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Throughout their lives Zygmunt Mycielski and Michał Bristiger were deeply interested in the development of musical life in Poland, under-stood in its wider perspective. Both were also editors-in-chief of the two most important music periodicals in Poland: „Ruch Muzyczny” (Mycielski) and „Res Facta” (Bristiger). In 1973 Mycielski also joined the Editorial Committee of „Res Facta”. What was his relationship with Michał Bristiger’s journal and with its editor himself ? The ar-ticle explores these relationships on the basis of published issues of „Res Facta” and „Res Facta Nova”, reminiscences of members of the editorial team, as well as preserved correspondence between Zygmunt Mycielski and Michał Bristiger.
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Zygmunt Mycielski’s final work, Fragmenty to words by Juliusz Słowacki (1987) belongs to the collection of religious works which crown the cre-ative path of the author of Postludia. Fragmenty were written on the basis of a rigorous, individual method of composing using twelve notes – an array system devised by him towards the end of the 1950s which from that time consistently accompanied his creative undertakings. The austerity of technique achieved by limiting external effects, par-ticularly apparent in Mycielski’s religious compositions (alongside Fragmenty one should mention here above all Trzy psalmy and the mass Liturgia sacra), results from the desire to reject pathos in favour of gravity and simplicity. This conscious creative decision means that the devices used serve to bring out the meaning and the emotion in Słowacki’s text, and in the created narration one perceives authen-ticity, truth and modesty. Fragmenty may be interpreted as a special kind of testament, Mycielski’s confession of faith, and the shades of sacrality discovered in it – the stages of musical spirituality according to Bohdan Pociej’s conception, support this supposition.
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The aim of the paper is to analyse songs written by Władysław Szpilman during the socialist realism period in the context of the composer’s songwriting achievements. Szpilman’s first hit songs were published as early as the 1930s, and they were followed by others over a period of nearly half a century. The available archival, phonographic and sheet music sources provide information about more than 300 titles which include popular songs, songs for mass performance, for children, for plays and theatrical broadcasts, films and cabarets. The dominant group is that of popular songs and songs for the stage (on themes of love). The group of songs written during the years 1948–56, regard-ed as mass songs, has distinctive formal features, different musical conceptions, and alongside the march form it includes mostly dance forms (foxtrots, waltzes, polkas, tangos), with the kind of vitality and musical quality that turned them into popular entertainment pieces often achieving the status of hits. In their textual layer the songs are differentiated as well (themes of rebuilding the country, peace, love, work). Evidence of the reception of mass songs shows that they were regarded positively, often as heartening, once described as enslaving in view of the context of the performance of selected songs. Popular songs are also characterised by diversity of form and arrangement, differentiated in terms of performance scoring and style (more than 850 archival records). The variety of musical techniques used in this genre, alongside the songs’ melodiousness, ensure that they have a per-manent place in the soundscape of the twentieth century
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From the end of the 1950s, the West German publisher Moeck offi-cially represented the state-led music publishing house PWM ‘in the West’ with the permission of the Polish Ministry of Culture. Beside the distribution of score editions and orchestral performance materials by the PWM, Moeck also represented the interests of Polish composers in the Federal Republic of Germany directly in his own catalogue. Among the first authors of the new series of editions were Kotoński, Lutosławski, Penderecki, Serocki and Szalonek. They belonged to a circle that regu-larly participated in West German musical life in the 1960s. Despite the spirit of optimism and advantages for the composers, this coopera-tion also led to problems on several levels. These included the billing of performance materials and the handling of international copyright. This made the participants aware of various limits and led to conflicts – especially on the Polish side. Translation of Polish texts in vocal works into German and English was also not as straightforward as originally planned. The article offers new insights into Polish–German cooperation in the cultural field of music, which went on despite the difficult rela-tionship between the two states then and also beyond the borders of the Cold War.
