40th anniversary of his death
Bronislaw Rutkowski died on Monday 1 June 1964 at the Church of St Thomas in Leipzig, during a rehearsal by one of the Polish entrants to the international competition of Bach’s organ music taking place there, for which Rutkowski was a juror. Above all, Rutkowski had been a great musician, a man of a rich and versatile personality, who had spent his life in the service of one goal: music and its performance. He died to the sounds of the instrument to which he had dedicated his talent, just beside the tomb of Johann Sebastian, among his close friends and family--his wife, his students and colleagues, in whose memory he always remained a righteous, unselfish and honest man, a splendid teacher and artist.
For Bronislaw Rutkowski, music in all its forms was the mission which he fulfilled throughout his life, in every dimension of time and space that he inhabited. Indeed, he was a musician whose fervent ideas about music, about the fusion of music and life, recalled the greatest musicians of the Baroque period. What he did, he did with music, through music, for music. His methods were similar to those his great masters--Buxtehude, Handel, Bach and Vivaldi--and like them he rejected the hermetic exclusion of music from everyday life. Music was for him the noblest, yet most immediate and universal need. In various ways, as circumstances would dictate, he waged war against dilettantism and provincialism in performance, in creativity, and in the organization of musical life and propagation of culture.1
His life’s work transcended the boundaries of one or even two generations, but today, forty years after his death, the image of the professor is fading into history, only rarely--sometimes never--figuring in the consciousness of young musicians. Only a very small proportion of the public (and probably of performers, too) attending the International Organ Music Festival in Kraków--where recitals are given by such renowned artists as Gillian Weir, Marie-Claire Alain, Simon Preston, Ludger Lohman, James David Christie, Ton Koopman, Daniel Roth, and Kei Koito--are aware that Bronislaw Rutkowski is its patron, or that he initiated the International Festival of Organ Music in Oliwa, the first of its kind in Poland, which has since acquired world renown. Practically all Polish organists of today are, directly or indirectly, heirs to his artistic legacy.
In the Western music world, the name of Bronislaw Rutkowski surely has no particular associations, although Polish organists such as Joachim Grubich, Józef Serafin, the late Jan Jargon, Marek Kudlicki or Andrzej Bialko are known across various continents, including America. Each of these artists carries a “seed of truth” sown in him or in his teacher by Bronislaw Rutkowski, the founder of the 20th-century Polish school of organ music.
Education
Bronislaw Rutkowski was born on 27 February 1898 in the small village of Komaje near Vilnius (now Belarus). There the local church was the place where he first came into contact with music and song. As an eight year-old boy, Rutkowski experienced great joy and happiness when his father allowed him to take lessons with the local organist. Yet the lessons did not last long. His father, aware of his son’s burgeoning talent, decided to send him to an organist in Kobylinki, some 18 kilometers from Komaje, who had a reputation in the local community as a fine musician. Soon, however, the boy surpassed his teacher’s abilities and was employed in his place.
At age 12, Rutkowski began attending the preparatory school in Dzisna, living at the house of the local priest, and earning a living by giving lessons, leading the schoolboys’ choir, and playing the organ in church. In 1914, he left with his guardian--the local priest--for Petersburg in order to continue his studies at the Polish lycée of St. Catherine, at once working as an organist in the Church of St. Casimir. A year later, he entered the Conservatory of the Imperial Russian Society of Music, attending the organ class of Professor Jacques Handschin.
That Rutkowski was a true European in all aspects of his musical activities can be traced back to his early education. A pupil of Handschin at the Petersburg Conservatory (1915-1917), he acquired from his first teacher (a pupil of Max Reger) a courage for interpretation, formidable self-discipline, and the high standards he set for himself and, subsequently, his students.
After the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1920, in which he saw active service (being awarded the Virtuti Militari medal for bravery), Rutkowski stayed briefly in Vilnius and then left for Warsaw in order to continue his organ studies at the State Conservatory of Music, attending the class of Mieczyslaw Surzynski.2 It was Surzynski who brought Rutkowski into contact with the Berlin and Leipzig traditions, deepened his exceptional humility towards art, and inspired him to champion the rebirth of church music.
After graduating from the Conservatory in 1924, Rutkowski received a two-year scholarship to Paris, a city that convinced him still further of the provinciality of musical life in Poland. Organ studies under Louis Vierne, aesthetics under André Pirro, contact with Marcel Dupré and André Marchal, active participation in the concert world, his own studies on architecture and organ construction, and courses on Gregorian chant in Solesmes--all this meant that “Rutkowski, like no other Polish organist before him, acquired a diverse education and became a humanist in the broadest sense of the term.”3
We should also mention his earlier studies in Polish literature at the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius in the years 1919-1920, which he later continued in 1921-1922 at Warsaw University. He also broadened his interest in music at the conducting class of Henryk Melcer, then the Rector of the Warsaw Conservatory. Yet Rutkowski’s greatest service to music was perhaps in the area of teaching. After Surzynski’s death in 1924, he was asked to take over the organ class at the Conservatory, and did so following his return from Paris in 1926. Thereafter, until the end of his life, Rutkowski educated students in his beloved art of organ music.
