Rev. Prof. Hieronim Feicht (1948-1951)

Born in September 1894 in Mogilno, he died in March 1967 in Warsaw. Musicologist and composer, an outstanding researcher of early music, especially of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, member of the Congregation of Missionary Fathers. He was a graduate of the theological studies at the Institute of Theology of the Missionary Fathers in Krakow and the Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv, where he studied musicology with Professor Adolf Chybiński. In 1925, he received his doctoral degree with a thesis on the Religious Compositions of Bartłomiej Pękiel, and then went to study in Fribourg, Switzerland, where he deepened his knowledge of musicology under Peter Wagner.

In 1948-1952, he was head of the Department of Musicology at the University of Wrocław, at the same time serving (in 1948-1951) as rector of the State Higher School of Music. During his term as rector, the then two-faculty music academy was expanded to include two further faculties: the Department of Theory and the Department of Instrumental Music.

He was appointed associate professor in 1954 and became full professor in 1961. From 1952 he was also a lecturer in musicology at the Universities of Warsaw and Poznań, while from 1956 he held the Chair of Church Music at the Catholic University in Lublin.

Rev. Prof. Hieronim Feicht was honoured with a number of state distinctions for his outstanding achievements in the field of scientific activity, among others with the Knight's Cross and the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. At the same time he was a member of many scientific societies and chaired numerous scientific bodies. Fr Hieronim Feicht's most important works include: Fryderyk Chopin's Rondos - 1946 (habilitation thesis), Polyphony of the Renaissance - Kraków 1957, Bogurodzica - Wrocław 1962, Liturgical Music in the Polish Middle Ages - Kraków 1965, Development of Songs in the Polish Middle Ages - Kraków 1968.