Excerpt from an essay by Izabella Grzenkowicz
Tadeusz Baird's music is a very distinct phenomenon in the
contemporary Polish music, Its uniqueness was determined by not only
the strenght of the composer's individuality or the format of his
talent but also by its deep roots in the tradition.
He was called a traditionalist and a romantic of contemporary
times. These terms, independently of the stylistic evolution of the
composer, permanently stuck to him, since they revealed to some extent
the essential features of his aesthetic attitude. The creative
reference to tradition is presented in Baird's music in a complex way.
To be sure, he was not a revolutionary, yet he was not a conservatist,
either. As for his technical means of expression, he was even an
innovator, whereas in his ideas he needed support of sound foundations,
the sense of his being linked with what had preceded him.
Those links are expressed in the most forceful way in the
sphere of aesthetics, in the affinity of Baird's music with the
aesthetic of Romanticism. He was not an epigone, he neither adopted
ideas not applied mannerisms, or stylization. In his proper trend of
creative work, not going beyond the twentieth century's tendencies, he
used a moderately modern idiom. His music is overflown with elements of
Romanticism; it resonates with the spirit and the climate of the epoch,
linking it inseparably with the contemporary times. Its uniqueness
consists in a very noble, refined following of certain aesthetic
concepts, which Baird adapted in his own art. The composer has carried
out this idea by applying skillfully the specific musical devices,
marking them with a definite sense and function. To ilustrate the
phenomenon of Baird's musical effects we could only mention
preservation of preeminence of melody, which – although modernized and
transformed according to the requirements of modern techniques –
remained in his music the dominant vehicle for musical expression.
Another illustration of the uniqueness of Baird's compositional skill
is his giving of a restless, rubato-like, quasi-improvisatory character
to the musical course. Next is his filling of the musical content with
emotion, especially with lyricism, as well as his preference for
psychologically intensified type of subjective utterance.
Considering the issues of ties with tradition in Baird's
creative output, it is impossible to omit his relationship with Karol
Szymanowski, whose art. He revered and whom he considered to be his
spiritual father. There are affinities in the sound sophistication and
colouristic susceptibility; in the filling of the soundtissue with
emotionalism; in the restless, refined climate of the music; in piety
for their consideration of compositional means of expression.
The invigorating stream of tradition was influencing Baird's
music in various ways. And only the talent of his magnitude was able,
drawing from so many sources, to create art so outstanding and
authentic, so highly indyvidual and - at the same time – so universal
in its humanistic outlook
Excerpt from an essay by Izabella Grzenkowicz from Conversations, Sketches, Reflexions, T. Baird and I. Grzenkowicz, PWM 1982