Rutkowski as teacher
In the recollections of his pupils (among them Joachim Grubich, Jan Jargon and Józef Serafin), Rutkowski appears as a teacher who was close to his students; they, in turn, saw him not only as their teacher but also as a loyal friend. He took both the successes and failures of his students very personally; he was understanding and tolerant towards young people, but also expected them to work hard on themselves, on music--to which he had devoted his whole life. His lectures on music literature attracted great crowds of students and were always lively and passionate; his profound knowledge combined with his unforgettably beautiful, colorful and rich vocabulary and style of expression had an impact that colleagues could only dream of. The students of his organ class emphasized how bold and modern his methods of working on interpretation were, and how he would introduce into the students’ repertoire works of organ music that up to then had never, or only rarely, been performed in Poland. It was Professor Rutkowski who revived the status of early music, and was the first Polish performer to play French organ music, while at the same time bringing Polish music to a global audience.
Performances and writings
Rutkowski began his concert career as early as the 1920s; he was, after all, an artist first and foremost--a virtuoso who performed frequently in Poland and abroad. (We should mention here his many Polish premières, including in 1929 at the Festival of Polish Music in Poznan, where he played Surzynski’s Concerto for Organ and Orchestra, and, after the Second World War, his renowned Polish première of Poulenc’s Organ Concerto in G Minor at the National Philharmonic in April 1960, and those in Vienna, Budapest, Zagreb, Moscow, Frankfurt am Main and Brussels, where in every program he would include Polish music.)
Rutkowski also was an editor of organ music. After the Second World War, he prepared for the Polish Music Press the Selected Organ Works of his teacher Surzynski, the Keyboard Works of Early Masters of Organ Music (including, among others, works by Pachelbel, Muffat and Bach) as well as two volumes of Compositions for Organ: the first containing works by Nicholas of Kraków, fragments of the Tablature of John of Lublin, and works by Frescobaldi, Froberger and Scheidt; the second containing minor works by Mendelssohn, Franck, Reger, Böellmann and Bossi.
The struggle with dilettantism and provincialism in musical life, and the desire to raise the level of musical culture in society at large, found expression in Rutkowski’s efforts to organize training courses for music teachers at the now legendary Music Summer Camp in Krzemieniec4, which took place each year between 1928 and 1939. The project was headed by Rutkowski in collaboration with the best Polish musicians of the time, two of whom--Tadeusz Ochlewski and Tadeusz Zalewski--established, together with Rutkowski, the Friends of Early Music Society (1926), which later developed into a full-fledged music institution. It held its own concerts, had its own publishing house (the Polish Music Publishing Society, today known as the Polish Music Press) and set itself the goal of popularizing music among young people.
Rutkowski’s journalism likewise served the purpose of publicizing music for the benefit of society at large; from 1927, the radio became the greatest means to this end, and the continuous series of music programs Rutkowski edited (Conversations on Music, All Poland Sings, as well as regular music reviews) were broadcast right up until his death. Rutkowski’s career as a journalist began while he was a student in Paris, from where he would send correspondent’s reports to the Polish press; he continued writing after his return, first under the pseudonym of Jan Olcha, then under his own name, in several professional journals--including Music Quarterly (Kwartalnik Muzyczny), Polish Music (Muzyka Polska), Music Gazette (Gazetka Muzyczna), Organists’ Journal (Pismo Organistowskie), Church Music (Muzyka Koscielna), and Music Movement (Ruch Muzyczny)--as well as in non-professional ones.
Yet another battleground for the purity of music was the Church. As the chief organist at the Cathedral of St. John in Warsaw from 1927, Rutkowski attempted to rid religious music of secular influences and dilettantism, raise its artistic level, resurrect the tradition of church music, propagate the works of the great 17th- and 18th-century Polish composers--Zielenski, Pekiel and Gorczycki--and to revitalize the patronage of art and the culture-creating role of the Church.5 However, Rutkowski’s efforts in these areas did not bring him any lasting satisfaction; he resigned from the post in 1935 and never again returned to the profession of church organist. His connections with church music were revived during the 1948-1953 period, when he gave lectures on Gregorian chant at the Jagiellonian University’s Department of Theology in Kraków. Here, until the department was closed down by the Communist authorities, Rutkowski was able to implement his idea of educating the clergy in music.
