aMarian Nowakowski, bass singer; born August 3, 1912, died April 4, 2000
THE Polish international bass singer Marian Nowakowski had a special affinity with Scotland and in particular with the town of Dunfermline, the place where he was first able to demonstrate his musical talents in this country as a soloist with the Polish Army Choir.
He had begun an operatic career in Poland, where he studied with Adam Didur at the Lwow Conservatory, However the outbreak of the Second World War frustrated his more ambitious plans and he found himself in Scotland as a Lieutenant in the Polish Army, whose headquarters were at Tulliallan Castle in Fife.
The choir established its activities around the music institute run by the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust and Nowakowski struck up a close friendship with the trust's director of music James Moodie.
Later, whenever he gave a concert performance in Scotland, he would make a point of including Moodie's setting of Annie Laurie in the programme.
Nowakowski's first London appearance was in 1944 in The Messiah and he went on to sing with the Royal Opera at Covent Garden. He performed in Polish, German, English, Italian, and Russian and made many recordings including the Eriskay Love Lilt which was one of the records chosen by the then Princess Elizabeth for a BBC series Records I Like.
He also recorded under Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir John Barbirolli, Sir Adrian Boult, and Sir Malcolm Sargent and worked for Radio Free Europe. During the cold war era he gave charity concerts to support the cause of central European countries.
From 1964-77 he taught voice and opera production at the Royal College of Music in Kingston, Jamaica, and also at the University of Southern Mississippi in America. After his return to London in 1977 he continued to perform occasionally and to teach privately.
He is survived by four daughters, seven grandsons and four great-grandchildren.
Fred Mann, former secretary of the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust, organised two concerts in Dunfermline which allowed Nowakowski to return to the place where it all started for him in the UK.
''He was a truly great personality,'' said Mr Mann. ''Whenever he came back he always went to stay with his old landlady.
n David Cutler, an amateur singer who was Nowakowski's last pupil, writes: Nowakowski had a fine pedigree. He was taught by the famous Polish bass Adam Didur who had appeared at the Metropolitan opera from 1908 and sung with Enrico Caruso. Nowakowski was a particularly fine teacher. He had taught all his life and he used his experience for the benefit of his pupils. He cajoled and pushed and always found an explanation to demonstrate exactly what he wanted. He also wondered why it took so long to warm up, vocally speaking.
He would then illustrate a point and as always with teacher and pupil one sat back and basked in the sheer sound of the voice, even at 80!
His voice, even at that age, retained its pitch and colouring which said much for his method. He would always interrupt with a helpful hint about colouring the voice or making it more bright. Yawn, he would say. Singing is as simple as that.
Well, not entirely so, but surely the preservation of so much for so long is explanation of a good method!
We would then stop and discuss someone he had sung with - and he had sung with all the great post-war singers: Richard Tauber, Kathleen Ferrier, Eva Turner, Jon Vickers, Tito Gobbi, and Constance Shacklock.
And so to work again. Our most recent collaboration was in a Mahler song cycle and as an encore Paolo Tosti's L'Ultima Canzone. I had it all prepared with new markings and he leaned across to the pianist and said ''don't listen to a word he says. We will change everything'' - and he did!
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