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In the ASMR series, the German composer Neo Hülcker breaks this paradigm of perception and proposes a radically different inter-pretation of New Music.ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, is a sensa-tion of pleasant tingle, caused by subtle acoustic-haptic phenomena, such as amplified murmurs, whispers, touching objects and materials. Millions of people around the world are watching ASMR videos on YouTube that let them relax nicely.In such video compositions as ASMR Tutorial: How to Play “Pres-sion” by Helmut Lachenmann, ASMR Tutorial: How to Play Mark Andreor ASMR Unwrapping the Piano & iv 11a, and Peter Ablinger: weiss/weisslich 3 – [super soft ASMR] Neo Hülcker investigates the similar-ity of sound material of illustrative pieces of New Music and ASMR, raising the question of whether New Music can make someone feel tingly. Presenting in the context of ASMR works by Helmut Lachen-mann, Mark Andre and Peter Ablinger, Hülcker explores the hidden potential contained in the most radical aesthetics of New Music, namely the suppressed carnal pleasure. The article is an attempt to show the ways how Neo Hülcker redefines the concept of New Music, entering in it the sensual experience of soundNew Music developed in the twentieth century under the influence of Theodor W. Adorno’s philosophy. Its sense, according to the phi-losopher, lies in social criticism, which the composer accomplishes through radical artistic innovation, and the distance from the audi-ence’s expectations. The sensual pleasure of sound reception is not included in the concept of New Music, which preferably should not appeal to anybody, as it “took on the shoulders darkness of the world and all its guilt, and sees its only happiness in knowing misery” (Adorno).
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Pascal Dusapin is regarded as one of the outstanding contemporary French composers. The opera genre seems to have a special place among his creative achievements. Medeamaterial is the composer’s second work for the stage, and one of many where myth becomes the subject. As the text of the libretto, he chose a text by a German dramatist, Heiner Müller. Both authors decide to reinterpret an an-tique history and deconstruct it using the means available to them. As does Sasha Waltz, who in 2007 staged Dusapin’s work. All three, while initiating a dialogue with the past, set the work firmly in the present. In this article the author attempts to answer the question how the devices used by these creative artists shape the psychological portrait of the drama’s heroine.
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Leonard B. Meyer’s book Emotion and Meaning in Music was pub-lished more than half a century ago. It still provides inspiration for musicologists with various specialisms to undertake research aimed at understanding the intriguing link between music and emotions and the relationship between musical structure and meaning. Since the publication of this outstanding volume we have seen extraordinarily dynamic development of the musicological disciplines constituting that part of systematic musicology which is based on the premises of naturalism. The article focuses on those selected research areas of this branch of musicology where the influence of the ideas first presented in the above volume is particularly significant. The most important of Meyer’s postulates in naturalistically oriented systematic musicology that continue to be discussed include: the key role of expectation in shaping our emotional reactions to the musical passages we hear and the inner musical character of the affective meanings created in this way. The main challenges faced by Meyer’s postulates during the re-cent decades are examined, and the solutions to them proposed with-in the framework of naturalistically oriented thinking about musi
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The aim of the paper is to reconsider the question of usefulness of the category of isotopy in semiotic analysis of a musical composition, on the example of Zygmunt Krauze’s Arabesque (1983) for prepared piano and instrumental ensemble. Adopting a suggestion by Nico-las Meeùs, the author undertakes an attempt to transpose Rastier’differentiation between semantic isotopy and isotopy of the plane of expression (isotopie de l’expression) into analysis of music. Following Michel Arrivé, she presents a model example of isotopic relations in the plane of expression (signifiant) from the novel Les jours et les nuits (Days and Nights)by Alfred Jarry, and finds that isotopy of the plane of expression is for linguistic semioticians an alternative to semantic isotopy in providing cohesiveness in the layer of signs that construct meaning. She then discusses the extent of application of isotopy in music semiotics and draws attention to the semantic capacity of this category in Eero Tarasti’s theory and interpretive practice, where it undergoes metaphorisation and a kind of universalisation. She also refers to the proposal of Jean-Pierre Bartoli to use isotopy in analysing Orientalistic exoticism, which constitutes an example of a return to the level of the simplest constitutive units and the condition of their iteration, i.e., to the structuralistic-semiotic conceptions of isotopy in the approach of Greimas. Moving on to an analysis of Krauze’s com-position, the author puts forward the view that Rastier’s categories of isotopy of the plane of expression as „conditions of grammaticality” (conditions de grammaticalité) of an utterance can only apply to specific cases of compositional techniques which are utterances in systemic „musical languages”, and this condition is not met in the case of the work analysed. The argumentation presented in the article is based on an analysis of particular features of the organisation of the sound material, the texture and syntax of Arabesque, as well as references to the composer’s claim to have been inspired by the mystical paintings of Władysław Strzemiński and the oriental connotations of arabesque-ness in music. In seeking the musical meaning of Krauze’s Arabesque the author focuses on identifying its intentio operis.
