Artur Malawski

[Alan Howe]

This is the Grove entry on the composer Arthur Malawksi:

Malawski, Artur
(b Przemyśl, 4 July 1904; d Kraków, 26 Dec 1957). Polish composer, conductor and teacher. He studied the violin with Chmielewski at the Kraków Conservatory, where from 1928 to 1936 he gave violin classes and lectured on theory. In 1936 he entered the Warsaw Conservatory to study composition with Sikorski and conducting with Bierdiajew. He taught composition and conducting in Kraków (1945–57), where his pupils included Penderecki and Schäffer, and conducting in Katowice (1950–54). In addition, he was president of the Polish section of the ISCM (1948–51, late 1957). His conducting activities were restricted largely to his own works; he gave his greatest energies to composition.

Though he was in no way a remarkable personality, Malawski's fate was an unusual one. He had already reached a mature age when, after a period of self-tuition, he began formal studies in composition. Then the war broke out, and he was eventually left with only a few years of intensive creative activity. This brought him certain fame, but, as a radical at a time when Polish music was at its most conservative, he was also subject to hostility and neglect. When the attacks subsided, Malawski was ill and completely discouraged: he could produce only incoherent works. Thus, despite his quite exceptional talents, his achievement was regarded as no more than mediocre.

In an independent and expressive style he synthesized many of the current streams in European music, achieving perhaps the most organized union of these tendencies with the tradition of Szymanowski. Among the invariable features of his music are a distinctive lyricism, an architectural conception of form, an original rhythmic motivic style and an element of the grotesque. These characteristics are already present in the Allegro capriccioso for small orchestra (1929). In other and more numerous ways, however, Malawski's style developed, accumulating, in particular, polylinearity, a polymetric ostinato technique, a non-functional harmonic approach, complexity on a grand scale and a technique of attaining formal continuity by motivic development.

Malawski's output may be divided into four periods. In works of the first (e.g. the Allegro capriccioso, the Sinfonietta, the orchestral Variations and the cantata Wyspa gorgon, 'Gorgon's Island') he was influenced by composers of the two preceding generations, and in particular by Debussy. But at the same time he was crystallizing an individual world of formal and expressive interests, exposed to greatest advantage in the colourful and disciplined Variations (1937). A gradual retreat from the influence of others came in the second-period compositions (the First Symphony, the first version of the ballet Wierchy, 'The Peaks', and, above all, the Second String Quartet); indebtednesses to predecessors (notably Szymanowski) remain but are now less patent. In the third period Malawski wrote his finest, most effective and most audacious pieces, including the Toccata for small orchestra, the Etiudy symfoniczne for piano and orchestra, the Overture, the Toccata i fuga w formie wariacji for piano and orchestra and the new version of The Peaks. These represented a total retreat from the late Romanticism which had survived in Polish music, even under the direct influence of Szymanowski, until after World War II. In his fourth period, however, with such works as the Piano Trio, the Symphony no.2 and Hungaria, Malawski renounced his earlier line for an intense, dramatic, Romantic expressiveness. There is a distinct analogy with the late syntheses achieved by Szymanowski, Bartók or Martin (whose music Malawski rated very highly); and, as in the case of these composers, the period of synthesis saw a decline in radicalism.

Works (selective list)

Stage: Wierchy [The Peaks] (ballet-pantomime, J. Mazur), S, T, Bar, chorus, orch, c1942, rev. 1950–52, concert version, Kraków, 10 Jan 1952
A Midsummer Night's Dream (incid music), fl, ob, eng hn, cl, bn, hn, perc, hp, 1954
Orch: Allegro capriccioso, small orch, 1929
Wierchy, sym. sketch, 1934, destroyed
Sinfonietta, 1935
Fuga w starym stylu [Fugue in the Old Style], 1936
Wariacje symfoniczne i fuga [Sym. variations], 1938
Fantazja ukraińska, 1941
Sym. no.1, 1938–43
Etiudy symfoniczne, pf, orch, 1947
Toccata, small orch, 1947
Ov., 1948–9
Toccata i fuga w formie wariacji, pf, orch, 1949
Tryptyk góralski [Highland Triptych], 1950 [arr. of pf piece, 1949]
Suita popularna, 1952
Sym. no.2 'Dramatyczna', 1953–6
Hungaria, 1956
Choral: Wyspa gorgon [Gorgon's Island] (cant., T. Miciński), S, Bar, chorus, orch, 1939
Stara baśń [Old Tale] (cant., I.I. Kraszewski), 1950
Mała suita [Little Suite] (A. Zelenay, J. Brzechwa, J. Porazińska, J. Tuwim), male chorus, 1952
Songs: Słopiewnie (Zielone słowa [Green Words]) (Tuwim), 1935
Nike z Cheronei (S. Magierski), Mez, pf, 1943
3 pieśni dziecięce [3 Children's Songs] (J. Korczakowska, J. Osińska, Brzechwa), 1949
Do matki [To mother] (J. Słowacki), Mez, pf, 1950
Melodramas: Czarcia huśtawa, Ziabia ballada, spkr, fl, ob, eng hn, cl, b cl, bn, 1934
Chamber and solo instrumental
Str Qt no.1, 1926, destroyed
Sextet, 2 vn, 2 va, 2 vc, 1932, destroyed
Żywioły Tatr [Elements of the Tatras], wind qnt, 1934, partly destroyed
Str Qt no.2, 1941–3
Pf Trio, 1951–3
For vn, pf: Andante, Recitativo misterioso, 1928, destroyed
Bajka [Fairy Tale], 1928, arr. vn, orch
Burleska, 1940
Andante i allegro, 1949
Mazurek, 1950
Sonata na temat Janiewicza, 1951
Siciliana i rondo na temat Janiewicza, 1952
Piano: Mazurek, 1946
5 miniatur, 1947
Tryptyk góralski [Highland Triptych], 1949, orchd 1950

[eschiss1]

There was a good recording of that 1949 Overture released on CD on Olympia with works by Turski.   (Krenz/Polish Radio Orchestra of Katowice in the Malawski. I think his piano trio and Tatra (Tara?) triptych (for piano) have been recorded also; and I have what may be a broadcast of the variations and fugue of 1938...)

[markniew]

Thank you Allan,

I will upload a number of the Malawski's compositions that I have registered off radio. Only a few were commercially issued.

Marek

[Alan Howe]

Excellent, Marek!

[markniew]

Malawski's Symphony no. 2 "Dramatic" has been downloaded - link in the Downloads section /waits for approval/

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, Marek. I've continued the discussion of the Symphony in the Downloads Discussion - Polish Music thread.