Anecdotes and Curiosities About Stanisław Skrowaczewski

Stanisław Skrowaczewski (3 October 1923 – 21 February 2017) was one of the most remarkable conductor-composers of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Born in Lwów, Poland — today Lviv, Ukraine — he began as an astonishingly gifted pianist and composer, but a wartime injury changed the direction of his life. He subsequently built an international conducting career lasting more than seven decades and became particularly celebrated for his interpretations of Anton Bruckner, while remaining a serious composer throughout his life.

For 19 years he was Music Director of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, renamed the Minnesota Orchestra during his tenure, and later maintained an extraordinary relationship with the ensemble as Conductor Laureate. He also led the Hallé Orchestra, conducted many of the world's leading orchestras, and remained active into his nineties. His musical personality combined intellectual rigor, architectural clarity and an intense search for the spiritual dimension of music.

1. HE COMPOSED SYMPHONIC MUSIC BEFORE HE WAS TEN

Skrowaczewski began studying piano and violin at the age of four. His development was extraordinary: at about seven he was already composing symphonic music, and at eleven he gave his first public piano recital.

At thirteen, he achieved something even more remarkable: he both played the solo part and conducted Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor. Everything suggested that he might develop into an important concert pianist.

2. A WARTIME INJURY DESTROYED HIS DREAM OF BECOMING A PIANIST

The decisive event of his youth had nothing to do with music. During World War II, Skrowaczewski suffered serious injuries to his hands during a German bombing raid on Lwów.

The damage included lasting nerve injury and effectively ended his prospects of becoming a professional concert pianist.

What initially appeared to be a catastrophe redirected his life. He increasingly concentrated on the two activities that would define him for the next seventy years: composition and conducting.

3. HE WORKED AS A BRICKLAYER DURING THE GERMAN OCCUPATION

Skrowaczewski's wartime experiences were far removed from the glamorous international conducting career that awaited him.

During the German occupation, he worked for a time as a bricklayer. He also pursued studies beyond music, including physics, chemistry and philosophy.

These experiences belonged to a generation of Central European musicians whose education and careers were violently disrupted by war.

4. HE STUDIED WITH NADIA BOULANGER IN PARIS

After the war, Skrowaczewski continued his musical education and eventually travelled to Paris, where he studied composition with the legendary Nadia Boulanger.

This placed him within one of the most influential musical circles of twentieth-century Europe. Boulanger had taught or influenced an extraordinary range of musicians, and Skrowaczewski's Paris years strengthened the compositional side of his artistic identity.

He also participated in the founding of the avant-garde Groupe Zodiaque, demonstrating that the man later famous for Bruckner was by no means musically conservative in his youth.

5. GEORGE SZELL HELPED LAUNCH HIS AMERICAN CAREER

A crucial turning point came after Skrowaczewski won the International Conducting Competition in Rome in 1956.

The formidable conductor George Szell subsequently invited him to conduct the Cleveland Orchestra. Skrowaczewski made his American debut with Cleveland in 1958.

The success opened doors rapidly. Engagements followed with important American orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati orchestras.

6. HE LEFT COMMUNIST POLAND FOR THE UNITED STATES

In 1960, Skrowaczewski accepted one of the appointments that would define his life: Music Director of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra.

He and his wife Krystyna left Poland and settled in the United States. Skrowaczewski subsequently became an American citizen while retaining profound artistic and emotional connections with Poland and Polish music.

He would introduce American audiences to important works by Polish composers including Karol Szymanowski, Witold Lutosławski and Krzysztof Penderecki.

7. HE TRANSFORMED THE MINNEAPOLIS SYMPHONY

Skrowaczewski remained Music Director from 1960 to 1979. During his tenure, the Minneapolis Symphony became the Minnesota Orchestra in 1968.

But the change went much deeper than a new name. During his nineteen-year directorship, the orchestra developed into a major year-round American ensemble with an increasingly international reputation.

He also campaigned strongly for the construction of a permanent modern concert hall. Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis opened in 1974, becoming the ensemble's home.

8. HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MINNESOTA ORCHESTRA LASTED MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY

When Skrowaczewski stepped down as Music Director in 1979, his relationship with the orchestra did not end. He became Conductor Laureate and continued returning regularly.

Ultimately, his association with the orchestra lasted approximately 56 years, one of the most extraordinary conductor-orchestra relationships of modern times.

9. BRUCKNER WAS THE COMPOSER CLOSEST TO HIS HEART

No composer became more closely identified with Skrowaczewski than Anton Bruckner.

His fascination with Bruckner began early and continued throughout his life. Even while leading the orchestra in Katowice during his twenties, he programmed Bruckner regularly. Decades later, his performances were admired for their architectural control, long-range tension and refusal to sentimentalize the music.

His complete Bruckner symphony recordings with the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra/Deutsche Radio Philharmonie became one of the central monuments of his discography and received international recognition.

10. NOT EVERYONE IN MINNEAPOLIS SHARED HIS LOVE FOR BRUCKNER

His devotion to Bruckner occasionally encountered resistance from audiences.

One Minnesota patron famously complained about the frequency with which Skrowaczewski programmed Bruckner, arguing essentially that one Bruckner symphony per season was already enough.

Skrowaczewski was not persuaded. Bruckner remained at the center of his repertoire for the rest of his life.

11. HE WAS A SERIOUS COMPOSER, NOT SIMPLY A CONDUCTOR WHO COMPOSED

Skrowaczewski never abandoned composition. His catalogue contains orchestral, chamber and concertante works, and several received important distinctions.

His Passacaglia Immaginaria was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in 1997, while his Concerto for Orchestra was shortlisted for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize. Other significant works include the Clarinet Concerto, Violin Concerto, Chamber Concerto, Ricercari Notturni and Music for Winds.

One particularly revealing detail is the subtitle of a movement in his Concerto for Orchestra: “Anton Bruckner's Journey to Heaven.”

12. HE HAD LITTLE INTEREST IN THE CULT OF THE MAESTRO

Skrowaczewski belonged to a profession historically associated with enormous personalities and sometimes tyrannical behavior, but colleagues remembered him differently.

He was notably resistant to self-promotion and the cult of the celebrity conductor. Musicians described a courteous, modest personality combined with an extremely practical and concentrated rehearsal technique.

Authority came primarily from his musical knowledge rather than theatrical displays of power.

13. HE STOOD WITH THE MINNESOTA MUSICIANS DURING THEIR LOCKOUT

In 2012, a bitter labor dispute between Minnesota Orchestra musicians and management resulted in a lockout that lasted more than a year.

Skrowaczewski publicly demonstrated where his sympathies lay. Despite his decades-long institutional connection with the orchestra, he supported the musicians and conducted them in an independently organized concert at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

For many players, the gesture confirmed that his loyalty was fundamentally to the musicians and the orchestra as an artistic community.

14. HE WAS STILL CONDUCTING BRUCKNER IN HIS NINETIES

Skrowaczewski's longevity on the podium was extraordinary.

In October 2015, aged 92, he conducted Bruckner's Symphony No. 5 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and became the oldest conductor to appear at London's Royal Festival Hall.

Even more remarkably, in October 2016, around his 93rd birthday, he returned to the Minnesota Orchestra to conduct Bruckner's Symphony No. 8.

Those performances became his final concerts.

15. HE WAS STILL COMPOSING NEAR THE END OF HIS LIFE

Skrowaczewski never regarded creativity as something from which one retired. During the final year of his life, he was reportedly working on a Requiem for chorus and orchestra.

He died on 21 February 2017, aged 93, after a musical life extending from pre-war Lwów to the great international orchestras of the twenty-first century.

His biography is remarkable not simply for its longevity but for its continuity of purpose. The child who composed symphonic music before the age of ten remained fascinated by orchestral sound more than eighty years later.

STANISŁAW SKROWACZEWSKI IN ONE SENTENCE

Stanisław Skrowaczewski was a musician of extraordinary longevity and integrity — a child prodigy whose wartime injuries ended his pianistic ambitions but opened the way to a seven-decade career as conductor and composer, culminating in his status as one of the twentieth century's most profound interpreters of Anton Bruckner.