He is the author of many well-known songs sung by Marek Grechuta, Andrzej Zaucha, or Grzegorz Turnau. Other singers who sang his songs include Hanna Banaszak, Sebastian Karpiel-Bułecka, Renata Przemyk, Janusz Radek, Maryla Rodowicz, Beata Rybotycka, Ryszard Rynkowski, Irena Santor, Justyna Steczkowska, Anna Szałapak, Zbigniew Wodecki, and Jacek Wójcicki.
Zbigniew Wodecki described Pawluśkiewicz as a
free, artistic soul, unrestrained, thank God, by any rules. A total visionary, without any insecurities. His confidence allows him to achieve exactly what he wants. I had the great honour and pleasure to be the first one to perform his violin compositions, scribbled on a tram ticket, which later survived for decades—The Heart and Tango Anawa. We’re lucky he was born in Nowy Targ, and not in New York, because we wouldn’t have had him otherwise.
[Wacław Krupiński, Zbigniew Wodecki. Pszczoła, Bach i skrzypce / Zbigniew Wodecki: Bee, Bach, and the Violin, Warsaw 2011]
Pawluśkiewicz composed many different musical genres: the musical Szalona lokomotywa (Crazy Locomotive, 1977), the opera Kur zapiał (The Rooster Crowed, 1984), the concert Apimondia mater (1987), Opera żebracza (The Beggar’s Opera, 1991), the oratory Nieszpory Ludźmierskie (The Ludźmierz Vespers, 1992), the symphonic poem Harfy Papuszy (Papusza’s Harps, 1994), the concert Amat Vita (1998), the oratories Droga – życie – Miłość (Path – Life – Love, 1999) and Ogrody Jozafata (Gardens of Jehoshaphat, 2002), the piano concerto Liściany kolczyk (The Leaf Earring, 2005), the oratories Przez tę ziemię przeszedł Pan (The Lord Passed Through This Land, 2005), Weneckie opowieści o piekle i raju (Venetian Stories of Heaven and Hell, 2008) and Radość Miłosierdzia (The Joy of Mercy, 2009), and the clarinet concert Karossa/Carossa (2013).
In his longer compositions, Pawluśkiewicz collaborated with the famous Polish female soprano Elżbieta Towarnicka and opera soloists as guest performers: Andrzej Biegun, Gwendolyn Bradley, Marzena Michałowska, Andrij Shkurhan, and Bożena Zawiślak-Dolny. His compositions have been conducted by such stars as Mirosław Jacek Błaszczyk, Sławomir Chrzanowski, Rafał Jacek Delekta, and Wojciech Michniewski. His longer forms were also performed abroad, including Canada, Portugal, and the United States.
He Always Made It
Jan Kanty Pawluśkiewicz is a graduate of the Fryderyk Chopin State Music School in Nowy Targ and the Faculty of Architecture of the Kraków University of Technology. He began his artistic career in his teens, playing piano at school events and, later, at weddings. He had a short stint as an organ player at the St. Catherine Church in Nowy Targ.
It was in that town that he played at mass whatever music he knew: before he mastered sacral music, he played the theme from Rififi before elevation, or current hit songs, such as Ciao, ciao bambina or Gdy mi ciebie zabraknie (When You’re Gone), both originally sung by Ludmiła Jakubczak. The attendance at mass tripled.
In 1966, together with a couple friends from his dormitory, Pawluśkiewicz came up with an idea for a student-run cabaret, which later turned into a music band, Anawa, with Marek Grechuta as a lead singer. Jan Kanty remembered his younger bandmate as ‘generally thoughtful and melancholic, but also not a stranger to pranks and other antics. In general, he wasn’t much of a party guy, however.’ The band worked with a number of instrumentalists, including Marek Jackowski on the guitar, Jacek Ostaszewski on the flute, and Zbigniew Wodecki on the violin.
