Emil Młynarski

Emil Młynarski (born in Kibarty, near Suwałki, 1870; died in Warsaw, 1935) was a key figure in Polish musical life at the beginning of the twentieth century. As a conductor, violinist and composer, he devoted much of his career to promoting the music of his country, both in the capital and abroad.

He trained at the St Petersburg Conservatory, studying the violin with Leopold Auer and composition with Lyadov. During his student years he conducted the orchestra of the Imperial Musical Society and played in Auer's quartet. Between 1894 and 1897 he taught at a music school linked to the same society in Odessa, where he discovered the violinist Paweł Kochański and had Luboszyc among his pupils. In 1898 he returned to Poland and began regular orchestral concerts in Warsaw.

His activity extended to numerous institutions. He directed the Warsaw Conservatory in two periods, from 1904 to 1907 and from 1919 to 1922, and, as head of the capital's opera, he premiered fundamental Polish works, among them Szymanowski's Hagith and King Roger. As a guest conductor he worked with the Scottish Orchestra (1910–1916), the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia (1929–1931), and in London, Moscow, where he was at the Bolshoi between 1914 and 1917, and Paris, where he organised festivals of Polish music in 1903 and 1925. After his period in Philadelphia he returned to Warsaw, where he conducted the orchestras of the Philharmonic, the opera and the radio.

His own output, although committed to new Polish music, belongs to the tradition of Moniuszko, Wieniawski and Paderewski. It combines Romantic traits with elements of folk song, in a somewhat academic style but with very colourful orchestration. Among his most notable pieces are the “Polonia” Symphony, the Second Violin Concerto and several miniatures for violin.