Dorabialska Helena (Julia)

Helena Dorabialska (Julia) (* May 22, 1895 Sosnowiec – † July 20, 1944 Wołomin near Warsaw) composer, pianist and teacher. She studied piano in Warsaw with Katarzyna Jaczynowska and in Moscow with Aleksander Borowski. She also studied musicology at the Jagiellonian University, where in 1924 she defended her doctoral thesis Józef Damse and his musical comedies. She studied the secrets of composition at the Warsaw Conservatory with Roman Statkowski (she finished the course in 1925). In the years 1922-1927, she taught piano and theoretical subjects there; from 1934 she was also a member of the first staff of the Musicology Department of the State Conservatory in Warsaw.

She belonged to the Association of Music and Theater Rapporteurs founded in 1929 by Adam Wieniawski. Her rich composing work includes operas, songs, piano pieces, and chamber music. Her sextet was frequently played on the radio. She was actively involved in the socialist movement, incl. as a journalist for the Warsaw body of the PPS “Robotnik” (1918-1939).

The manuscripts of her surviving compositions are in the collection of the National Library in Warsaw. Access to sheet music – here.

The composer’s songs can be found on the album “Peine et plaisir. Songs of Polish composers from the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century ”here