Editorial

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> The problem associated with the musical “language” of a particular composer can be understood either literally, i.e. with some possible analogies to natural language, or metaphorically, as a substitute of style, technique, or manner. I try to combine both usages. In fact, my approach to composing music is not so much - to develop a consistent language ready for use in multiple instances and thus to attain a recognisable personal style, but rather - to try to build a tool for use in one particular composition on many levels of musical “grammar”. Another basic problem is the proportion between impulse and design as defined in a well-known book by Andrzej Panufnik.The examples discussed illustrate some core problems of the music creation process, such as the deliberately incomplete ‘‘monadic’’ form (Gamma from String Quartet No. 3); the evolution of style in the process of composition and its dependence on the medium (Rondeau for wind quintet); and purely intuitive composition (Con tenerezza from Cinque pezzi diversi).</abstract>

“My” “Musical” “Language” ?

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> Andrzej Panufnik’s (1914-1991) key objective as a composer was to achieve a balance between emotion and intellect. The composer very often emphasised the role of the relation between these two elements in his works. This topic is the leitmotiv of texts about his own music left behind by the composer. From those texts, it is clearly evident that symmetry (and in later years also geometry) played a central role in the composer’s formal concepts. The impulse for the study of the possibility of using geometric shapes for the construction of musical forms came from his 1972 composition for the BBC television entitled Triangles - for three flutes and three cellos.The geometricisation of the formal structures of Panufnik’s works (frequently represented by means of sophisticated diagrams included in the scores) was correlated with a systematic reduction of musical language, based from 1968 on the three-note intervallic cell of E-F-B. In the course of the composition, this unit was submitted to a succession of symmetrical processes, such as transpositions and mirror reflections, superimposed on one another both on the melodic and harmonic levels, which was responsible for the specific sound climate of Panufnik’s music. The fullest realisation of the composer’s systematic thinking based on the principles of geometry can be found in his Symphony No. 5 - Sinfonia di Sfere (1974), in which every element was submitted to the principles of geometric symmetry represented in a diagram based on the perfect geometric figure of a circle.What is particularly important, this prominent constructivist current in Panufnik’s works always coexisted, as the composer himself claimed, with powerful emotional expression in his music. Did he manage to achieve the intended ideal balance between emotion and intellect in his music? Everyone can judge by themselves. This paper discusses the principal qualities of Andrzej Panufnik’s musical language.</abstract>

Between Emotion and Intellect. On the Musical Language of Andrzej Panufnik (1914–1991)

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> Witold Szalonek (1927-2001) did not limit himself in his artistic activity to composing instrumental, vocal and vocal-instrumental works. He was also very active as a pedagogue, music promotor and musicologist-theorist. His writings reflect the tendency (popular among composers in the 2nd half of the 20th century) to comment on the aesthetic phenomena of historical and contemporary music culture, with particular emphasis on his own works. His views on art and selfcommentaries are contained in published and unpublished articles and manifestos. With regard to character and function, the writings that he left behind can be divided into four categories. Among the nearly thirty texts, printed mostly in Poland, we can thus distinguish: 1) essays on general musical subjects, commenting on elements of the European musical heritage important for this composer and on inspirations from non-European cultures; 2) artistic manifestos, in which sonoristic concepts play a major role; 3) self-analyses and self-commentaries on selected works, which are of major value to performers interpreting his pioneering scores; 4) critical texts on current subjects and events, coming from the first years of Witold Szalonek’s artistic work, when he was active as a music critic.</abstract>

Witold Szalonek Seen Through His Own Views

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> Marek Stachowski: composer, teacher, and vice-chancellor, one of cultural Kraków’s most outstanding figures, died prematurely in 2004. The tenth anniversary of his death is an occasion to review the works he left behind as well as his extensive reflections on his own output and on the state of art in general. Reading into the numerous opinions regarding his own activity as a composer, we have found significant statements that confirm three distinctive qualities of Marek Stachowski’s artistic personality. First and foremost, his deep conviction of being predestined for the profession and an awareness of his aesthetic roots; secondly, the ability to analyse his own creative achievements; and finally, the rationalisation of the creative act while maintaining a distance towards his own work.Marek Stachowski’s oeuvre comprises 56 catalogued compositions, both small- and large-scale, vocal and instrumental, reflecting the various paths of Polish music in the second half of the 20th century: from sonoristic avant-garde to the “New Classicism.” Throughout these transformations, however, we can perceive some stable individual qualities of his musical language, namely: clarity of structure, sophistication of sound and the leading role of expression.</abstract>

