Bogusław Schaeffer, a composer, musicologist, playwright, graphic designer and teacher, a member of the Polish Composers' Union since 1956, and an honorary member since 2003, has died on 1 July 2019 in Salzburg.
He was one of the most original figures on the Polish music scene. He distinguished himself by extremely wide creative interests, a consistently avant-garde attitude and controversial aesthetic views. As a composer, he was very innovative and bold in experimenting with new forms, genres and types of music. As one of the first Polish artists, he took up electronic music. The first Polish musical happening was his work Non-stop (1960). He was also the first on in Poland to compose in the genre of instrumental theater in the TIS MW2 (1963) work written for the famous experimental group MW2.
Almost in every work he solved a new compositional problem, challenging the Polish musical milieu and arousing lively discussions on new music. He was an outstanding theoretician of new music. His work New music. The problems of contemporary compositional technique (1958) remain the basic theoretical source in this field, and Introduction to Composition (1976) is the only one of its kind in the world literature. Stefan Kisielewski called Bogusław Schaeffer "the father of new music in Poland."
May he rest in peace.