Eugeniusz Knapik (born July 9, 1951 in Ruda Śląska) is a Polish pianist and composer of classical music best known for his 1980 chamber piece String Quartet No. 1.Knapik studied composition and piano with Henryk Górecki (1933–2010) and Czesław Stańczyk at the University of Music in Katowice. Later, he studied composition under Olivier Messiaen in Paris under a French government scholarship. As a pianist he has recorded widely, specialising mainly in 20th-century music. He has won numerous prizes for his compositions, including at the Festival of Polish Piano Interpretation in Słupsk, and the International Chamber Music Competition in Vienna.
Along with Andrzej Krzanowski and Aleksander Lasoń, Knapik is generally seen as a leading member of the composers who emerged in Poland during the mid-1970s. This group was collectively named Stalowa Wola after the city at which they stated their manifesto at a 1975 festival of music which was sub-titled “From young composers to a young City”. Their statement read, “The work of the composers who entered their artistic lives at the festivals in Stalowa Wola was a kind of opposition to the 1950s and 60s avant-garde: opposition towards novelty for novelty’s sake, and towards total destruction. This opposition was a spontaneous, intuitive, deep-rooted reaction, which we only later became fully aware of.”[5]
Knapik is often seem as a composer out of his time, in that his music is heavily influenced by the musical idioms of the late Romantic era, in particular by the work of Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). More recent influences include Górecki, Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933) and Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994). He has borrowed from 19th and 20th century English language poetry for both libretto and inspiration, a fact which sets him apart from most of his Polish contemporaries
Today, Knapik teaches at the Katowice Academy of Music, where he is professor and director of composition.
From ‘Polish Music Day at the Wigmore Hall with Jennifer Pike and Friends’ on October 14th 2017. Jennifer Pike explored her artistic roots in a series of three concerts in one day devoted to music from four centuries of Poland’s cultural history. The day featured everything from Italian-influenced works from the early 1600s to a UK première of a work by Krzysztof Penderecki and a world première by Paulina Załubska. ”Partita” for violin and piano was composed in response to a commission from Radio-France in 1980 for Konstanty Andrzej Kulka and Jerzy Marchwiński. The opening Entrée is the most virtuosic and dramatic movement, while in the following movements the music gradually becomes more gentle, finally reaching the state of the highest concentration in the last movement, Air 2. Here the motif of the descending second brings to mind the famous ”ewig” from Gustav Mahler’s ”Das Lied von der Erde”. Eugeniusz Knapik was born on 9th July 1951 in Ruda Śląska. Between 1970 and 1976, he studied composition under Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and piano performance in the class of Czesław Stańczyk at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice. In 1976 he received a French government scholarship that allowed him to study composition with Olivier Messiaen in Paris. He is Professor of Composition at the Academy of Music in Katowice.
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall, 6 October 2018 / Sala Koncertowa Filharmonii Narodowej, 6 października 2018 Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir / Orkiestra i Chór Filharmonii Narodowej Jacek Kaspszyk – conductor / dyrygent Eugeniusz Knapik – “Blessing gentle breeze” for mixed choir and orchestra (premiere performance) / na chór mieszany i orkiestrę (prawykonanie)
Młodzi… łagodni? W latach 70. XX wieku na polską scenę muzyczną wkracza nowe pokolenie, którego manifestem programowym były liryzm i harmonia… Na czym polegała więc wywrotowość założeń twórczych Pokolenia 51? Pytamy o to jednego z jego przedstawicieli, Eugeniusza Knapika! Posłuchajcie!
Young … gentle? In the 1970s, a new generation enters the Polish music scene, whose program manifesto was lyricism and harmony … So what was the subversive nature of Generation 51’s creative assumptions? We ask one of its representatives, Eugeniusz Knapik! Hear!