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Born in Warsaw in 1954, he
studied the double bass and composition (with Włodzimierz Kotoński) at
the Academy of Music in Warsaw. Thanks to a Witold Lutosławski grant, he
continued his compositional studies abroad, with Isang Yun in West Berlin
and Klaus Huber in Freiburg on Br. (1986–87). As a double bass player he
focuses on the solo contemporary repertoire. He has performed in many
European countries, Asia and the United States. He is also active in the
field of promoting contemporary music and arts education. He ran several
cycles of radio programmes introducing children into the world of new
music and cooperated with the Children’s Arts Centre in Poznań. He was
Artistic Director of the iscm World Music Days in Warsaw in 1992. He was
invited as a lecturer to the Darmstadt courses, where he also premiered
his piece The Whisper of Semitones for double bass and chamber ensemble,
commissioned by the Courses. In February 2005 he gave lectures at the
Florida State University in Tallahassee. Tadeusz Wielecki’s latest
orchestral work (Shoals) – commissioned by the Klangspuren Festival in
Schwaz, Austria – has been included in the programme of the event (September,
2005).
He has served as Director of the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of
Contemporary Music since 1999.
Selected works (since 1984): Opened Series IV for double bass (1984), Trio
for Violin, Double Bass and Piano (1985), Recitative Music for percussion,
piano, violin, viola and double bass (1985), Collage-Tango for piano
(1985; version for chamber orchestra – 1995), Ductus for small string
orchestra and harpsichord (1985), Chamber Poem for two violins, double
bass and piano (1986), Numerous Branches of Ramified Plaits for clarinet,
piano and cello (1987), Opened Series V for double bass (1988), Gestures
of Soul for organ, accordion, synthesizer, guitar and percussion (1989),
Metaphysical Ballad for orchestra (1990), A Thread Is Spinning... I for
cello (1991), A Thread Is Spinning... II for violin (1992),
A Thread Is Spinning... III for double bass (1992), Opened Series VI for
double bass (1993), Out of the Depths I Sing... for wind instruments,
strings and percussion (1993), Beggar’s Ballad for chamber ensemble
(1994), Egocentric poem for amplified piano and tape (1994–95), Id for
orchestra (1995–96), Study of Gesture I for clarinet, piano and cello
(1995), Study of Gesture II for piano (1997), Concerto ą rebours for
violin and orchestra (1998), ThŹsis for solo flute (2000), Study of
Gesture III for clarinet, trombone, piano, cello and double bass (2000),
Credo, quia absurdum for tape and female dancer (2001), Time of Stones for
chamber ensemble and amplified double bass (2002), Surfaces for orchestra
(2002), String Quartet (2004), The Whisper of Semitones for double bass
and chamber ensemble (2004), Shoals for symphony orchestra (2005).
In Surfaces, a work which was commissioned by the Poznań Philharmonic and
premiered in Poznań during the final concert of the 2001/02 season, by
the orchestra conducted by José Maria Florźncio Júnior, incidentally
performed alongside piano pieces by Liszt played with great energy by the
diminutive Nelson Goerner, I remember that…I’m sorry to have departed
from the subject…doesn’t matter, does it?, it’s just as well because
the fact that I’m forgetting myself reflects accurately, just so, the
situation in which I am presently, when I write music using the composed
trill technique, sitting at the piano, once an instrument of full
splendour, now left with no more than three keys, and improvising some
delightful melodies, just so, like a yachtsman in an open sea and
therefore what comes out are diminished melodies… wait a minute,
didn’t I use the words ‘just so’ again a moment ago. Yes, I did.
Someone observed that ‘just so’ is
a somewhat strange phrase for all occasions: if you don’t know what to
say, you can always say ‘just so’.
Tadeusz Wielecki
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