Mieczysław Karłowicz

Mieczysław Karłowicz ([miɛt͡ʂɨswaf ˈkarwɔvit͡ʂ], 11 December 1876 – 8 February 1909) was a Polish composer and conductor.

Life

Karłowicz was born in Vishneva (now part of Belarus) into a noble family, being part of the Clan of Ostoja. His father Jan was a Polish linguist, lexicographer and musician. As a child he studied the violin, for which instrument he later wrote his only concerto.

Karłowicz studied at Warsaw with Zygmunt Noskowski, Stanisław Barcewicz, Piotr Maszyński and Gustaw Roguski. He later studied in Berlin with Heinrich Urban, for whom he dedicated his Serenade for Strings which he composed and performed when he was still Urban's student. From 1906 to 1907 he studied conducting with Arthur Nikisch.

Career

Karłowicz's music is of a late Romantic character. He was great admirer of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky whose Symphony No. 6 he praised. Tchaikovsky's influence can be heard in Karłowicz's earlier works, most notably the E minor symphony and the Violin Concerto. Like most of the late Romantics he also fell under the considerable influence of Richard Wagner, especially with Tristan und Isolde. Nevertheless he managed to develop an original musical language expressed in harmony and orchestration, the latter of which he mastered like few other composers and wrote some of the most colourful orchestral music ever found.

Orchestra

An orchestra (/ˈɔːrkᵻstrə/ or US /ˈɔːrˌkɛstrə/; Italian: [orˈkɛstra]) is a large instrumental ensemble used in classical music that contains sections of string (violin, viola, cello and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. Other instruments such as the piano and celesta may sometimes be grouped into a fifth section such as a keyboard section or may stand alone, as may the concert harp and, for 20th and 21st century compositions, electric and electronic instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ὀρχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus. The orchestra grew by accretion throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, but changed very little in composition during the course of the 20th century.