January 22 marks the 36th anniversary of the death of Gustav Arnold Fibiger III - piano-master, pre-war owner, post-war director of the Calisia Piano and Pianos Factory(Arnold Fibiger), designer of many models of pianos and grand pianos, originator and founder, as well as patron of the Piano Construction Technical School.
Below we quote his memoir from a black notebook. The words written 70 years ago about Fibiger's Secret Band are still relevant today.
In 1954, on my initiative and great persistence, thanks to the support and help of kind friends, I established this artistic school - the Piano Construction Technical School.
I became its director. This was the fulfillment of my fondest dreams. My knowledge will not die, will not go into oblivion, I will pass it on to my students, and they to the next generation. The first graduates very quickly began to achieve spectacular success in Poland and the world. They were well known, courted by the most important music-related institutions, concert halls, philharmonics, music schools. This was and will always be an elite profession. I kept in constant correspondence with them and was bursting with pride at their achievements. The authorities of the time didn't like it, they watched us and at one point said enough. She decided to punish me. The letters were carefully vetted and left their mark somewhere.
On May 19, 1964, I remember the day exactly, I noticed on my principal's desk a letter from the Presidium of the Provincial Scientific Council in Poznań (the Board of Trustees of the Poznań School District), dismissing me from my position as principal of this institution and informing me of my transfer to a teaching position.
I fell into an abyss of despair and could not mentally recover. I was severely punished for my class-hostile background and the successes of my youth. I never signed the letter, knowing that someday someone would find it and find out what the truth was. It was not I who resigned from this position, but I was brutally deprived of it. Sacked the director, limited contacts with the world of music, art, with instrument companies, stripped of my own opinion, knowledge of school management. A thinking man is an enemy, even a dangerous man. I was such a person. I humbly accepted my exile, my fate. I was and still am needed by my eagles, my falcons, my band... I love them so much.
I will always remember high school graduation exams, which provided so many emotions. They usually lasted several days. Students analyzed questions, asking for help from more diligent colleagues. I couldn't keep up with them. They were different, those who studied diligently all year, and those pretenders who constantly balked, all-knowing. They competed with each other, often did not speak to each other, issuing only murmurs, sometimes asked discreetly: how did it go? As good as it was, the euphoria was shared, with no division between nerds and lechers. Even momentary romances with the girls were overshadowed by the seriousness of matriculation and, later, the chance for life success.
This school is and will always be full of artistry. Anyone who has been willing to set foot here and stay a few years is an artist, sometimes without even knowing it. These layers of dormant hearing, musicality, beauty, sensitive sense of aesthetics are released gradually under the influence of learning and suddenly explode violently.
My artists have and will have their own unwritten code. They know very well that in their future professional life, no one ever has the right to judge artistry, skills. An artist never criticizes an artist, can never be a rival, enemy or jealous of knowledge, success, professional position. Everyone has the same opportunities, graduating from this school. That's what I had instilled from childhood and that's what I make them realize, it's the ethos of life, needed to be a decent person. Anyone who does not and will not do this is not worthy of being a member of my band, the Secret Band of Fibiger (TBF - Piano Building Technical School).
Gustav Arnold Fibiger III
Excerpt from Elvira Fibiger's book "The Piano My Love"
