Autonomiczna – absolutna – użytkowa – popularna. Muzyka pograniczna
Autonomous – Absolute – Utilitarian – Popular Music: Border Music

Summary/Abstract: The terms “absolute”, “autonomous”, “popular” and “functional” music exist in Western discourse about music only as elements of opposition expressing beliefs and postulates regarding the aesthetic nature of the art of sound and its functions. Thus, they are cultural constructs. The aim of this article is to reconstruct the history of these concepts and the ideas behind them, as well as the interactions between them, especially in the form of syncretic “borderline music”. In the twentieth century, despite the revolt of the avant-garde which sharply separated high art from other phenomena, many trends in modern music used popular and utilitarian aesthetics, looking for refreshing inspiration and real involvement in pressing social and political problems. Nowadays, the aesthetics (and technology) of the musical borderland plays an increasingly important role in compositional practices. Its strengths include inclusivity and intermediality, allowing, among others, the crossing of genres and of stylistic boundaries. Therefore, borderline music can be a model of identity that is open, flexible, dialogic, and focused on the co-operation of different elements without neutralising their separateness, which is particularly important in a multicultural world.

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