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The article is a review of the book TheChopin Games on the history of the Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition 1927–2010. In the author’s opinion, the synthesis organizing selected cultural, so-cial and anthropological aspects of the Chopin Competition was very useful, and it’s authors completed a large part of the tasks declared in the introduction to the work
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The article is a review of book Patkowski. Ambassador of Music from Mars by Agnieszka Pindera, the first biography of Józef Patkowski, Polish musicologist, founder and longtime manager of the Polish Ra-dio Experimental Studio. It contains a summary and evaluation of the book from a musicological perspective. Particular attention was paid to the previously unknown facts about Patkowski’s life established by the author. The text refers to the broad problems of the reception of electronic and avant-garde music in Poland and to the new wave of interest in the SEPR heritage
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The article discusses the culture-creating activities of Mieczysław Tomaszewski (1921–2019) at the Polish Music Publishing House and within the context of Musical Encounters at Baranów Sando- mierski (1976–1981). The text is mainly concerned with Tomasze-wski’s publications relating to twentieth-century Polish composers: Karol Szymanowski, Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki and Henryk Mikołaj Górecki. The reflections of the Polish musicologist are closely entwined with the theoretical conceptions developed by himself: the conception of Wort-Ton, the method of integral interpre-tation of a musical work, the conception of nodal points in the lives of composers, or intertextuality in music. Applying these conceptions allowed him to describe Polish twentieth-century compositions at different levels and in different contexts: beginning with a synthetic periodisation of creative development, up to masterly analyses and interpretations of individual works that take into consideration their intertextual references. The Polish musicologist also paid careful at-tention to composers’ statements testifying to their original views and inner transformations. The problem of freedom was of particular im-portance to him, both in its personal, artistic aspect and in its histor-ical dimension. Tomaszewski as a person reveals himself throughout his activities as someone both free and committed
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Around 1960, the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music were an important contact point for Polish composers and musicians to the Western avant-garde after years of isolation due to the doctrine of socialist realism imposed in Poland. During this first phase of Polish participation, Józef Patkowski participated twice in the Courses. Mainly based on sources to be found in the archives of the International Music Institute Darmstadt (IMD), this article di-scusses Patkowski’s perception of the Courses as well as his lecture on New Music in Poland which he held in Darmstadt 1962, and gives an insight into the organizational process of artistic contact between Poland and a Western festival.
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One can point to numerous manifestations of the sphere of sacrum in Luciano Berio’s stage works. It is created in the works of the Ital-ian artist through the use of Christian symbolism, or that associat-ed with the Judeo-Christian tradition, as in the case of Cronaca del Luogo (1999). The sphere of sacrum in Berio’s last stage work is cre-ated through such means as intertextual references to the Holy Wr it, rabbinic and apocryphal literature and, linked to the creation of specific locations of the action – the space of sacred place, the palace and a Jewish cemetery. Even the title of the work points to the link between the work and the sphere of sacrum, and between the sphere of sacrum and the symbolism of space. This article will present an interpretation of these „imagined worlds” linked to the sphere of sa-crum, created by the relationship between words, sounds and images, on the boundary between the space of the „wall” of Salzburg’s Felsen-reitschule, where the work had its premiere, and the imagination of its creators and audiences.
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Don Juan by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, directed by Lia Rotbaum (Opera Wrocławska, 1969), turned out to be an unorthodox staging supported by deep theoretical reflection. This article attempts to reconstruct this staging, on the basis of what is known as the work’s documentation (director’s copy, photographs, opera programme), reviews, accounts by the singers, as well as the director’s theoretical writings. Don Juan in the interpretation of Lia Rotbaum is an ambivalent figure, who combines contradictory attitudes. He is not a thoroughly negative protagonist; it is the other characters in the opera who, like mirrors, reflect other aspects of his activities. For this reason the director makes the question of responsibility of one person towards another the main theme of the work. Directorial techniques include the use of the revolving stage to give tempo and dynamics to individual scenes; removing and changing the sequence of some musical fragments; operating with studied, rich stage movement, and a highly ordered stage design.
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This article analyses the way of setting lament and the theme of madness to music in the first half of the seventeenth century, on the example of the works of Claudio Monteverdi.At that time the way of expressing states on the verge of madness was the lament as a distinctive musical form in the course of the composition. The discussion takes as its point of departure one of the most famous examples of lament from early seventeenth century, Claudio Monteverdi’s The Nymph’s Lament – an emotional outburst by the eponymous heroine, held within bounds by a chorus of male voices. The work is analysed in its musical aspect as well as in the context of the “video clip” advertising Anna Prohaska’s album Enchanted Forest.An example of a lament by Monteverdi using other musical techniques is the monologue from the opera Arianna by its heroine, which became the model for later laments. Symbolically it presents a woman’s unsuccessful struggle for her right to individuality and the cultural role of arranged marriage. Its shape is influenced by the commedia dell’arte tradition.The first opera directly concerned with the theme of madness is Monteverdi’s La finta pazza Licori. Also in this case inspiration came from commedia dell’arte. Even though this work was not completed, the available versions allow us to reconstruct the composer’s intentions and to show how the theme of madness came to make its appearance on operatic stage
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The article reviews selected neuropsychological studies on brain correlates of music perception. First, the role and specialization of auditory cortex is discussed, focusing on differences between primary/secondary cortices as well as hemispheric asymmetry. Second, brain structures giving rise to emotional experiences during music listening are discussed, along with several possible explanatory mechanisms. Third, studies showing strengthened relationships between motor and auditory areas of the brain are demonstrated in the context of relative easiness of music to organize actions. The last part of the article focuses on the role of prefrontal cortex in building musical expectations and error perception. The influence of additional variables, such as listener’s musical training, on the observed effects is also discussed
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The title issue of this article is preceded by reflections on the problem of perception as such, taking into account the perspective of the author’s creative and pedagogical experiences. The examples of perception problems of music-educated students, especially as part of the process of developing the auditory intellect (hearing education), are the bases of the introduced hypotheses and attempts to diagnose the problem.One of the theses in this article is that the consciousness and know-ledge of the mechanisms of perceptual hearing (both its possibilities and limitations) should accompany the creator of the musical creation.There is also an attempt to answer the question who the composer and who their listener is today.The distinction between the “composing creator” and the “creating creator” is emphasized.Attention is drawn to the problems of the perception of a con-temporary work; listeners’ habits, resulting from knowledge limitation and lack of development of the so called “cognitive attention”, limit the acceptance of new aesthetic and technical attitudes. The “perception shock” caused by the inflow of unknown information does not allow the strategy to organize the visual or auditory scene into a logical whole.The emergence of new sound qualities and their new aesthetic categorization (melodies of colors, melodies of textures, harmonies of colors, etc., and a new approach to time and space) in the 20th and 21st century music, requires “guiding the listener on the new sound stage” and opening them to appropriate perceptual strategies. Witold Lutosławski’s work – in the context of his philosophy of creation, becomes a unique example of inviting the listener to the perception game, which is based, above all, on the composer’s desire to meet his audience in a deep aesthetic experience.
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The main purpose of the article is to reflect on performer’s aesthetic concretization of a musical work. The virtuoso’s concretization blurs the boundaries of the subject and the object of experience: the musician becomes a screen for music, embodies it. The artist’s perception is sharpened, which is shown in the article based on the experience of a pianist performing Claude Debussy’s music. Especially important – apart from hearing – is the sense of touch in this experience. The analysis of the experience of the perceptive performer presented here is in a significant way inspired by the pedagogical practice of the French pianist, Alfred Cortot – his statements, recordings and testimonies of his pupils. On the theoretical side, it is founded on the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Michel Henry, and indirectly also refers to the comments of Roman Ingarden about aesthetic concretization.
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