JAVS Spring 2014

J ERZY K OSMALA : A H OMECOMING

Jerzy Kosmala performing at the 41st International Viola Congress

inadequate with regard to the greater story. Even being acknowledged and honored as a Polish “mas ter” of the viola during the course of the congress, and again correctly so, does not do justice to the truth. That he played a most credible recital to high ly deserved accolades at eighty-one and past his prime is far less important ultimately than the reality of his presence: he had persevered as a man of con science and as an artist to perform at an internation al viola congress in the city of his birth following decades of exile during communist rule and claim his rightful place among great Polish musicians. Had Dr. Kosmala done nothing more than walk on stage and take a bow without playing a single note, he would have been more than deserving of a pro longed standing ovation. Nevertheless, the audience

by Dwight Pounds

I have known the Polish violist Jerzy Kosmala since we were graduate students at Indiana University in the 1960s, and it has been my honor to be present at dozens of his performances over many years at American and European viola congresses. We noted rather wryly at the 1988 viola congress in Kassel, Germany, that Poland was less than a single day’s drive from our location and about as accessible as the moon. It was impossible for either of us to fore see that in September 2013—twenty-five years later—he would be a featured artist at an interna tional viola congress in Kraków, Poland. The pub lished program for IVC XLI correctly documents this fact, but this is too easy, too short, and woefully

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