Górzyński Zdzisław, *23 September 1895 Krakow, †22 November 1977 Warsaw, Polish conductor. He began his musical training with his father, Józef Górzyński, a violinist who, in the late 19th century, played in the orchestra of Johann Strauss Jr. in Vienna. He began learning the piano at the age of eleven under F. Grzywińska in Kraków. He studied at the Krakow Conservatoire under W. Barabasz (piano) and W. Żeleński (piano, counterpoint, music theory), and subsequently for three years under F. Schalk in Vienna (conducting). In 1915, he made his debut as a conductor at a symphony concert at the Old Theatre in Krakow. In 1917 he became conductor of the Opera and Operetta in Lviv; from 1921 he was musical director and conductor of the Nowości Theatre in Warsaw; furthermore, from 1922 (at the invitation of E. Młynarski) he began a permanent collaboration with the Warsaw Opera. In 1924–25, he was principal conductor and head of the opera department at the Polish Theatre in Katowice. In 1926, he staged Moniuszko’s Halka at the Vienna Volksoper; between 1927 and 1929, he collaborated with Warsaw’s musical theatres. Between 1929 and 1934, he served as principal conductor of the Grand Theatre in Lviv. In 1934, he founded the Mała Orkiestra PR in Warsaw, recruiting, among others, his two brothers, the violinists and composers Władysław (1887–1966) and Tadeusz (1900–1942?). In 1945, he established the Łódź Philharmonic, which he led until 1948, whilst also teaching a conducting class at the Łódź Conservatoire from 1946 to 1948. During the 1948/49 season, he was director of the Poznań Opera; from 1949 to 1953, he was director of the Warsaw Opera; and from 1954 to 1963, he once again took up the post of director of the Poznań Opera. In 1963, he moved to Warsaw to take up a post as a conductor at the Opera; from 1965, he served as deputy artistic director, and from 1966 to 1969 as artistic director of the Grand Theatre. He retired in 1971. He made numerous guest appearances, both as an opera conductor (including collaborations with the Berlin Staatsoper in the 1950s and 1960s and the Dresden Staatsoper in the 1950s) and as a symphony conductor (he conducted the following orchestras: the ORTF in Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Czech Philharmonic in Prague, the Staatskapelle in Dresden, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the RIAS in West Berlin, the Suisse Romande in Bern, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and the Tonhalle in Zurich). Górzyński’s repertoire was vast, encompassing the canon of world opera and symphonic music, including popular music; he was a tireless promoter of Polish music. Alongside performances of numerous symphonic works from the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, he frequently staged all of Moniuszko’s operas, as well as lesser-known works: T. Szeligowski’s Bunt żaków (Dresden 1952, Warsaw 1967), Goplana (Poznań 1948, Warsaw 1949) and W. Żeleński’s Konrad Wallenrod (Poznań 1957), I. Paderewski’s Manru (Poznań and Warsaw 1961), and L. Różycki’s Pan Twardowski (Warsaw 1951 and 1965, Poznań 1955). He was responsible for staging many other works, including F. Nowowiejski’s Legendy Bałtyku, W. Rudziński’s Komendant Paryża, R. Palester’s Pieśni o ziemi, and W. Maliszewski’s Syreny. He is the author of a memoir, written before his death, which has not yet been published.