If we never met [with Grechuta], I would probably still have moved towards music, but it would’ve taken longer. With Marek, I saw immediate, positive effects. That was probably because we agreed on the fundamentals: aim high, opt for perfect poetry, don’t churn out concerts one after another, keep working on new things, don’t do slipshod work, and finally—money is not top priority. That gave Anawa a good reputation. So much so that Jacek Ostaszewski got himself admitted to the hospital so that we didn’t have to perform at the Military Song Festival in Kołobrzeg. The [political] pressure was enormous! We had an explanation for the generals: ‘our musician is ill, and we cannot do it without our base player!’
[Jan Kanty Pawluśkiewicz, interview with Wacław Krupiński, Jan Kanty Osobny / Jan Kanty the Separate, Kraków 2015]
Pawluśkiewicz’s original compositions formed a separate category in the popular music of those years: namely, the literary song genre, which combined poetry and music with a characteristically baroque timbre as equal elements. Anawa’s songs, breaking with the then-fashionable inclusion of the poignant sounds of electric guitars, quickly made their way to the top hits playlists.
Poetry has always held an important place in my work. I consider it inelegant when the composer focuses first on the music, only to add the lyrics later. This is simply inappropriate behaviour towards the author of the poem. I am always first inspired by the text, which stirs my musical imagination—although it has to be said that the poem itself, as a closed form, does not need music. When I find a text which stimulates me, I start looking for its musical equivalent. Poetry and music have to form a union which emanates a certain mood. I care for emotions a lot. Composers who follow the rational aesthetics of the twentieth century believe that emotions are a lowly thing and should not be manifested. I disagree—I see music as a carrier for emotions. I am generally more interested in musical forms which foreground the word, rather than absolute music. Music is made of the moments of tension and silence, same as human life…'
[Jan Kanty Pawluśkiewicz, Dziennik Polski no. 87 1995]
Anawa’s songs were always marked by their non-conventional character, closely related to the virtuosity of performance. No wonder, then, that they won scores of festival awards (including the Festival of Polish Song in Opole) and enjoyed great success at numerous concerts, both in Poland and abroad (including the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972). Fans of the band found it hard to believe that the band could break up at the height of its success—which is precisely what happened.
When it comes to the albums released by Anawa, Pawluśkiewicz, as the musical director, together with the lead singer Grechuta tested the patience of their audience. Both musicians lacked an academic musical education, which only propelled them to further pursue perfection in performance. They took two years, playing their songs at numerous concerts, before they published their first official album.
They listened to the people’s reactions as the best indicator for how complete a composition really is. If we could compare the inaugural performance with, say, the thirtieth one, we would surely see the vast difference between the two renditions. Both young artists set the bar very high for themselves, sensing that they have to write even better songs before they are worth recording.
[Danuta Grechuta, Jakub Baran, Marek. Marek Grechuta we wspomnieniach żony Danuty / Marek: Marek Grechuta, Remembered by His Wife, Kraków 2011.]
A decadent Goral
In the 1970s, Jan Kanty Pawluśkiewicz started an artistic collaboration with the Piwnica pod Baranami (Cellar Under the Rams) cabaret. Many of his compositions were used by artists of the group. Pawluśkiewicz also performed himself, in the song-and-dance pieces Inez and Bajka (Fable), adored by the audience. He considered this period to be the peak of his lifetime achievement. His performances were even recorded and shown on TV.
Pawluśkiewicz insists that he never felt a true member of the Piwnica pod Baranami group, arguing that while the cabaret gave him a lot, he did not return the favour. He often emphasises the importance of the conversations he held with Piwnica artists, particularly with Piotr Skrzynecki.
Even though I was never fully associated with Piwnica, I derived a great deal from it. I don’t mean the music—I was never under the influence of Zygmunt [Konieczny], simply because jazz was too strongly ingrained in me. But the fantastic meetings and conversations, which changed my thinking, my relationships with art and people, were immensely important. This was primarily the doing of Piotr. I became very calm because of him. He would repeat—don’t worry so much, don’t fret, stop being so dead serious about yourself. Search for interesting things and details. Be a perfectionist in those details, because that matters a lot for the whole. Art is very hard work, but it brings a great satisfaction. Keep searching, as much as your strength, talent, and perseverance allow you. I spent dozens of hours talking to Piotr. They were often incoherent, seemingly blurry, but they left a lot of thought material to process, define, and modify. I was incredibly enriched by those conversations.
[Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, Piwnica pod Baranami czyli koncert ambitnych samouków / Piwnica pod Baranami, or the Concert of Ambitious Autodidacts, Warsaw 1994]
A Barbarian in a Garden of Sounds
In an entirely new chapter of his art career, Pawluśkiewicz began a collaboration with the STU Theatre and Krzysztof Jasiński. In 1977, together with Marek Grechuta, he wrote the score for Szalona lokomotywa (Crazy Locomotive), a musical staged in the theatre and based on Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz’s play. In 1985, he wrote the opera Kur zapiał (The Rooster Crowed), whose libretto was based on Wiesław Dymny’s poem, Polski szynkwas żydowski (Polish Jewish Bar Counter).
As a composer of theatrical music, Pawluśkiewicz also collaborated with the other Kraków theatres, including Ludowy (John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, dir. Krzysztof Orzechowski), Stary, Bagatela, Juliusz Słowacki Theatre and the KTO Theatre. Pawluśkiewicz also had a very rich portfolio of collaborations outside Kraków, starting with music to the plays directed by Tomasz Zygadło in the Jan Kochanowski Theatre in Opole (Nowe cierpienia młodego W. /Young W.’s New Sufferings, Dziady/Forefather’s Eve). In Warsaw, Pawluśkiewicz wrote music for the National Theatre (Tadeusz Różewicz’s Na czworakach/On All Fours, dir. Kazimierz Kutz) and Dramatyczny Theatre (A Season in Hell, based on Rimbaud’s poem, dir. Adam Sroka). He also wrote for the Stefan Jaracz Theatre in Łódź, Juliusz Osterwa Theatre in Lublin, and many other theatres in Poland. He described this kind of work in the following way:
Theatre does not need symphony, or the several dozen voices of the orchestra. Theatrical music is only a call sign, a certain musical project. It is an incredibly economical, but also refined, musical vision. … Because of that, music cannot replace or fill other elements of the play’s structure. … My presence in this music—let’s call it classical music—is like a presence of a barbarian in the garden of pleasure derived from unintelligible sounds. Music consists of states of tension and silence. Music is a situation, a state of being over time. Both silence and the internal dramaturgy of sounds are elements of musical action. It matters: the trajectory, rhythm, pace, type of narration, tension—all these elements of the musical drama have to be taken into consideration when writing. It’s not entirely a cold, intellectual approach, however, an intellectual analysis or production of music—elements of tension have to be present.
[Jan Kanty Pawluśkiewicz, interview with Krzysztof Rekosz, 'Teatr to moja niezdobyta kochanka,’ (Theatre is my unconquered lover) Teatr no. 7/8 (1996)]
Spheres of intellectual convolutions
Pawluśkiewicz is responsible for writing the music score for several shows of the TV Theatre, as well as several dozen shorts and regular feature films. He collaborated with directors such as Tomasz Zygadło (Brzydkie kaczątko/Ugly Duckling, 1973; Rebus/The Puzzle, 1977; Ćma/Moth, 1980; Odwet/Revenge, 1982), Janusz Zaorski (Chleba naszego powszedniego/Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread, 1974), Feliks Falk (Wodzirej/Top Dog, 1977; Obok/By the Side, 1979; Szansa/Chance, 1979; Idol/The Idol, 1984; Bohater roku/Hero of the Year, 1986), Andrzej Titkow (Układ krążenia/The Circulation System, 1978), Agnieszka Holland (Gorączka/Fever, 1980; Kobieta samotna/The Lonely Woman, 1981), Krzysztof Kieślowski (Krótki dzień pracy/Short Working Day, 1981), Kazimierz Kutz (Zawrócony/Reverted, 1994; Pułkownik Kwiatkowski/Colonel Kwiatkowski, 1995; Sława i chwała/Fame and Glory, 1997), Márta Mészáros (Córy szczęścia/Daughters of Luck, 1999; Mała Vilma/Little Vilma, 2000), Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krzysztof Krauze (Papusza, 2013 – Best Music Award at the 38th Film Festival in Gdynia).