Kassern, Tadeusz Zygfryd (EN)

Kassern Tadeusz Zygfryd, *19 March 1904 Lviv, †2 May 1957 New York, Polish composer. He studied at the PTM Conservatory in Lviv with J. Lalewicz (piano) and M. Sołtys (theory, composition). In 1922–26, he studied at the Poznań Conservatory with H. Opieński (composition) and W. Brzostowski (piano); he also graduated in law from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. In 1931, he lived in Paris, where he was active in the Association of Young Polish Musicians. Until 1939, he lived in Poznań, where he was a counsellor in the prosecutor’s office. In 1929–33, he was a music reviewer for “Nowy Kurier,” and in 1934–38 for “Dziennik Poznański.” In addition, he systematically composed, winning numerous awards in competitions. In August 1939, he evacuated to Lviv, and after strenuous efforts in 1940, he managed to leave for Kraków; he worked, among others, in the Gebethner and Wolff (then Fritsche’s) bookstore. Wanted by the Gestapo because of his Jewish origin, he left in 1942 or 1943 for Warsaw, where he hid under the name Teodor Sroczyński. After the Warsaw Uprising, he stayed in Zakopane, from where he returned to Poznań in the spring of 1945. In December 1945, he left for the United States as a cultural attaché of the Polish consulate in New York, in 1948 he became a consul and Polish delegate for cultural affairs at the UN. In December 1948, he resigned from the diplomatic service and Polish citizenship, settling permanently in the United States. From then on, he devoted himself exclusively to composing and teaching; he taught piano and theory at the Third Street Music School and the Jaques-Dalcroze Institute, as well as at the New School for Social Research in New York. He died after a long illness (cancer) at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York.

Kassern’s work is characterised by great stylistic diversity. In the initial period, the composer was influenced by Szymanowski and the French impressionists, e.g. in the Concerto for soprano and orchestra (awarded in 1928 at the competition of the Association of Young Polish Musicians in Paris), which brought Kassern great fame and put him on one of the leading places among Polish composers of his generation. Overcoming these influences and shaping his own style took place in the 1930s, in the second period of Kassern’s work. The most outstanding piece from this period is the Concerto for string orchestra, permeated with neoclassical tendencies, although Kassern considered himself a neo-romanticist. A characteristic feature of his entire work was lyricism and special attention to the melodic line, with strict formal discipline. Another stylistic change was announced by the Copernican Motets, modelled on 16^th-century a cappella polyphony. The interest in early music and Gregorian chant resulted in a tendency towards archaisation and simplification of textural means in Kassern’s work, as well as an even stronger saturation of the melodic line with songfulness. Works such as the Funeral Triptych and the Christmas Carol Sonatina, in which Kassern used melodies from 16^th-century hymnals, are distinguished by the fusion of the simplicity of archaic expression with modern compositional technique. In the last, “American” period of Kassern’s work, a rich operatic output and numerous piano pieces of a pedagogical nature were created. In the opera The End of the Messiah, he used his own 21-tone tonal system, which was a continuation of the dodecaphonic system, but without its strict rigours. This system allowed the composer to create his own musical language. Kassern’s operas are characterised by stage experience, mastered compositional craft, and highly developed vocal technique. Kassern’s piano music, on the other hand, remained closely connected with his pedagogical work; it was written with a deep understanding of the psyche of school youth, knowledge of their interests and performance capabilities, and constitutes valuable, almost completely unknown pedagogical material.

Literature: S.B. Poradowski Tadeusz Zygfryd Kassern, “Muzyka” 1937 No. 6; M. Kondracki W piątą rocznicę śmierci Tadeusza Zygfryda Kasserna, “Ruch Muzyczny” 1962 No. 9; A. Mrygoń Tadeusz Zygfryd Kassern, in: Muzyka źle obecna, ed. K. Tarnawska-Kaczorowska, Warsaw 1989.