Postwar activities
The Second World War and the Nazi occupation was a time of personal tragedy for Rutkowski--the death of his beloved daughter Eva during the bombing of Lublin, where Rutkowski and his wife Zofia spent the first days of the war, having escaped the German siege of Warsaw. However, almost immediately after his return to the devastated capital in November 1939, Rutkowski became involved in music and conspiratorial activities, interrupted for a few weeks in January 1940 when he was incarcerated by the Gestapo at the infamous Pawiak prison. After his release, Rutkowski actively participated in the Resistance Movement as head of the cultural propaganda group attached to the Propaganda and Information Office of the Home Army High Command.6 He composed patriotic songs, published songbooks and helped complete the music library, while giving secret lectures at a teacher-training course and teaching the organ class at the Municipal Music School (Staatliche Musikschule in Warschau), which was run with the official consent of the Nazi authorities.
After the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, in which he saw active service, Rutkowski shared the fate of thousands of other Varsovians, being deported from the almost completely devastated capital as a prisoner of war to the camp at Gross Born, and then to Sandbostel. He returned to Poland via Italy after the war, aware that he would not be able to live life as an émigré.
Beginning in 1945, the majority of Polish musicians gravitated to Kraków, a city which had been spared wartime destruction. Rutkowski went there, too, finding work at the State Higher School of Music (currently the Academy of Music), where he would remain until the end of his life.
The diversity of Rutkowski’s artistic and intellectual horizons was expressed in various activities for several institutions. In postwar Kraków, he successively took up the posts of Deputy Rector, Dean of the Instrumental Music Department, and Rector of the State Higher School of Music (1948-1964); Head of the Inter-University Department of Organ Music, established by him in 1957; board member of the Kraków Opera Society and of the Program Council of the Polish Music Press (1953-1954); Artistic Director of the Kraków Philharmonic for the 1955-1956 season; and Editor-in-Chief of Music Movement during the years 1957-1959. An excellent organizer, Rutkowski set up in 1959 the annual summer festival of organ music at the Cathedral in Gdansk-Oliwa, which until 1963 functioned as a Polish festival, and from 1963 as an international event. He was appointed artistic director of the festival, a post he would retain until his death, and was the inspiration behind the many organ festivals in Poland today, including those in Kamien Pomorski, Frombork, Lezajsk and, since 1966, the International Organ Music Festival in Kraków, which each year pays homage to the memory and ideas of its spiritual patron.
However, Rutkowski’s administrative and institutional endeavors never brought him true satisfaction, and often prevented him from pursuing the artistic expression he enjoyed the most: performance, teaching, editing and journalism. In a letter to one of his students, he wrote: “ . . . unfortunately, I am still Rector. It is ostensibly a prestigious position, but it carries with it many problems and irritations . . . so many meetings, conferences, congresses, trips, so much paperwork, etc. . . . I dream of being able to give up the post somehow . . .” The sheer volume of responsibilities and work left him little time to perfect his skills as an organist, yet perhaps it was this diversity of activity that ultimately produced such impressive results. Rutkowski was aided not only by his outstanding talent, but also by his ability to master subjects very rapidly, albeit for a short length of time. He did not practice the organ in any systematic way; sometimes he would not even touch the keyboard for months on end (indeed, sometimes for years), and only when preparing for a concert would he practice for several hours a day.7
Rutkowski as performer
The profile of Bronislaw Rutkowski the concert performer emerges through the recollections of his close friends, the organ music he selected for his repertoire, the all too few recordings8 he made on vinyl and for radio, the reviews of his concerts, and, finally, through his own comments and reflections on the subject of interpretation. From the recordings, anecdotes of students, and recollections of people who attended his concerts, there emerges an artist with an incredibly strong, magnetic personality, at the same time highly sensitive, profoundly and passionately experiencing each piece of music, yet demanding and self-critical of his own capacity for interpretation.
His postwar recitals and concerts began a few months after his return from Italy in 1947, beginning with broadcasts at the Wroclaw radio station and concerts on a Sauer organ at the famous Millennium Hall, then later at the Cathedral, Church of St. Elizabeth, and Protestant church in Wroclaw. In 1947, he also played his first concert on the organ at Oliwa Cathedral, and gave recitals at the Church of St. Nicholas in Gdansk, in Zabrze, Lublin, Katowice, Lodz and Poznan. He recorded several programs for Polish radio, gave concerts at the National Philharmonic (1955, 1960) and--once organs had been installed--also at the Kraków Philharmonic and the Auditorium of the State Higher School of Music, which today bears his name. Rutkowski’s repertoire, his very carefully prepared programs for concerts and recitals, reveal a rich diversity of styles and epochs.
