Grzegorz Fitelberg
Grzegorz Fitelberg was a Polish conductor, violinist, and composer. Born Grigory Goshievich Feitelberg in Daugavpils, Vitebsk Governorate, into a Jewish family, he was a representative of the Young Poland movement alongside composers including Karol Szymanowski, Ludomir Różycki, and Mieczysław Karłowicz.
From 1891 to 1896 he studied in Warsaw with Stanisław Barcewicz in violin and Zygmunt Noskowski in composition. In 1896 he played violin in the orchestra of Warsaw’s Grand Theatre, and from 1901 he was principal of the second violin section at the Warsaw Philharmonic. During the 1904–1905 season he made his debut as a director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.
Fitelberg first gained recognition as a composer in 1898, when he won first prize in the Ignacy Paderewski Competition in Leipzig. In 1905, with Karol Szymanowski and other composers, he founded the Young Poland in Music association of young Polish composers.
During the First World War, he collaborated with the Ballets Russes and the Musical Drama Theatre. He conducted the first production of Igor Stravinsky’s Mavra in Paris in 1922 and the Warsaw premiere of Nikolai Myaskovsky’s Third Symphony in 1923. In the 1934–1935 season, he worked as a conductor at the Sverdlovsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, and in 1935 he founded the Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra.
In 1940 Fitelberg left for South America and conducted the Teatro Colón Orchestra in Buenos Aires from 1940 to 1941. He lived in the United States from 1942 to 1945, returned to Poland in 1946, and in 1947 again became head of the revived Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, leading it until his death. From 1950 to 1951 he taught at the Higher School of Music in Katowice; his pupils included Mieczysław Mierzejewski, Marian Neuteich, Olgierd Strzyński, and Karol Stryja.
Fitelberg died in Katowice in 1953 and was buried at the Military Powązki Cemetery. His legacy is commemorated in Katowice by the Grzegorz Fitelberg International Conducting Competition, founded in 1979, the National Grzegorz Fitelberg Composers’ Competition, and the Radio Music House bearing his name. Commemorative plaques have also been installed in Warsaw and Daugavpils.