Notes towards a biography of the polish composer Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki

Abstract

The 250th anniversary of Father Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki's death (30 April 1984) has given us an excellent opportunity to remind ourselves of his achievements as a composer; in fact, he stands as the most eminent Polish representative of the Baroque era. It is also a good occasion to summarise and revise the ongoing research, since new evidence, throwing light on his life and work, is still being found. In order to clarify recent research, which dates generally from the year 1975¹, I shall outline the circumstances which undoubtedly led to twentieth-century scholarship in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Polish music (and particularly the biography of Grzegorz Gerwazy), carried out almost entirely by Polish musicologists.