In Płock
Music School founded by Tadeusz in Płock /photo by Paweł Paciorkiewicz/
In February 1945, the German occupation was over. Smoke had not yet dispersed over the ruins of war when I went to Płock to establish a music school there. The idea to found a school in Plock first occurred to me during the occupation in Warsaw. I discussed this plan with many distinguished representatives of the musical community such as Prof. Bronisław Rutkowski, Piotr Perkowski, Józef Lasocki and Faustyn Kulczycki, whom I saw in various secret meetings. With this plan ready and complete, we went to Płock together with our friend Feliks Rudomski. We did this by our own initiative exclusively, not being delegated by anyone, mainly because there were no authorities in the ruined Warsaw at that time. The only document that we managed to procure in order to present it to the authorities in Płock was a letter from the School Superintendence Office that was getting organised in Praga. I chose Płock as the place of my future activities because I had been attached to that beautiful city. In Płock, I met with general kindness, perhaps because I had been a recognised person in the city.
Wind band of Music School in Płock, 1949. In the middle Jan Szymański, head of the band. Sitting third from the left Ryszard Paciorkiewicz, Tadeusz’s cousin. /photo by W. Żabowski i S-ka. photo laboratory/
The decision to choose Płock as the area of my work for the next four and a half years proved to be right. We established a school that Płock had not seen before. Broadly understood social activity concentrated around the school in the form of choirs or training courses for amateur choir conductors. We even had a theatrical group there. The group, directed by the school’s pedagogues, staged Wesele na Kurpiach by priest Władysław Skierkowski in 1946. The performance had an enthusiastic reception. Under auspices of the Folk Music Institute, I organised competitions for amateur choirs from Płock and the Mazovia region. I also managed to organise the annual Song Festivity [6]. The Music School in Płock, which celebrated its 50th anniversary recently, still plays an important role in the cultural life of the city and the region [7]. I remained with the School for nearly five years. Personal affairs and my higher artistic ambitions in the field of composition made me leave Plock in 1949 [8].
/Written by the composer in Warsaw, Poland, on November 20, 1995/