Between the Lines: Reading Into Marek Stachowski’s Self-Reflections

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> In this paper, the author attempts to reconstruct the aesthetic views of Paweł Mykietyn, a leading Polish composer of the middle generation. Since Mykietyn has never presented his views comprehensively, the author reconstructs his opinions on the basis of published interviews with the composer, focusing on his ideas regarding musical and nonmusical inspirations, the significance of mathematical procedures in the compositional process, traditional musical forms, the role of quotations and self-quotations, experimentation with microtones and musical time, as well as the concept of music as autobiography.</abstract>

Integration Attempts Paweł Mykietyn and the Composer’s Self-Reflection

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> The article is an attempt to reconstruct the fundamental elements of Kazimierz Serocki’s musical language on the basis of his own statements concerning his music. Those statements come first and foremost from his lectures prepared for the Meisterkurs für Komposition at the Musik-Akademie in Basel (1976), whose manuscripts are now held in the Polish Composers’ Archive of the University of Warsaw Library. The lecture texts (Notations- und Realisationsprobleme, Klangfarben als Kompositionsmaterial, Chance der offenen Form) present a whole set of problems which Serocki considered as the most important for his method of composition. The central place among these problems is occupied by the idea of “composing with sound colour” (“mit Klangfarben komponieren”). Sound colour plays a decisive role in the creative process, as it constitutes self-sufficient material for composition. Sound colour has a form-shaping role in the musical work, since it can build sequences of sound structures in various configurations, which perform various functions in the piece. The idea of composing with sound colour is presented by the composer in the context of an adequate way of notating sound phenomena and the possibility of performing music from such notation. This idea was also related in the lectures to the principles of constructing polyvalent open forms (mehrdeutige Form) out of small- and large-scale components. Pitch organisation, on the other hand, remains of secondary interest in the composer’s commentaries. Serocki’s self-reflection provides us with original and innovative answers to the most important problems that contemporary composers have had to face in their work. It also provides significant and hitherto frequently little-known insights into the components of the unique style of the author of Pianophonie, and these insights can be effectively utilised in the course of future research on Serocki’s work.</abstract>

The Musical Language of Kazimierz Serocki in the Light of the Composer’s Self-Reflection

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> Krzysztof Knittel’s text about his own composition techniques, also looking at such topics as: the influence of painting on his music (e.g. the works of Piet Mondrian and Paul Klee); truth in the musical work; the application of recycling ad re-use techniques to the form of the musical work; methods of constructing the sound of the composition; links between music and historical events; rollage - a technique borrowed from the painter Jiří Kolář for the needs of St. Matthew Passion; sound installations created by Knittel with sounds of nature and civilisation; Theodor Lipps’ theory of empathy (Einfuhlung), as well as intuitive and improvised music.</abstract>

Some Remarks on my Composition Technique

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> Witold Lutosławski’s commentaries on his own music are often defective in many regards. These defects could be explained as resulting from a strategy according to which the aim of a commentary is not to provide a truthful description of musical phenomena but to form a desired image of a composition or a musical style in the minds of the listeners. This idea of ‘controlled reception’ was clearly outlined by the famous Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz (whose writings Lutosławski knew and highly appreciated) and is especially noticeable in the composer’s remarks on “controlled aleatoricism”, “thin textures” and the connections between his music and the twelve-tone technique. The view of reception of art common to Gombrowicz and Lutosławski could be characterised in the writer’s own words: A style that cannot defend itself before human judgment, that surrenders its creator to the ill will of any old imbecile, does not fulfil its most important assignment. [...] the idiot’s opinion is also significant. It also creates us, shapes us from inside out, and has far-reaching practical and vital consequences. [...] Literature [art in general - note by M.K.] has a dual significance and a dual root: it is born of pure artistic contemplation [...], but it is also an author’s personal settling of accounts with people, an instrument in the battle waged for a spiritual existence.</abstract>

The Strategy of “Controlled Reception” in Witold Lutosławski’s Commentaries on his own Works

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> The article is an attempt to present important categories of composer Paweł Szymański’s musical language, based on his self-analytical statements, which were in major part answers to musicologists’ questions. Luciano Berio pointed out why the situation of a composer who would like to address questions about his or her music is difficult - a lack of necessary detachment would be one of the reasons. A musicologist, on the other hand, is tempted to construct their own supposedly objective analytical view of a composer’s musical language. The dialogistic approach proposed by anthropological musicology may be a solution to these dilemmas. Other main topics mentioned in the article are related to the role of meta-concepts in Szymański’s musical language.</abstract>

