Zygmunt Denis Antoni Jordan de Stojowski (May 4, 1870November 5, 1946) was a Polish
pianist and
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
.
Life
He was born on May 4, 1870 near the city of
Kielce
Kielce (, yi, קעלץ, Keltz) is a city in southern Poland, and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the bank ...
. Stojowski began his musical training with his mother, and with Polish composer
Władysław Żeleński. In
Kraków, as a seventeen-year-old student, he made his debut as a concert pianist performing
Beethoven's
Piano Concerto No. 3 with the local orchestra.
At the age of eighteen he moved to
Paris and studied piano with
Louis Diémer and composition with
Léo Delibes. Two years later at the
Paris Conservatoire, he would win first prizes in piano performance, counterpoint and fugue. According to Stojowski, however, in a December 1901 interview that appeared in a
Warsaw magazine, the teachers who had the most profound influence on him as a musician were the Polish violinist-composer
Wladyslaw Gorski and pianist-composer
Ignacy Jan Paderewski.
Stojowski's music was found worthy enough to be included in the first concert of the
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, on 5 November 1901. His Symphony in D minor, Op. 21, which was featured in that first concert conducted by
Emil Młynarski, had won first prize (1000 rubles) in a Paderewski Music Competition in Leipzig on 9 July 1898. Besides having his symphony performed at that first prestigious concert, Stojowski appeared as a recitalist in December and again as the soloist in
Saint-Saëns'
Piano Concerto No. 4 in January 1902.
In October 1905, Stojowski sailed on the SS ''Moltke'' to the USA on the invitation of
Frank Damrosch, founder and director of the newly formed Institute of Musical Art, to head the institute's piano department; he was recommended for the position by pianist
Harold Bauer and cellist
Pablo Casals
Pau Casals i Defilló (Catalan: ; 29 December 187622 October 1973), usually known in English by his Castilian Spanish name Pablo Casals, . New York became his home for the rest of his life.
The institute would later merge in 1924 with the Juilliard Graduate School to form the
Juilliard School, where Stojowski would also teach during the summers of 1932 and 1940-46. In
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, he was acclaimed as a great composer, pianist and pedagogue, and had the distinction of being the first Polish composer to have an entire concert devoted to his music performed by the
New York Philharmonic.
After six years of teaching at the Institute of Musical Art, Stojowski then headed the piano department at the Von Ende School of Music until 1917. Finally, due to the large number of students who wished to work with him, he opened his own 'Stojowski Studios' at his four-story brownstone home at 150 West 76th Street in Manhattan. Among Stojowski's pupils were
Mischa Levitzki
Mischa Levitzki (also spelled Levitski; uk, Міша Левицький (); May 25, 1898 – January 2, 1941) was a Russian-born U.S.-based concert pianist.
Levitzki was born in Kremenchuk, Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire), to Jewi ...
,
Alfred Newman
Alfred Newman (March 17, 1900 – February 17, 1970) was an American composer, arranger, and conductor of film music. From his start as a music prodigy, he came to be regarded as a respected figure in the history of film music. He won nine Acad ...
,
Antonia Brico,
Alice Marion Shaw,
Arthur Loesser, and
Oscar Levant.
Here, together with his Peruvian-born wife,
Luisa Morales-Macedo, the pianist-composer not only taught until the end of the 1930s, but also raised what he called his "three best compositions": his sons, Alfred (1919–2019), Henry (1921–2018), and Ignace (1923–1984).
He died on November 5, 1946 in
New York City.
Compositions
Recordings
*Piano Concertos 2001 b
Jonathan Plowrightfo
Hyperion Records*Solo Pieces 2003 by
Jonathan Plowright fo
Hyperion Records
References
External links
Polish Music Centrehttps://polishmusic.usc.edu/research/publications/polish-music-journal/vol5no2/life-of-zygmunt-stojowski/
*Joseph Herte
'Stojowski Life and Music'https://www.figueroapress.com/product/zygmunt-stojowski-life-and-music/
*
*
Scores by Zygmunt Stojowskiin digital library
Polona
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stojowski, Zygmunt
1870 births
1946 deaths
19th-century classical composers
19th-century classical pianists
19th-century male musicians
20th-century classical composers
20th-century classical pianists
20th-century male musicians
Male classical pianists
Polish classical pianists
Polish emigrants to the United States
Polish male classical composers
Polish Romantic composers
Pupils of Jules Massenet
People from Staszów County
Recipients of the Order of Polonia Restituta