Adam Bronisław Ciechański (1882-1957): A Consideration Of Repertoire For The Double Bass Inspired By A Forgotten Virtuoso And Father Of The Polish Double Bass School

Capoccioni, Hunter

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/74876 Copy

Description

Title

Adam Bronisław Ciechański (1882-1957): A Consideration Of Repertoire For The Double Bass Inspired By A Forgotten Virtuoso And Father Of The Polish Double Bass School

Author(s)

Capoccioni, Hunter

Issue Date

2015-04

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Cameron, Michael

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Professor Michael Cameron

Committee Member(s)

• Buchanan, Donna
• Taylor, Stephen
• Kouzov, Dmitry

Department of Study

School of Music

Discipline

Music

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

A.Mus.D. (doctoral)

Keyword(s)

• Adam
• Bronislaw
• Ciechanski
• double
• bass
• repertoire

Language

en

Abstract

Within his native Poland, the legacy of Adam Bronisław Ciechański (1882-1957) is one of a virtuoso performer and devoted pedagogue whose work laid the foundation for a national double bass school. He is a notable example of the many expatriates who returned to Poland at the end of the First World War, helping to shape newly founded academic and cultural institutions that arose from a unique nationalist renaissance period commonly referred to as the Second Polish Republic (1919-1939). Generations of Polish bassists can trace their pedagogical lineage back to Ciechański’s studio at the State Music Conservatory in Poznań. His students, including Jósef Eichstädt (1906-1966), Wiktor Gadzinski (1909-1995), and other pupils, became influential pedagogues in their own right, publishing seminal etude and general method books that codified Ciechański’s teachings into a Polish school of double bass pedagogy. Ciechański’s virtuosity as a double bass soloist influenced the composition of at least a dozen works for the instrument including two concerti, two string trios (violin, viola, and double bass), one trio (flute, viola, and double bass), five works for double bass and piano (including a substantial sonata), and a small but significant group of unaccompanied works. The following essay illuminates most of these forgotten works and provides biographical background on the three composers who wrote them. In addition, materials gathered in this research about Ciechański’s life and work in the early twentieth century, add important biographical information to a thin chapter of double bass history. It is alarming that, despite Ciechański’s influence in creating this sizable repertoire and his notable teaching linage, the most recent published histories on the double bass contain almost no mention of this formidable bassist and pedagogue.

Type of Resource

text

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