Over the summer, I mentioned a short occasional piece and promised to write more about it closer to the occasion. That moment has arrived. The occasion is Aleksander Lasoń’s 75th birthday, and the piece is “Rapsodyjka”—a little rhapsody lasting three minutes, for piano trio. It alludes to a popular song in which someone’s symphony is mentioned, and the singer expresses a wish to be part of it. I like the song, and I like the image. What follows will be a brief recollection, not so much of Aleksander Lasoń himself—he is doing well, and indeed, to judge by outward signs, better and better, which I sincerely hope will continue—as of how I saw him and what he meant to me during my studies, which I completed twenty years ago.

I began those studies with enormous enthusiasm and the conviction that I was now taking my place alongside Beethoven. During the first few days of October 2001, I walked down Wojewódzka Street, which connects Katowice railway station with the Academy, expecting enthusiastic greetings from passers-by who could hardly believe they were seeing me in person. I was naïve, but not so foolish that I failed to gain a more realistic sense of proportion fairly quickly. In adjusting my perspective, however, I went much too far in the opposite direction—as I am naturally inclined to do—and by November I was dragging myself down Wojewódzka Street in utter despair, convinced that continuing my studies was pointless, given the enormous deficiencies I perceived in my skills and aptitude. Before entering the Academy, I could spend whole days filling great sheets of manuscript paper, believing I was making history. Once there, I struggled to fill a single page. Entire semesters went by in which I wrote virtually nothing, thinking that surely I ought first to learn harmony, or at least a little history, not to mention counterpoint or any number of practical feats of dexterity such as score reading. I can say without the slightest exaggeration that Aleksander Lasoń’s attitude was the sole reason I completed my studies.

His teaching method was utterly incomprehensible to me at the time. In essence, he greeted even the smallest signs of creative activity with tremendous enthusiasm and discussed them as extraordinary achievements, attending closely to every detail. Any doubts I raised, any sources of insecurity or feelings of inadequacy, he brushed aside with a smile that said none of this mattered and that it missed the point of the whole endeavour. Many times I thought he was making fun of me. I would often arrive for a lesson prepared to hear that now we really would have to part ways. To the very end, I could never quite believe that he meant what he said. Yet I followed his lead, sustained by the improbable but comforting thought that perhaps he believed in me at least a little. I understood the wisdom of this method, and of his whole attitude, much later. In fact, only recently have I realised that all those supposed gospel truths about “what a composer ought to know,” or the insistence that music must be about emotion, or sound itself, or melody, are mostly nonsense, and that trying to build “solid foundations” before embarking on serious creative work is like trying to build a mountain out of stones instead of heading into the mountains and climbing a few peaks. Hoisting sails in the harbour.

I doubt I could ever be to anyone what Aleksander Lasoń was to me. That makes me all the more grateful to him.