Fitelberg, Jerzy

Composed 1929.--Cf. Fleisher Collection.

The composer Jerzy Fitelberg (1903-1951) was born in Warsaw, Poland. His father, Grzegorz Fitelberg, was a composer and the conductor of the Warsaw Philharmonic until the Second World War. Jerzy began music training at the Conservatory of Warsaw, then studied with Franz Schreker and Walter Gmeindl from 1922 to 1926 at the Academy of Music in Berlin, where he remained until 1932. In 1928 his String Quartet No. 2 won first prize in a competition sponsored by the Polish government in Paris, and in 1936 he won the Library of Congress's Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge chamber music medal for his String Quartet No. 4; The piece was premiered at a chamber music festival at the Library in 1937. The success he gained as a young composer was marked by numerous performances at festivals, including those of the International Society for Contemporary Music in 1932 and 1937. From 1933 to 1940 Fitelberg lived in Paris, after which he moved to New York. The American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him a grant in 1945, and in 1950 his Suite for Organ won a composition prize from the Pennsylvania College for Women. That same year the Koussevitsky Foundation commissioned his last work, Concertino Da Camera for Violin and Piano, which he completed two days before his death.

Fitelberg's work includes music for chamber groups, chamber orchestra, full orchestra, an opera and a choral work, as well as scores for two films. He also wrote articles for the journal Modern Music.

Sources:

Boguslaw Schaeffer. "Fitelberg, Jerzy." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/A2093058 (accessed March 27, 2012).

"Jerzy Fitelberg, 48, A Polish Composer," The New York Times, April 27, 1951, p. 23.