Robert Muczynski

Robert Muczynski is among the most distinguished American neo-Classical composers of his generation. Spending the majority of his profession in addition to the country’s primary social centers and operating within a well-worn musical idiom, neither he nor his functions have ever created a strong general public profile. However his regularly high requirements of flavor and workmanship, the sincerity and authenticity of his expressive content material, and the useful utility of a lot of his result have contributed towards the progressive establishment of several of his functions in the energetic repertoire. Muczynski can be an achieved pianist aswell, and has documented the majority of his music for the device. Muczynski’s parents, of Polish and Slovak descent, weren’t musically advanced, but did see his early level of sensitivity to music, that they inspired by beginning him on piano lessons when he was five. Throughout his youth and adolescence, he nurtured a imagine learning to be a concert musician. In 1947 he enrolled being a piano main at DePaul School (Chicago), where he examined with Walter Knupfer. Not really until his past due teens do he display any serious curiosity about composing. At DePaul he became familiar with Alexander Tcherepnin, who prompted this interest and finally became his most significant teacher and coach. Muczynski gained both his bachelor’s (1950) and master’s levels (1952) at DePaul. At age 25, Muczynski gained national attention for the Piano Concerto commissioned with the Louisville Orchestra, with whom he performed it and afterwards documented it. Four years afterwards, he provided his debut recital as composer/pianist in NEW YORK, with an all-Muczynski plan at Carnegie Recital Hall. In 1956, Muczynski recognized an give to mind the piano section at Loras University in Iowa, where he continued to be for 3 years. In 1959, he was appointed composer-in-residence for the Oakland, CA, college system, within a “Little Composers Task” sponsored with the Ford Base. A renewal of the appointment 2 yrs afterwards had taken him to Tucson, AZ, where he provides lived since. In 1965 he became a member of the music faculty from the School of Az, where he was afterwards appointed composer-in-residence. He kept this placement until his pension in 1988. Because the early 1960s, Muczynski continues to be the receiver of a regular stream of honours and commissions, and his functions are often chosen as test items for contests. Today his compositions are performed regularly in European countries, Asia, and Australia, aswell as through the entire USA. In 1961, Muczynski made up a Sonata for Flute and Piano. The task won a high prize in the Concours Internationale in Good, France, where it captivated the interest of Jean-Pierre Rampal, who required it up instantly. The Flute Sonata is most likely Muczynski’s most broadly performed function, with a global status among flutists. Muczynski offers concentrated mainly on piano single and chamber music. His additional more broadly performed pieces certainly are a sonata (1970) and alto saxophone concerto (1981); three piano trios (1967, 1975, 1988); Period Items (1983) for clarinet and piano; a woodwind quintet (1985); and three sonatas (1956, 1966, 1974) and shorter functions for piano. Muczynski hasn’t been affected by compositional styles or fashions, following a tonal, warmly expressive neo-Classicism throughout his profession. His music is definitely characterized by obvious, concise, abstract forms, basic, clear textures, and avoidance of pretense or grandiosity of any sort. The composers whose music his most resembles are Bartók, in its fondness for thematic suggestions having a “question-and-answer” form; Bernstein’s “blue records” and its own exuberant treatment of abnormal meters; and Barber’s dark, moody lyricism. But despite these reminiscences, Muczynski’s fairly little body of function displays its special and recognizable personality.