His post-war concerts abroad began in 1959 in Belgrade. A reviewer for Borba wrote: “ . . . the Polish organist Bronislaw Rutkowski, who yesterday gave two unforgettable concerts . . . left the audience rapt with delight at his masterful performance. . . . Bronislaw Rutkowski is above all a great artist with a profound musicality. His virtuosity serves only as a means to express his art, and although it never takes the foreground, he astonishes us with his assurance and precision playing. With the help of a wonderful legato and unusually sensitive taste as far as the mixing of registers is concerned, Rutkowski is like a magician conquering his audience with the depth and directness of his interpretation . . .”9
His concert tour proceeded to Italy, to Milan and Brescia, where Corriere Lombardo wrote: “ . . . He is a talented musician with an excellent sensitivity, thanks to which he chooses tones and registers in truly good taste. His phrasing is also always clear, and although he closely follows the style of the composers he performs, he leaves his own mark too, namely, in his delicacy and avoidance of overly colorful and dramatic effects . . .”
In January 1960, Rutkowski traveled to the Soviet Union, giving concerts in Moscow, Stalino and Vilnius. A year later, in March 1961, he played a concert of Handel’s music in Tirgu Mures in Romania, while in Bucharest he played Poulenc, and gave a recital that was reviewed by E. Elian in Information (30 March): “ . . . What is characteristic of the art of our Polish guest is not so much massive structures of sounds requiring broad breath, but rather, atmospheric pieces of depth, subtlety, and attention to every detail as well as to the work as a whole.”
After breaking his left wrist in August 1961, Rutkowski did not play any concerts until 7 March 1962, when he gave a recital in Kraków before his trip to Belgrade, giving a recital in that city seven days later. In May 1961, Rutkowski played a concert of music by Handel in Katowice, followed on 16 July by a recital at the Oliwa Festival, which he treated as a rehearsal for the radio recording in October of that year in Mogunz, at the Christuskirche, where he was delighted by the beautifully preserved state of the organ.
A review by Leonid Rojzman appeared in Soviet Culture on 9 January 1963, after the Moscow concert, which Rutkowski did not finish due to a second heart attack; the concerts in Leningrad and Tallinn had to be cancelled. Rojzman, the leading authority on organ music in the Soviet Union, wrote: “ . . . the Canzona of Andrea Gabrieli was performed broadly, cantabile, on a deep breath. It was already evident in the first piece of the program what powers of interpretation this artist has: sublime calm, expressiveness, and attention to the architecture of form . . .”
The opinions expressed in the reviews confirm Rutkowski’s exceptional ability to create in his interpretations the rules of his performance aesthetic, which he described in a very accessible way in a radio program (Conversations on Music) on 23 February 1955:
. . . the interpretation of a given work is a consequence of understanding its content, or, as some people say, of feeling its mood. . . . Using the notes, you have to know how to transform the various elements and fragments of the music expressed by the composer into an artistic whole, one that expresses the moods and experiences that inspired the composer during the first phase of creating the work. . . . Moreover, using your technical and musical ability, you have to know how to communicate the emotional content of a given work to your listeners. This depends, among other things, on both the psychological and physical abilities of the given artist and his education and training; on his worldview, on the traditions in which he was brought up and which were communicated to him, and on the artistic paradigms to which he was exposed.
This opinion, formulated long before today’s theories of performance, particularly those relating to early music, has a clear parallel in Harnoncourt’s theory of the Muse’s Kiss, a fragment of which reads as follows: “ . . . a real artist can get away with many distortions, even those that are obvious and can be easily proved. Nevertheless, he is able to reach the listener through music and penetrate his imagination. This happens thanks to the ‘muse’s kiss’. Someone else--although perhaps offering us an interesting interpretation--would not be able to communicate what in actual fact is the essence of music: expressiveness which touches us, changes us, and speaks to us directly.”10
Bronislaw Rutkowski gave his last recital in Oliwa on 16 July 1963. A year later, on 15 July 1964, in an obituary which appeared in Music Movement, Stefan Kisielewski wrote the following words about the exceptional human being that was Professor Bronislaw Rutkowski: “ . . . he really did do a great number of things; his life’s work, although not as apparent or spectacular as the achievements of the greatest composers or most famous virtuosos, possesses that rare and valuable quality of being profoundly wide-ranging; it is artistic, civically-minded and intellectual, and in these three ways at least, merges with his exceptional, original and charming personality.”
With his death, Bronislaw Rutkowski left behind him the legend, birth, essence and tradition of the 20th century Polish school of organ music.
The author acknowledges the assistance of Jasper Tilbury with the translation of this article.
