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composer, pianist and music tutor, b. 11th August, 1943 in Cracow. He started piano lessons at the age of five. From 1954 he took private lessons in theory and composition with Stanisław Wiechowicz. After graduation from the Fryderyk Chopin Music School in Cracow, he took up studies at the State Higher School of Music in Cracow, where he studied composition - first with Stanisław Wiechowicz, and, after the latter's death, with Krzysztof Penderecki (an honours degree in 1965), as well as theory with Aleksander Frączkiewicz (an honours degree in 1966). In 1964, 1966 and 1968 he continued composition and piano studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Fontainebleau. In 1966 he was granted the Aaron Copland scholarship.

In 1966-68 he played the piano in the Cracow ensemble for contemporary music "MW2". In the same period, he took up teaching. In 1966-87 he taught theory at the Academy of Music in Cracow, of which he was vice-rector in 1972-1975, and in 1975-87 he occupied the chair of music theory. In the academic year 1980/81 he stayed in Hamburg thanks to the "Auswärtige Künstler zu Gast" scholarship. In 1987-2008 he was a professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne; in 2008-2014 he taught again at Cracow’s Academy of Music. In 2009-2013 he was a professor at the Faculty of Musicology, A. Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He has also given lectures on contemporary music in Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Switzerland, Venezuela and the Soviet Union. He is a member of the Akademie der Künste in Mannheim and Polish Academy of Arts and Science in Kraków. In the 1991/92 concert season he was also composer-in-residence at Cologne Philharmonic, in 1996 - at a festival in Seattle, and in 2013/2014 – at Warsaw Philharmonic.

All of his compositions have been performed; nearly a hundred have appeared in print, and more than 70 have been released on CDs (some of them – several times). Meyer’s music has been performed in many major music centres, incl. the Carnegie Hall in New York, Berlin Philharmonic and the Viennese Musikverein, , as well as at major European festivals: the “Warsaw Autumn”, "Muzički Biennale” in Zagreb, SIMC, "Holland Festival", "Musikprotokoll-Graz", Aldeburgh Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, La Biennale di Venezia and Lucerne Festival. Some of Meyer’s compositions were commissioned by world famous performers: the Flute Concerto – by Aurèle Nicolet, the Oboe Concerto – by Lothar Faber, the Clarinet Concerto – by Eduard Brunner, the Violin Concerto – by Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Trumpet Concerto – by Timofiej Dokszycer, the Lyrical Triptych – by Peter Pears, Pezzo capriccioso – by Heinz Holliger, pieces for cello – by David Geringas, Ivan Monighetti and Boris Pergamenshchikov. Movimento rapsodico for harp was the first Polish composition commissioned to be performed as an obligatory work at the prestigious ARD Competition in Munich in 2016.

He is also the author of books on music, including the first Polish monograph dedicated to the life and work of Dmitry Shostakovich (Cracow 1973 and 1986; German edition - Leipzig 1980). He has published numerous articles, mostly related to contemporary music, in such periodicals as "Melos", "Muzyka", "Ruch Muzyczny", "Das Orchester", "Sovetskaya Muzyka".

He was involved in the activity of the Polish Composers' Union; in 1971-89 he was a member of its Managing Board, in 1985-89 - the President of the Union, and in 1974-88 he also sat on the Repertoire Committee of the "Warsaw Autumn" International Festival of Contemporary Music.

He has received a number of awards for his compositions: in 1966 - 2nd prize in the Young Composers' Competition of the Polish Composers' Union for Symphony No. 1 and 1st prize in the Concours des Jeunes Compositeurs in Fontainebleau for songs to words by Shakespeare; in 1967 - an honourable mention in the Grzegorz Fitelberg Competition for Composers for Symphony No. 2 "Epitaph Stanisław Wiechowicz in memoriam"  for mixed choir and orchestra; in 1968 - 1st prize in the same Fitelberg Competition for Symphony No. 3 "Symphonie d'Orphee" for mixed choir and orchestra; in 1970 - Grand Prix de Composition Musicale of the Pierre Prince of Monaco Foundation for his opera Cyberiada  and an honourable mention at the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris for String Quartet No. 2; in 1972 - 2nd prize in the Artur Malawski Competition for Composers in Cracow for Concerto da camera  for oboe, percussion and strings; in 1974 - 1st prize in the Karol Szymanowski Competition in Warsaw for Symphony No. 4; in 1975 - a Medal granted by the Government of Brazil for String Quartet No. 4; in 1976 - an honourable mention at the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris for String Quartet No. 3, in 1977 - a Medal granted by the Government of Brazil for Concerto retro for flute, violin, cello and harpsichord. Meyer was also granted with the Minister of Culture and Art Award (twice - in 1973 and 1975), the Gold Cross of Merit (1974),the Order of Merit to Polish Culture (1979), the Gottfried von Herder Award (1984), the annual award of the Polish Composers' Union (1992), the Award of the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation in New York (1994), the Johann Stamitz Award in Mannheim (1996), the Cavalier’s (1997) and Officer’s (2003) Crosses of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

Updated: April 2018 (iz)

works

Krzysztof Meyer is a composer distinguished by a deep intellectual self-awareness as an artist. In a questionnaire for “Res Facta” magazine of 1971, the then 26-year-old composer wrote: “In my own works, my point of departure was the twelve-note music (Piano Sonata No. 1), after which I adopted the so-called “bruitist energeticism” derived from Varèse, a style of which Górecki and (to some extent) also Penderecki (Symphony No. 1) are the main exponents in our country. Later, I embraced the aleatory technique in various forms (controlled, as in Piano Sonata No. 4, poly-version, as in the Trio for flute, viola and harp, and poly-structural, as in Symphony No. 2). From each of these techniques, I strove to extract those possibilities which seemed to be beneficial to my own sound world, and I abandoned them the very moment I lost interest in them and grew tired of them. And still, some aspects of these techniques have stayed with me. Also today, some elements of serialism are indispensable to me, as also are the poly-version and poly-structural techniques. If these brief remarks are to serve as self-presentation, I should also add that in composition I thoroughly enjoy, and derive much fun, from using various techniques. Among the latest ones there is not a single one that would be totally without interest to me. Applying various techniques gives me much more enjoyment now than I once derived from plunging into a stream of percussive effects on string instruments (String Quartet No. 1). Applying various techniques is for me only a means to composition, and it is by no means an exaggeration or a false boast to say that I can enter some regions of my inner soundscape using any technical means available and I will still arrive at a result that I had aimed at from the start, regardless of the means applied.” („Res Facta” nr 5, 1971).
Krzysztof Meyer began his artistic activity in the period of the dominance of avant-garde trends and ideas. In the sphere of sound, he was also looking for new sound colours, but sonorism never distorted his sense of form as a process with some internal dramatic development, with stages characterised by varying tension. Before long, he abandoned the avant-garde ideas of sound and stood up for the traditional aesthetic categories – formal order, a balance between elements of the composition, and beautiful sound. Many of his compositions bear names derived from the classical tradition, suggestive of traditional forms: they are symphonies, concerts, quartets and sonatas. But the general concept of form is in fact Meyer’s only link to tradition. Both the internal structure of his works and their sound language are an expression of a fully conscious and individual use of the modern art of composition.
In the context of intellectual self-awareness, we should mention Meyer’s musicological writings: the essential monograph on Dmitry Shostakovich, his favourite composer, which was translated into several languages, the two-volume biography of Witold Lutosławski (written together with his wife), as well as numerous papers and articles on 20th-century music and artists and selected elements of music theory. Since 1966, he has lectured without intermission on theoretical musical subjects.

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