Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Niedzielski, Stanisław

(b Rudki, 13 July 1842; d Warsaw, 4 March 1895). Polish baritone, choral conductor, singing teacher and composer. He studied the piano and music theory under Karol Mikuli at the music school of the Galician Music Society in Lemberg, then from 1863 at the singing school of the Vienna Hofoper; he also studied harmony and counterpoint under Franz Krenn. After a few performances in Graz Niedzielski returned to Poland; he made his début in Halka on 29 November 1866 in Kraków, where he remained until 1867. In 1872 he sang in and organized opera in Lemberg, and subsequently acted as director and conductor. He was artistic director and conductor of the Muza Society in Kraków (1875–86) and transformed it into a music society; he organized and conducted choral and orchestral concerts, and taught singing in the society’s school. From 1886 until 1892 he lived in Warsaw, performing in opera and in concerts of the Warsaw Music Society, and working with Piotr Maszyński in the Lutnia choral society. In 1892 Niedzielski was appointed artistic director and conductor of the Łódź Lutnia, but he returned to Warsaw in 1894. His compositions include choral songs, for example Maryś, Hejnał (‘Reveille’) and Pastuza fujarka (‘The Shepherd's Pipe’), and solo songs with piano accompaniment, notably Na dobranoc (‘For Good Night’), Piosenka Krzysi (‘The Song of Krzysia’), Śpij Lili (‘Sleep Lili’) op.29, Two Krakowiaks op.22, Na jeziorze (‘On the Lake’) op.34, Two Dumky op.32 and Piosnki dla dzieci (‘Songs for Children’, after M. Konopnicka) op.38.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MCL

PSB

SMP

A. Rajchman: ‘Stanisław Niedzielski’, Echo muzyczne, teatralne i artystyczne, xii (1895), 110–11

L.T. Błaszczyk: Dyrygenci polscy i obcy w Polsce działający w XIX i XX wieku [Polish and foreign conductors working in Poland in the 19th and 20th centuries] (Kraków, 1964)

IRENA PONIATOWSKA

Nie Er [Nieh Êrh]

(b Kunming, Yunnan province, 15 Feb 1912; d Fujisawa, Japan, 17 July 1935). Chinese composer. Originally named Nie Shouxin, he was one of the leading composers of revolutionary songs in China in the early 1930s. After studying several Chinese instruments, including the dizi and the erhu, he spent six months as a soldier in 1928. He took up the violin and the piano, and in 1931 joined Shanghai impresario-composer Li Jinhui’s Bright Moon Song, Dance and Theatre Troupe as a violinist. By 1933 Nie had joined the Communist Party and gained experience as a composer of film songs, and the following year he took a post with the Pathé (Baidai) Record Company in Shanghai, working on a succession of left-wing film projects until his death by drowning in 1935.

In his 37 songs Nie employs both a Western heptatonic and a Chinese pentatonic melodic language, sometimes together in the same song. March rhythms and fanfare motifs are common, and the mainly syllabically set texts are predominantly concerned with the expression of revolutionary sentiments. Many of the songs first appeared in films, and were widely used by left-wing activists in the conflicts with Japan in the 1930s as well as in subsequent political movements. While his early death robbed the Communist Party of a skilful melodist, it also provided them with a convenient revolutionary role model for subsequent generations of professional musicians. Nie’s importance lies more in this symbolic aspect than in his specific compositions. Further