Glinski, Mateusz

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Gliński, Mateusz

Gliński, Mateusz, Polish conductor, musicologist, and composer; b. Warsaw, April 6, 1892; d. Welland, Ontario, Jan. 3, 1976. He studied at the Warsaw Cons, with Barcewicz (violin) and Statkowski (composition), and then took courses in Leipzig with Reger (composition), Riemann and Schering (musicology), and Nikisch (conducting). He went to St. Petersburg in 1914, where he studied composition with Glazunov and Steinberg, and conducting with Nikolai Tcherepnin. In 1918 he went to Warsaw; from 1924 to 1939 was ed. of the periodical Muzyka. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he went to Rome, where he engaged in various activities as music critic and ed. In 1949 he established in Rome the Istituto Internazionale Federico Chopin. From 1959 to 1965 he taught at Assumption Univ. in Windsor, Ontario. In 1965 he established the Niagara Sym. Orch., which he conducted. His works include an opera, Orlotko, after Rostand’s play L’Aiglon (1918-27), a symphonic poem, Wagram (1932), choral works, songs, and piano pieces. He publ. a monograph on Scriabin (Warsaw, 1933), Chopin’s Letters to Delfina Potocka (Windsor, 1961), in which he subscribes to the generally refuted belief that these letters, which came to light in 1945, are indeed genuine, and Chopin the Unknown (Windsor, 1963).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire