1940

Baird composes new pieces for piano and violin as well as songs.

During the occupation period I wrote a number of piano works, works for violin and piano, and songs (nothing has survived); as time went by I was becoming more and more interested in composing. Yet I was diligently doing my piano exercises, still seeing piano as my main goal. It wasn’t clear whether I’d be a composer or a performer, but there was no doubt that music would be my profession.

1941

Tadeusz Baird begins piano lessons with Tadeusz Wituski. At that time he also has the first composition lessons with Bolesław Woytowicz. The lessons took place at the House of Art, an art cafe run by Woytowicz in Nowy Świat Street. Young Baird was also becoming familiar with musical literature, attending concerts given in private homes.

It may have been in 1941, when my father, who wasn’t put off from active music making even by the war and occupation, which didn’t weaken his musical needs and passions, took me to Professor Woytowicz’s cafe. So we went there together and I remember my father booking table no. 49 in this cafe once and for all. The advantage of the table was that it was right next to a big, tile stove, so we could hope that it wouldn’t be too cold in autumn or winter. Let’s bear in mind that most guests sat in their overcoats during concerts or recitals. This table, number 49, was our table until 1944, I think. I learned there more works of the greatest musical literature – piano and chamber music – of all periods than ever before or after.

1942

Edward Baird becomes involved in the work of the clandestine Department of Agriculture of the Government Delegation for Poland. The department prepared plans for agriculture in post-war Poland. Baird’s father’s involvement in the work of the government in exile caused his subsequent problems in the Stalinist period.

1943

Baird begins music theory lessons with Kazimierz Sikorski at the Municipal Conservatory in Okólnik Street.

1944

Spring

Baird receives his “certificate of secondary education”.

August

During the Warsaw Uprising the sixteen-year-old Baird remains in Saska Kępa. After the fall of the Uprising he is deported to a camp in Zakroczym and then to Germany.

September/October

In Germany Tadeusz Baird works as a farm hand in Emsdetten.

I was bought from the representatives of the German Arbeitsamt [...] by a German, more or less 55 or 60 years old, who, urging us as if we were the cattle he’d just bought, told us to get into the carriage. We were driven for something like 3 hours, [...] to a very large farm near the town of Emsdetten, half way between Reine and Münster. The gentleman who bought us owned a large, over 100-hectare farm; what’s worse, as it turned out later he was the local Parteiführer, i.e. head of the village, peasant Nazi party cell. And this man became my owner for a while, a man [...] who could decide whether I’d live or die.

At that time Edward Baird reaches Kraków, where he meets Józefa Ciechomska, with whom he starts a relationship, having no information about his wife’s fate.

November/December

Tadeusz Baird is sent to work on building defence fortifications on the German-Dutch border. After attempting to escape, he is arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a branch of the Neuengamme concentration camp – first in Soest and then in Gladbeck-Zweckel.

1945

1 April

The Gladbeck camp is liberated by the American troops. Tadeusz Baird, emaciated, is now free.

Edward Baird returns to work at the Ministry of Agriculture.

April/May

Tadeusz Baird is taken to hospital in Zweckel.

September

Having recovered, Baird is sent to a DP camp in Emmerich. This is where he finds his mother. While waiting to be sent back to Poland, he sets up a club, a musical library and musical ensemble, which gives about 65 concerts for the camp community. At the same time he self-studies the principles of music, harmony, and musical literature from German textbooks.

1946

Spring

Baird begins working as a teacher of theoretical music subjects in a temporary conservatory in the town of Kagel near Hagen. He also performs as a pianist, although the osseous tuberculosis he contracted in the camp has weakened his right hand.

Summer/autumn

Tadeusz Baird returns to Poland with his mother and continues his composition studies.

1947

Baird is entered in the student register at the State School of Music in Warsaw, where he begins to study composition, first with Piotr Rytel and then with Piotr Perkowski.

1948

10 April

Baird passes his final exams at the General Jasiński High School in Warsaw.

1 October

Baird begins his musicology studies at the University of Warsaw. Although it quickly turns out that the composer is bored by the theoretical approach to music, many years later he will have fond memories of his university lectures.

1949

March

Baird is invited to work with the Youth Club of the Polish Composers’ Union.

April

Baird writes his Sinfonietta, which will be performed during the National Congress of Composers and Music Critics in Łagów Lubuski.

5-8 August

Baird takes part in the Congress of Composers and Music Critics in Łagów Lubuski. This is where Group 49 is established.

6 November

Baird becomes a member of the Polish Composers’ Union.