Paweł Szymański’s Self-Analyses Reread

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> The collection of statements by Zbigniew Bargielski (born in 1937) describing his own oeuvre consists of texts in various forms. These include: the composer’s commentaries on his works printed in concert programmes accompanying the world premieres of his compositions; short notes in the scores; occasional reviews of compositions; the rare interviews where an open discussion of problems related to his music inspired the composer to comment; and the composer’s personal notes from different periods of his artistic activity. Valuable reference material also includes speeches by Zbigniew Bargielski recorded on audio and video devices, e.g. event documentation.Zbigniew Bargielski’s self-commentaries deal with various aspects of musical language: structure, morphology, syntax, phonology, expression and meaning - the latter mentioned specifically in the context of the artist-audience relationship.Additionally, self-reflection includes the definition of aesthetic preferences and the composer’s artistic “worldview” which determines the choice of ideas and the means of their musical implementation. Moreover, Bargielski considers the possibility of a “transmission” - via musical gestures - of the sphere of his own experiences. In his notes from the recent months, he attempts to describe the transformations of his own musical language, which is of special importance considering the almost sixty-year-long period of his artistic work.</abstract>

“I Am a Manufacturer of Impressions.”

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> Paweł Hendrich’s compositions can be compared to macrocrystals - solids composed of numerous small and identical elements, constructed in accordance with a strict pattern. Importantly, the same internal crystal structure can produce forms highly diversified with regard to external shape. Similarly, this composer’s works are very precisely structured already on the level of individual sounds, but this structure is only a tool for the creation of very clear musical macroforms. The idea of emergence - of new values resulting from the combination of simple elements - is of key importance to this composer.The paper presents the principles of organising music material in the works of Paweł Hendrich. These are, among others: periodicity, multilayered structures, permutations and flexibility. These ideas are reflected in the musical work in many dimensions, both on the level of microand macro-structure. Their application exerts a major impact on the forms created by the composer.With the development of his musical language, the composer transforms his initial material more and more radically. Simple elements and processes that underlie the construction of his works become progressively more and more difficult to reconstruct, largely due to the application of a computer in the composition process. A comprehensive look at Paweł Hendrich’s entire output of compositions proves that his work is emergent as a whole. With each new piece, a new element is added, but all of them form a coherent system. No wonder, then, that one of the composer’s works bears the telling title of Emergon.</abstract>

Paweł Hendrich’s Emergent Sound System

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> Zygmunt Krauze is the founder of a new current in art: unistic (unitary) music. He developed this concept in the first period of his artistic work, inspired by the unistic paintings of Władysław Strzemiński. Traces of this style are also detectable in Krauze’s later post-unistic works. Unistic music is characterised by a paradoxical unity in diversity. Most of the composer’s statements collected in this paper refer to specific features of unism in music. Other, more general comments concern the essence of music, the composer’s personal stance, the creative process, the autonomy of the composer, the audience and the performers, etc. Two longer texts by Zygmunt Krauze have been quoted in full. One can be considered as a unistic manifesto, while the other is a kind of personal credo.</abstract>

The Poetics of Unism in Music

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> One of the most frequently recurring topics in Marcin Stańczyk’s (b. 1977) self-commentaries is the idea of translating the phenomenon of afterimages into music, in the form of his original concept of aftersounds. Direct inspiration for this concept came from a cycle of solarist paintings by Władysław Strzemiński entitled Afterimages of the Sun. The concept of aftersounds can be considered on the level of music material (resonances and reflections of various kinds, contrasts on the sound level) as well as metaphorically (when the composition becomes an afterimage of an external phenomenon). Particularly important to Stańczyk’s work as a composer are explorations in the field of music perception and the theatricalisation of performance, which turns every gesture of the performers into a meaningful element of the composition, as well as an element of expression. This paper aims to present an outline of the ways in which Stańczyk implements the idea of aftersounds in music. The text is based on the composer’s own statements as well as on characteristic examples from his works.</abstract>

Marcin Stańczyk’s Afterimages and Aftersounds – Reflections and Self-Reflections

AHEAD OF PRINT

Volume 19 (2022): Issue 1 (December 2022)

Volume 18 (2021): Issue 1 (December 2021) Pasticcio. Ways of arranging attractive operas

Volume 17 (2020): Issue 1 (December 2020)

Volume 16 (2019): Issue 1 (December 2019) Women-Composers in Poland

Volume 15 (2018): Issue 1 (December 2018) Deconstructing the Myth of Polishness in Music

Volume 14 (2017): Issue 1 (December 2017) ‘Warsaw Autumn’ International Festival of Contemporary Music

Volume 13 (2016): Issue 1 (December 2016) [Polish] Musicology Today

Volume 12 (2015): Issue 1 (December 2015) The Musical Languages of Contemporary Polish Composers: Self-Reflections

Volume 11 (2014): Issue 1 (December 2014) Oskar Kolberg

Volume 10 (2013): Issue 1 (December 2013) Musical Historiography in Poland. New Sources – New Methodologies

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Volume 12 (2015): Issue 1 (December 2015) - The Musical Languages of Contemporary Polish Composers: Self-Reflections