Krzysztof Komeda

Krzysztof Komeda earned recognition primarily as a jazz musician and film composer whose scores accompanied the cinematic works of Roman Polanski and Ingmar Bergman. He entered the world as Krzysztof Trzcinski in 1931 and adopted the surname Komeda because Communist authorities viewed jazz with disapproval. Although he practiced medicine as an ear, nose, and throat specialist, Komeda also wrote compositions and performed on jazz piano, gaining favorable notice at the Sopot Jazz Festival in 1956. His most significant contributions to music centered on free jazz, and from 1963 onward he collaborated in performance and recording with trumpeter Tomasz Stanko as well as Swedish tenor saxophonist Bernt Rosengren. The 1965 release Astigmatic stands as his acknowledged masterpiece. Nevertheless, his greatest visibility came through film scoring, an area to which he devoted increasing attention during the final period of his life. He supplied music for more than forty films by directors that included Polanski, Bergman, Andrzej Wajda, Henning Carlsen, and others. Following his work on the score for Polanski’s first American feature, Rosemary’s Baby, Komeda sustained serious injuries in an automobile accident in Los Angeles. Once he regained consciousness from a coma, he rejoined his wife Zofia in Warsaw, where he died in 1969 before reaching the age of forty. In 1998 the Power Brothers label brought back into print the widely praised Memory of Bach along with Nighttime, Daytime Requiem from 1967 and Mojo Ballada, the latter containing an alternate version of the Knife in the Water music plus selections written for Miroslaw Kijowicz’s animated shorts.