Radwan, Stanisław (EN)

Radwan Stanisław, *10 March 1939 Bieńkówka (near Maków Podhalański), †14 October 2023 Krakow, Polish composer. He grew up in a musical family; his father, Władysław Radwan, was an organist, and his brother Józef a conductor. Between 1959 and 1966, he studied at the State Higher School of Music in Kraków under Ludwik Stefański (piano) and Krzysztof Penderecki (composition). In 1967, he took part in courses on electronic music led by Pierre Schaeffer and composition classes with Olivier Messiaen in Paris. Between 1960 and 1975 he collaborated with the Piwnica pod Baranami cabaret; from 1963 to 1966 he was musical director of the Teatr Rozmaitości in Kraków (now Bagatela), and between 1974 and 1976 he held this position at the Ateneum Theatre in Warsaw. He made his debut as a theatre composer in 1966 with the music for the production of Woyzeck at the National Old Theatre in Kraków; in 1977 he joined the theatre permanently as a musical consultant, and from 1980 to 1990 served as stage director. From the 1970s onwards, he collaborated with many distinguished theatre directors: Konrad Swinarski, Jerzy Jarocki, Jerzy Grzegorzewski, Jerzy Skarżyński, Andrzej Wajda, Zygmunt Hübner, Tadeusz Bradecki, Krystian Lupa and Mikołaj Grabowski; he also composed music for films, television productions and radio plays. In 1984, the Powszechny Theatre in Warsaw staged a production directed by Z. Hübner entitled Muzyka Radwan. In 2003, the National Old Theatre hosted the premiere of Opera Mleczana (directed by M. Grabowski) with a libretto and music by Radwan, inspired by the drawings of Andrzej Mleczka. He recorded the albums: Herbert – Przesłanie (1999), Stanisław Radwan. Coś co zginęło szuka tu istnienia – muzyka dla teatru Jerzego Grzegorzewskiego (2011), and Muzyka teatralna i filmowa (2018).

Radwan, alongside Zygmunt Konieczny, was one of the most highly regarded composers of theatre music in Poland. He composed around 300 musical scores for theatre productions staged in Krakow and other Polish cities (including the Polish Theatre in Wrocław, the Wybrzeże Theatre in Gdańsk, and the Powszechny, Dramatyczny and National Theatres in Warsaw) as well as on stages abroad. In his music, he developed his own, individual style, in which he combined elements of traditional musical language with an innovative use of sound effects, ambient noises and silence as an important means of expression. His music played a role in the production equal to that of the text and the set design; it permeated the structure of the performance, binding it together as a whole and influencing specific staging choices. In the composer’s view, music in the theatre should not describe but complement the word; it should not interpret but suggest a multitude of interpretations.

He was the recipient of numerous awards, including prizes at the Opole Theatre Confrontations (1982, 1993, 1994) for his music for the productions: The Return of Odysseus, The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, and Sen srebrny Salomei; at the 26th Kaliskie Spotkania Teatralne (1986) he received a special mention for his creative inspiration of the acting ensemble in the production of Woyzeck (directed by T. Bradecki); in 1988 the City of Krakow Award; in 2000 the Aleksander Bardini Award. In 2005, he was awarded the Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture, and in 2019, an honorary doctorate from the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw.