Education
Biography

Education

From an early age Zygmunt Mycielski showed huge sensitivity to art and music. As the youngest of Maria Mycielska’s sons, for quite a long time he was taught at home by teachers hired by his mother. 

There was also a piano at home and little Zygmunt liked to sit down at it. However, it was not until the summer of 1920 that a momentous event in his education happened. Maria Peterówna, a pianist and piano teacher from Kraków, came to Wiśniowa on a visit. Meeting her turned out to be key for Zygmunt Mycielski’s future. As he recalled years later:

That summer there came to Wiśniowa the first person who showed me values of notes, clefs, and principles of harmony. I was thirteen years old. I had already been playing everything “by ear”, and would spend every bit of my free time at the piano. Whenever anyone among the adults played something, they would find me engrossed in music, with my gaze fixed on the magical instrument, an old, eternal Erard, covered with chamois with pale greenish embroidery. A student from Kraków’s Musical Institute, Maria Peterówna, later wife of Kazimierz Wysocki, gave me these first, so belated lessons, when I was already certain that I would devote my life solely to music (Z. Mycielski, "Pamiętnik", manuscript, Zygmunt Mycielski Archive, National Library).

Zygmunt Mycielski in 1920. From the collection of the Z. Mycielski Society in Wiśniowa

Two years later Mycielski left for Kraków, where in the autumn of 1922 he was to start year five at the State Gymnasium No. 2, at ul. Sienna 13. Before that he had been an extramural student at the Adam Mickiewicz Private Gymnasium in Lviv and then (from year four) at the Stanisław Staszic State Gymnasium in Lviv. This means that he was taught at home and came to school only to take the relevant exams. Thus the move to Kraków opened a new chapter in the boy’s life. He spent the next few years in the city.

The decision to attend a classical gymnasium in Kraków was also prompted by a desire to ensure a more professional musical education for Zygmunt. The choice fell on Kraków, where Zygmunt’s mother must have known the artists’ community better. And indeed, in addition to attending the gymnasium, the young man began piano and theory lessons with the highly regarded pianist and teacher Zygmunt Przeorski. Since 1915 Przeorski had been teaching the piano at the Music Institute in Kraków. He was also friends with the Pusłowski and Rostworowski families, who were distant relations of the Mycielskis. This must have been why he was chosen to be Zygmunt’s teacher. 

The boy began private lessons with him already in September 1922. He initially focused on developing his pianistic technique, but soon came to the conclusion that he would not become a pianist. As early as at the beginning of January 1923 he noted down in his diary: 

What remains is composition. Composition! A big word! – I can hardly believe it. To compose and to devote oneself to it, one needs the talent of Schumann or Mendelssohn – not to say those truly great. Can I dream about this in my "Nocturnes"? (Z. Mycielski, „Notes. Vol. V. X 1921–IV 1924", manuscript,  Zygmunt Mycielski Archive, National Library)

Yet although he had tried to compose even before arriving in Kraków and although he continued these attempts, for a long time he did not think seriously of becoming a composer. For the moment he focused on expanding his knowledge of music and on his general education. He went to concerts, theatre plays and exhibitions, taking as much as he could from Kraków’s cultural life. 

Wiosną 1926 roku
Mycielski's student ID card. From the collection of the Z. Mycielski Society in Wiśniowa

In spring 1926 he completed his gymnasium education and passed the final exams, choosing Latin, Polish and mathematics as the three compulsory subjects. He also declared that should the results be positive, he would enrol at the Faculty of Philosophy, Jagiellonian University. Indeed, he began to study there in October. Fairly soon he started attending musicological lectures of professors Zdzisław Jachimecki and Józef Władysław Reiss, as musicology was taught at the Faculty of Philosophy, since 1922 as part of the History and Theory of Music Seminar. Mycielski completed two years at the university and in autumn 1928 went to Paris to study composition. 

Before that he had gone through a nearly two-year composition course with Father Bernardino Rizzi, an Italian composer and teacher working in Kraków. Rizzi predicted Mycielski would have a career as a composer.

He will not be writing reviews – that’s for old fogeys – he will compose,

- Rizzi once said and his happy pupil immediately wrote about this to his mother. Thus composition came to be treated increasingly seriously. Although as the future would show, Mycielski would write reviews as well. 

In late 1926 Mycielski met Karol Szymanowski.
Zygmunt Mycielski with Karol Szymanowski in Zakopane, 1930s. 

He asked him to have a look at his attempts at composition and then to advise him where to go to continue his musical education. Szymanowski, who saw the young man’s enthusiasm and commitment, suggested that he go to Paris to study composition. Thus meeting Szymanowski played a key role in Mycielski’s career plans. It became a breakthrough moment in personal terms as well. Not only did he soon become friends with the master, but by joining the circle of artists around Szymanowski he came to accept homosexual tendencies. This was reflected also in themes tackled by Mycielski in his own music in the late 1930s (the ballet Narcissus or Lamento di Tristano written in memory of Szymanowski). 

Before that Mycielski left for Paris to study at the École Normale de Musique, arriving in the French capital in early October 1928. He joined Paul Dukas’ composition class. Theoretical subjects were taught by Nadia Boulanger, who eventually took over the teaching of composition as well. Mycielski really liked her erudite approach to education and it was Boulanger who soon became the young man’s most important guide in the world of music and art. They remained close till the end of her life and on many occasions Mycielski stressed the role of the French teacher in the development of Polish music, writing about her with the greatest respect. 

Mycielski would remain in Paris – with shorter and longer breaks – until 1936.

That period was of huge significance to him. It made an impact not only on his musical views, but also on his perception of the role of culture. The years spent in Paris determined, in fact, his whole thinking in this respect for the rest of his life. They shaped him as a composer and man of culture, deeply interested in its various manifestations and finding fulfilment in various activities: in music – the first performances of his early compositions took place in Paris; in literature and journalism – he sent concert reports as well as short stories from Paris to the Polish press; finally in community activism – as a member of the Association of Young Polish Musicians in Paris, and from December 1934 till May 1936 as the organisation’s president. The years of his Parisian education were a source on which Mycielski would draw throughout his adult life. Also after the Second World War, when he would work in completely new political and social circumstances.

Mycielski about himself

From Elżbieta Markowska's interviews with Zygmunt Mycielski, Polish Radio 1987

Mycielski about himself

From Elżbieta Markowska's interviews with Zygmunt Mycielski, Polish Radio 1987

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