Ideas of the Musica Antiqua Europae Orientalis festivals and congresses as creative inspiration as exemplified by Romuald Twardowski’s works

Musica Antiqua Europae Orientalis Festivals in Bydgoszcz, held since 1966, have been for almost half a century a highly important forum for the exchange of scholarly thoughts and artistic ideas among artists who laid the foundations in Poland and Eastern Europe of performance practices referred today as historically informed. However, regardless of the importance of the event in sphere of research and interpretation of early music, the festivals have also played a role in the emergence of new compositions. According to the director of the Pomeranian Philharmonic, Andrzej Szwalbe (1923–2002), the essence of true art is its integrity. An ability to connect various ideas and inspire various creative activities within different trends and even fields of art. This assumption became the starting point for the director of the Philharmonic to explore old repertoire as well as to inspire new creative activities that could provide various Philharmonic ensembles and large-scale festival projects with a new, unique and artistically valuable repertoire. In this respect Andrzej Szwalbe sought to draw into the circle of artists collaborating with the Philharmonic both those associated in some way with Bydgoszcz (Florian Dąbrowski, Konrad Pałubicki, Henryk H. Jabłoński) as well as renowned composers winning awards at international competitions (for example Zbigniew Bargielski, Marian Borkowski, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Wojciech Kilar, Tadeusz Machl, Krzysztof Meyer, Zbigniew Penherski, Marta Ptaszyńska, Krzysztof Penderecki). This circle also included Romuald Twardowski, who, at the instigation of the director of the Pomeranian Philharmonic, composed a piece inspired by the idea of the MAEO congress and festival. Premiered in 1968, Little Orthodox Liturgy was not only a great artistic success for the composer at the Bydgoszcz Music Festival, but also won him a special prize at the Prince Rainier III Competition in Monaco. The composition, combining new compositional techniques and traditional Orthodox liturgy, became an impulse to continue Twardowski’s creative explorations within the “neoarchaic” trend and resulted in the composer’s long-term relationship with Orthodox church music and the Pomeranian Philharmonic in Bydgoszcz.