Musicatlas
Music
Obvious early influences are Bach and Chopin, possibly also Grieg. His later music has points of contact with Ravel and Debussy and indeed the ‘folkloric’ Szymanowski. Rather surprisingly several of his last works are in jazz style.
Select List
- Orchestra: 4 Meditations, op.10 (arr. 1930 from piano pieces); Capriccio, op.14 (1914); Sinfonietta, op.16 (1915-16); Serenade for violin and orchestra op.24 (1918); Suite for orchestra, op.25 (1926); Sinfonia, op.28 (1928)
- Chamber Music: Violin Sonata, op.13 (1914); Suite de Quatre Morceaux for violin and piano, op.18 (1916-18; original of Serenade op.24)
- Vocal Music: 5 Lenau Lieder, op.17 (1915-17); Ländliche Szenen (7 Polish folksongs) for high voice and chamber orchestra, op.30 (1929); Dorfgesänge (7 Polish peasant songs) for voice and chamber orchestra, op.34 (1934)
- Piano Music: 12 Variations on an Original Theme, op.3 (1911); Ballade, op.7 (1912); Triptychon, op.8 (1913); Sarabande and Toccata, op.27 (1926); 3 Jazz-Caprices, op.29 (1928); Three Dances, op.42 (1938); Suite, op.40 (arr. 1958 from 4 movements of Orchestral Suite op.25)
- Transcriptions: Ravel, ‘Ondine’ from Gaspard de la Nuit, arr. for 2 harps (1931); Rameau, Rondeau arr. 4 harps (1932); Chant varie d’apres Chopin-Liszt, for piano, op.37 (1935)
Life
Polish, eventually naturalized Swiss, composer, pianist and pedagogue. Studied piano with Leschetizky in Vienna and composition with Karl Wiegl and Hans Pfitzner. Professor of piano in Lwow Conservatory, 1914. Settled in Zürich during World War I. Friend of Busoni. Winner of the Polish section of the 1928 Columbia Graphophone Schubert Centenary Competition, with his Sinfonia for orchestra, undoubtedly his greatest work. Virtually abandoned composition after the 1930s but wrote the influential book ‘Lehre des Klavierspiels’.