Bolesław Woytowicz

Boleslaw Woytowicz (Dunajowice, December 5, 1899 - Katowice, June 11, 1980) was a Polish pianist and composer.

In 1924 he was appointed a piano and music theory teacher in the Warsaw Conservatory, where he had been trained under Aleksander Michałowski and Witold Maliszewski. For the next 15 years he would combine his pedagogical labour with a concert career through Europe and the USA and further composition studies under Nadia Boulanger. Once Poland was freed from German occupation Woytowicz resumed his teaching in the Higher State School of Music in Katowice, where he would retire in 1975.

A versatile pianist, Woytowicz was renowned for his intellectual approach to piano playing. His compositive corpus comprises three Symphonies:

• 1st Symphony - 20 Variations in symphonic form (1938)
• 2nd Symphony "Warszawska" (1945)
• 3rd Symphony - Sinfonia concertante for piano and orchestra (1963)

...as well as several symphonic-choral and symphonic-vocal works - Woytowicz having worked on large scale works in the postwar, whose composition he alternated with that of chamber music such as his 2nd string quartet and his Flute sonata. In the 60s, starting with his first series of piano etudes and the 3rd Symphony piano would regain a prominent role in his music.