Jadwiga Szamotulska


Jadwiga Szamotulska was a Polish pianist, pedagogue, translator of art-song lyrics and librettos, university instructor at the Academy of Music in Kraków in Kraków, performing artist with the National Philharmonic in Warsaw in Warsaw, and voice coach for the soloists of the Grand Theatre, Warsaw.
Szamotulska recorded for many years with violinist Wanda Wiłkomirska for the Polskie Nagrania record label, notably the music of Poland's leading classical composers Henryk Wieniawski, Karol Szymanowski and Grażyna Bacewicz.

Career

Szamotulska was born and lived in Warsaw for most of her life. In the interwar period, she studied piano at the Warsaw Conservatory with teachers and Marcelina Kimont-Jacynowa. After graduation, she worked as an accompanist at her alma mater. Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, she performed at clandestine concerts. After the conclusion of the war in 1945 she obtained the position of accompaniment class director at the PWSM in Kraków, which she held until 1965. In 1948, she performed in the premiere of Witold Lutosławski's Two Children's Songs, with Irena Wiskida.
She then relocated back to Warsaw, and joined the orchestra of National Philharmonic. At the same time, until 1972, she worked as voice teacher with the soloists of Grand Theatre, Warsaw, where she coached soprano Halina Łukomska among others, and translated several hundred art songs. She translated librettos of operas, such as Handel's Giulio Cesare for its first performance at the theatre in 1962.
She lived at Marszałkowska 35 street in Warsaw, and died on 14 November 1981. Szamotulska is buried at the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw.
Her recordings include a 1957 collection of classical music for children, with violinist Wanda Wiłkomirska, presenting Giovanni Battista Viotti's Violin Concerto No. 23 in G major, Jean-Baptiste Accolay's Concerto in A minor, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Old French Song, Op. 39/16, and Wieniawski's Chanson polonaise, Op. 12/2, among others.

Discography