![[Lojewski Picture]](LojewskiH_01.JPG)
Harry Lojewski
Pianist, composer, former Vice President of Music at Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) and humanitarian
by Janice Foy, Ph.D.
Harry Lojewski, born in Detroit, Michigan on January 6, 1918, to Polish born parents, took advantage of life's "windows of opportunities" to help create a very successful career in music. No one in his family was a musician, although a piano was purchased for his older sister, who eventually quit playing, but Harry excelled on it and soon was studying with such pianists as Homer Grun, and Oscar Wagner (Dean of Juilliard Graduate School). While enrolled at the University of Arizona, he privately also studied theory and orchestration. As soon as the family moved to the West Coast for some California sunshine, Harry's career took off. He eventually joined ASCAP, became a member of the National Academy of Television and joined the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences.
He received his first taste of Hollywood in an unlikely place - a hospital. Not many of us have the good fortune to meet a Hollywood screen writer while a patient, and then be asked to score the Battle of the Bulge. Harry and his new partner, Robert Libbot (from Columbia Pictures) produced "Babes in the Wards" for the entire hospital. The intestinal amoeba which had placed Harry in the hospital may have drained him physically, but his musical expertise and boundless enthusiasm put him on his way to a successful career as a pianist, composer and Vice President for Metro Goldwyn Mayer, (MGM). After being drafted into the American Army during World War II, Harry requested and was granted a transfer into the Armed Forces Radio Service and did radio broadcasts, where he also played the piano. His break as a studio pianist came when an employee from Fox said that MGM was looking for an "out-of-work" Fox pianist. Harry claimed to be that pianist and began working with such luminaries as Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Esther Williams. His first musical was called, This Time for Keeps with Jimmy Durante and Esther Williams.
Harry made his piano debut at the Wilshire Ebell Theater in 1949, performing an all-Chopin program. In 1954 he became music advisor and assistant scorer at MGM, which involved writing and conducting for composers Bronislaw Kaper, Andre Previn and Miklos Rozsa. As a reward for his exemplary work he advanced rapidly at MGM. From 1969 until 1972 Harry was Head of Music for TV at MGM. This was also a time when actions taken by the Supreme Court and Justice Department brought an end to cinema's "Golden Age" by forcing the motion picture studios to relinquish their theaters. According to Harry, "this ruined the studios." Orchestras, movie stars and composers would now be engaged on a free-lance basis. "The current situation today is that we have independent contractors and mediocre standards, in general." But his successful career continued. In 1972 Lojewski became Executive Director of music for motion pictures and television at MGM. This meant that he was in charge of everything: motion pictures, T.V., contract negotiations and bookkeeping. You name it, he took care of it!
According to him, the one job he did not want was that of choir director. At that time, he stated: "l (didn't) know anything about liturgical music." Despite Harry's modesty, a choir director was needed so the parish priest Monsignor Paul Stroup at Our Lady of Lourdes in Northridge took appropriate action. In a Sunday bulletin Mr. Lojewski found out who the new choir director was " him!! His tenure started in 1962 and continued until 1975, during which time he experienced some of his most exhilarating moments as a composer.
Imagine walking down the street and hearing a Mexican whistling part of your Spanish Mass? To Harry this meant that his music had been accepted as ethnically correct. His Mass had moved to influence even those outside the parish. When writing Missa de los Mariachis, in the late 1960's, he know that if it was to be in the language of the people (Spanish, in this case), then the music would have to be in a typical Mexican style, reflecting their culture.
Not only was his Missa de los Mariachis (1969) popular among Catholic Americans and Catholic Hispanics, but also among non-Catholics. One Episcopal church in Glendale used his Mass to celebrate Easter. The preparation for the Easter service and Spanish Mass brought everyone together as a whole people, similar in the way ethnic groups maintain their identity. In the Glendale church, lasting good will was permanently established. In 1969 recognition of his music that reflected the Latino musical culture encouraged then Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty to send a Letter of Commendation to Mr. Lojewski for his Missa de los Mariachis. By 1970 he was one of four composers in the United States who was commissioned to write a Congregational Mass for Choir.
