach to piano playing. His compositive corpus comprises three Symphonies: * 1st Symphony - 20 Variations in symphonic form (1938) * 2nd Symphony "Warszawska" (1945) * 3rd Symphony - Sinfonia concertante for piano and orchestra (1963) ...as well as several symphonic-choral and symphonic-vocal works. In the postwar period, Woytowicz alternately worked on large scale works and chamber music such as his 2nd string quartet and his Flute sonata. In the 60s, starting with his first series of piano etudes and the 3rd Symphony, piano regained a prominent role in his music.

References

Biography

Bolesław Woytowicz biography
1899 births 1980 deaths 20th-century composers 20th-century classical pianists 20th-century male musicians Polish composers Polish classical pianists Academics of the Academy of Music in Kraków Male classical pianists People from Dunaivtsi Recipients of the State Award Badge (Poland) {{poland-musician-stub