Biography of Konstanty Regamey Jr

Regamey Konstanty, *28 January (15 January) 1907 Kyiv, †27 December 1982 Lausanne, Swiss composer, pianist, music critic and writer as well as oriental philologist, son of Konstanty Kazimierz Regamey (1879–1938), Catholic whose ancestors emigrated from canton Vaud in Switzerland to Vilnius in Tsarist Russia in the middle of the 19th century. At the request of his mother, Lidia Sławicz (1882–1964), he was baptised at an Orthodox church Desatine in Kyiv. He started learning piano at the age of five under the direction of his mother and father, pianists who graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in the class of A. Yesipova-Leschetizka. Later, he briefly studied privately with R. Glier; his first compositions were preserved from his youth (Mazurkas, Barcarole and Souvenir de jeunesse). From 1920, he lived in Warsaw where he attended Jan Zamoyski Secondary School, studied piano with J. Turczyński  and A. Dobkiewicz and theory of music with F. Szopki. Then he composed 2 Preludes and songs to lyrics by contemporary Russian poets. In 1931, he graduated in classical and oriental philology from the University of Warsaw under the supervision of Professor S. Schayer. He debuted as a music critic in 1932 with the article about Symphonie Concertante No. 4 by Szymanowski published in “Zet” and “Prosto z mostu.” In the same year, he started studying oriental philology and linguistics at École des Hautes Études and Collège de France in Paris. He obtained a doctorate in Hindu philology and comparative grammar of Indo-European languages ​​at the University of Warsaw in 1935. He presented his postdoctoral dissertation in 1937 and began lecturing as a university reader. He spent a lot of time with artistically oriented intelligentsia and landed gentry circles, including K. Szymanowski, J. Iwaszkiewicz, B. Miciński, K.L. Gałczyński, J. Braun and J. Stempowski. On 20 July 1937 in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Krakow, he married Anna Janina Kucharska (1912–1991), a student of Roman philology, daughter of minister W. Kucharski in the government of W. Witos. He was an active critic until the outbreak of World War II. He was an editor of a bimonthly “Muzyka Współczesna” in 1937–39 and executive editor of the monthly “Muzyka Polska” in 1938–39; he took part in the preparation of the International Society for Contemporary Music Festival in Warsaw and Krakow. During the occupation, he worked as a pianist in Warsaw cafes, e.g. in Arkadia and Bohema. He was in an easier situation thanks to his Swiss citizenship, as he was not subject to direct control by the Gestapo. He collaborated with Armia Krajowa and was a courier in 1942 (pseudonym Czesław Drogowski, testimony of W. Felczak); some people found shelter in his apartment, and composers gave him their manuscripts for safekeeping (e.g. R. Palester and others). Konstanty Regamey made his debut at underground concerts. In the spring of 1943, he presented his Persian Songs for bass-baritone and two pianos, instrumented following the suggestion of K. Sikorski, who gave a few lessons on composition to Regamey; Quintet was performed for the first time on 6 June 1944 at the underground concert; impressions from this performance were given many years later in W. Lutosławski's reminiscences. After the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising, Konstanty Regamey together with his wife and mother were exiled with other inhabitants of Warsaw to the camp in Pruszków; as a consequence, he was imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camp in Stutthof near Gdańsk. Thanks to his Swiss documents, they were not executed in Stutthof but transported to the Neuengamme camp near Hamburg, from where they were released as Swiss citizens and eventually arrived in Lausanne in November 1944. Life and occupation experiences made Regamey feel connected to Poland and Poles, and if it were possible, he would have become a Pole; this bond was alive until the end of his journey.

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