Andrzej Koszewski, an eminent Polish composer, educator and musicologist, was born in Poznan on 26 July, 1922, and spent his childhood there, As a student of the local gymnasium (1935-1939) he used to sing in the famous Poznan Cathedral Choir, led by Fr. Wachaw Geiburowski. Koszewski showed various and extensive interests at a tender age, The music affected him, but so did the fine arts: his first paintings and musical compositions were created during this period. After World War II he finally decided to study music. Years of touring Poland and abroad with the Poznan Cathedral Choir proved to be conclusive. Koszewski studied musicology at the University of Poznan as a pupil of professor Adolf Chybinski in the years 1945-1950, and also theory of music (1946-1948) and composition (1948-1953) with professor Stefan B. Poradowski at the State College of Music in Poznan. After graduation, he continued to study theory of music and composition with professor Tadeusz Szeligowski of the State College of Music in Warsaw. In 1948 he began his pedagogical career, Since 1957 he has worked as an educator at the State College of Music (now the Academy of Music) in Poznan, a full professor since 1985.

Koszewski has developed a separate and original composer's style that makes his music immediately identifiable. Four main lines can be recognized in his choral works (folkloric, experimental, religious and children's) and all of them can appear simultaneously in a single composition. However, in different periods of the composer's artistic activity, certain changes of interest are noticeable.

Music inspired by folk art dominated his early career (late 1940s, early 1950s). At that time, he was searching for his own musical language and individual ways of expression. The first choral compositions appear—the most important being Suita kaszubska (1952)—along with chamber works and works for orchestra and piano. On the one hand these works continue the choral aesthetics of Stanislaw Wiechowicz and the singing traditions of the Wielkopolska region, and on the other hand they incorporate many new and fresh ideas that herald the further, individual development of Koszewski's style.

An experimental period was begun in 1960 with the Muzyka fa-re-mi-do-si (based on a five-tone series), which can be considered the break-though point in Koszewski's artistic life. It contains features typical of his later musical language: chords consisting of seconds and fourths, chords created through the dissipation of voices from unison, the use of 7ths, octaves, and 9ths in melodic passages, glissandos, parallel moves of chords and opposite movement of voices (simultaneous or alternate). In this work he uses instrumental texture for the choir for the first time, a characteristic of his mature works. In many works, he makes use of the consonantal sounds of "l", "m", and "n", and syllables that contain them, repeated in 1/16th-note movement or as tremolo, additionally making use of speech, whisper, and whistle.

Sacred music was rarely the field for sound experiments by the composer, instead constituting the traditional line of his artistic activity. But he was alternately busy with the production of vanguard works. The Zdrowas krolewno wyborna (1963) was his first religious composition.This stylized work, referring to medieval polyphony, was composed at a time of multiple experiments with sound and texture, together with the innovative La espero (1963) composed for the Esperanto text by Ludwik Zamenhof. Koszewski's later sacred works include Trzy koledy (1971/75), Angelus Domini (1981) and the compositions written in the last decade of the 20th century, when religious music prevailed in his artistic output: Canti sacri (1989/91, Trittico di messa (1992), Carmina sacrata (1992/94), Non Sum Dignus (1996), Missa "Gaude Mater" (1998), and Pater noster (1999).

From biographical notes by Marcin Lukasz Mazur (Triangiel Publishing Co)
Photos taken 1973 (L) and 1980 (R)
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