Lojewski composed and published many Masses from 1965 to 1970. The first three are in Polish and are published through the Gregorian Institute of America. The World Library of Sacred Music has published four of his Masses - three are in English and one features the organ throughout. His 1969 Spanish Mass was published by F.E.L, Limited. In Harry's words, "it is all a matter of doing things in good taste - that's the bottom line." In an attempt to describe how the current mediocre state of sacred music came about, he stated quite frankly that "when it came to the plight of church music, the leaders of the church who should have led the way into a direction that would make sense in the use of congregational singing, selection of material, sat back and didn't do anything. They felt that English would be short-lived and Latin eternal. In their place a group of "kooks", with limited musical education, took the lead and today we see (and hear) the results every Sunday and holiday."
In the late 1960's, among the issues regarding languages to be used in the Mass, the question arose as to which instruments (sacred and profane), would be appropriate. In Lojewski's opinion, "It is not the instrument itself that makes it sacred or profane, but what the instrument is playing." He said he could write a Mass for the saxophone and if he "chose the right notes for it, not one could say otherwise. To have someone chosen to be the organist in the church (who played bad piano) but is at a traditionally "sacred" instrument, that performance is certainly going to make that organ "profane" indeed!"
Many artists will bandy about sophisticated philosophies regarding their art, but Lojewski's aesthetic taste was guided by a very simple principle: - "what the music says is based on what the words are saying." There is no doubt that he succeeded in what he set out to accomplish. According to Monsignor CarI Gerken from Our Lady of Lourdes, supervisor of the section for Archdiocesan music, "Harry's liturgical music exemplified the type of Mass where the music was so indicative of what the works were trying to express." As composers of yesteryear, Harry tried to compose where more music was needed. Due to a dearth of music written for two-part voices, he composed World Without End, which he later adapted to a Polish text. Fr. Przygoda took this Mass with him when he went to Poland and brought back congratulations and warm recognition for Lojewski, from the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski. "This", Harry said, "makes everything worthwhile."
There were other compositions, other Masses, but the irony of it all came with his setting to music the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, which he dedicated to his daughter when she joined the Franciscan sisters in 1975. The largest educational publishing house, Hal Leonard, published it in 1975 and it turned out to be Harry's most successful published work. At that time Harry was not under contract to Leonard, but his nephew, also a choral arranger, was. So his nephew's name appears on Harry's music. Due to the composition's financial success, Mr. Lojewski decided to turn all publication and composer's royalties over to the Franciscan Order.
Beginning in 1972, Harry produced original sound track albums for: Gigi, Logan's Run, Coma, Brass Target, Knights of the Round Table and others. He was elected Vice President of Music Publishing Companies at MGM in 1983. Although promoted to Vice President of the music division of MGM, in 1987, Harry thought it "better to pick his time and place for retirement rather than sickness or death choosing it for him." So in January, 1988 he took his retirement and now enjoys a peaceful life in Camarillo, California with his Spanish wife Chiquita. Not only does Harry have time to be interviewed (he is one of many featured composers in On the Track, by Fred Karlin), but he still is actively composing and arranging for all types of instrumental combinations, including the cello. His Classics for Violin volume l published by Hal Leonard in 1992, featuring the music of Gluck, Beethoven, Bach and Chopin was well accepted.
Lojewski has seen many changes in the motion picture business with an impressive array of stars, composers and orchestras under contract. Then he saw it all come crashing down - all being 'let go'. This created a big change in the motion picture business, and not for the better. To sum it all up, Harry concludes: "The roaring lion became the sleeping lamb."
From: Polish Americans in California, vol. II. National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs & Polish American Historical Association. California 1995.