Born in Chotzen, Böhmen (today Choceň), Polatschek began studying clarinet in 1903 at the Conservatory of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (today University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna) with the then principal clarinettist of the Vienna Philharmonic, Franz Bartolomey, who is considered the founder of the Viennese clarinet school.
After the war, Polatschek was given a temporary teaching assignment at the Academy of Music, which had been renamed "Akademie" in the meantime, and on 1 September 1921 he was officially appointed professor of clarinet there.
In 1924 he took part in the premiere of Anton Webern's Six Songs after Poems by Georg Trakl with his student Leopold Wlach, the latter on the bass clarinet.
Polatschek taught clarinet both at the Berkshire Music Centre, where he counted David Glazer among his students, and at the Tanglewood Summer Festival.
[2][3]On 27 July 1948, the clarinettist died of a heart condition aged 59 in Lenox, Massachusetts, just hours before he was to take part in a series of Bach-Mozart concerts at the Tanglewood Festival.
Symphony in E minor, Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (both in 1944)[5] and Richard Strauss' Don Juan (1946), all conducted by principal conductor Koussevitzky.