musicologists (S)

(née Pietruszyńska) ethnomusicologist; b. 14th October 1909 in Warsaw, d. 5th December 1995 in Warsaw. She studied history of art at the University of Warsaw, piano at a conservatoire in Warsaw, and musicology at the Poznań University under Łucjan Kamieński (1929-1935). In 1930-39 she was a member of a team of researchers recording musical folklore in the regions of Wielkopolska (Greater Poland) and Mazowsze (Mazovia). In 1934 she conducted research focusing of the instrumental music of Wielkopolska (235 bagpipers) and took the post of assistant at the Regional Phonographic Archives of the Department of Musicology at the Poznań University. In 1939 she became a member of the editorial team of "Muzyka Polska" ("Polish Music"), while in 1936 she started working in junior high school run by Catholic nuns in Poznań. In 1945-49 she worked in Poznań striving to reconstruct, together with M. Sobieski, collections of recordings from Wielkopolska that had been destroyed during World War II. In 1947-69 she worked at the State Institute of Art (which became the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 1959), while in 1950-54 she led the nationwide Fieldwork Collection of Musical Folklore, which brought about recordings of 50 000 songs and instrumental melodies. Jadwiga and Marian Sobieski began to engage in collaboration when they studied at the university, got married in 1936 and moved to Warsaw in 1954.
Jadwiga Sobieska was the first musicologist to have concentrated entirely on Polish musical folklore and the first ethnomusicologist using phonograms in order to study folk music. She paid particular attention to the performance practice. Her writings on folklore testify to her acute powers of observation and a true attachment with the community she investigated.