Abstract The paper presents a survey of the dominant aesthetic and technical qualities of Justyna Kowalska-Lasoń’s output of compositions. The composer’s interests focus on Oriental cultures, depicting nature, correspondences of arts, and on reflecting the sacrum in music. I have discussed her selected works (Sanctus, The Modern Man I Sing; These Phrases… These Songs... These Arias..., IMAGE 1929)

Abstract The paper presents in a synthetic way the phenomena characteristic of Marta Ptaszyńska’s music, and the key qualities of her output. I focus on those topics that have not been sufficiently explored in existing studies, and those that call for a polemical discussion. These include the ideas that underlie Ptaszyńska’s music, the inspirations of her creative process, problems of composition technique

Abstract The present article reflects on the shortage of studies concerning music-composing women in the 18th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and focuses on one unique figure among those female musicians – Maria Antonia Walpurgis, an aristocrat of Polish descent, who demonstrated versatile talents. Thoroughly educated in her childhood, she was a poet, composer, singer, and director of her own

Abstract The article discusses the activities of selected women-composers who worked in Poland in the 19th century. They have been presented in a broad social-political context. Specific historical conditions have been taken into account, which have contributed to the perception of women’s creativity as a mission. The model of women’s activity discussed in the categories of social and political mission

Abstract Polish women-composers of the interwar period (1918–1939) have not been the subject of adequate research so far. We only have some contributory publications and general surveys dedicated to their output. This paper presents the initial results of a study that aims at creating a more multi-sided, in-depth picture of women-composers’ work, including their participation in local and international

Abstract This article is a contribution to scientific research on this aspect of Krystyna Moszumańska-Nazar’s musical output which concerns the connections between her music and other arts, primarily literature and the visual arts, as well as inspirations flowing from nature, religion, philosophy, and broadly understood culture. The article applies structuralist methodology. The starting point for

Abstract The article discusses the notion of Polish music, the possibilities of defining that notion, establishing its scope and listing specific problems related to it. For about 150 years, writers on Polish music have expressed the conviction that it has its own distinctive stylistic and expressive character. Studies concerning the specific qualities of Polish national style after WWII have naturally

Abstract A privileged position in discourse on 19th-century opera is occupied by narration concerning the emancipation of national styles. In order to work out a fresh approach in scientific study of this subject, it seems crucial that we should abandon the ethnocentric perspective. This was one of the main postulates of Jean-Marie Pradier’s utopian project of ethnoscenology. Importantly, Pradier also

Abstract The present paper concerns the concept of ‘the Polish School of Composition’, well established in writings on music composed in the 2nd half of the 20th century, but still resisting attempts to define it clearly. I sum up the ways authors have talked about the Polish School of Composition to date, both from the internal (Polish) and external (foreign) points of view. I also examine the musical

Abstract Folklorism is presented as a component of culture change. The aim of the article is to show how ethno- and musicologists, folklorists, music teachers, broadcasters, and others, have influenced traditional peasant culture in times of fundamental transformation during the 20th century, and how they have contributed to its documentation, understanding and invention of new meanings, including

Abstract The genesis of the Warsaw Autumn Festival was fraught with both potential and real complications. Musical life in Poland at the end of the first postwar decade was in a state of flux, if not turmoil, as ideological disagreements and material complications contributed to an atmosphere of dismay and distrust among musicians and authorities. This paper provides insight into the context in which

Abstract The posters that accompany the successive Warsaw Autumn Festival editions are a unique collection of works, mostly of outstanding quality. One might venture the thesis that their artistic value – living up to the high demands of the topic – exceeds the typical standards of representation characteristic of popular art. Formally speaking, they abandon the conventions of egalitarian iconographic

Abstract Although we usually treat writing and speaking about music as a secondary activity in relation to creation and performance, discourse about the latest compositional output is now gaining considerable independence. The need for creative artists to work together with institutions and with a whole network of mediators means that in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, verbal discourse has

Abstract As the managing and artistic director of Warsaw Philharmonic in 1955-58, Bohdan Wodiczko introduced an innovative programming policy which re-oriented the Philharmonic’s repertoire toward 20th-century classics and focused on the links between new music and that of other historical periods. The aim was to create a vast sonosphere of a “musical inter-age” (S. Kisielewski after M. Wańkowicz)

Abstract The present paper surveys the history of the Warsaw Autumn festival focusing on changes in the Festival programming. I discuss the circumstances of organising a cyclic contemporary music festival of international status in Poland. I point out the relations between programming policies and the current political situation, which in the early years of the Festival forced organisers to maintain

Abstract This article aims to offer a broader understanding of the Lithuanian reception of the Warsaw Autumn festival in relation to the modernisation of national music in Lithuania since the late 1950s – early 1960s. Based on a micro-historical and comparative approach to the network of individuals and events, it is intended to explore the shifts of reception through analysis of musical criticism

Abstract The article presents a survey of research on popular music carried out at the Institute of Musicology, University of Warsaw. It discusses the contents of valuable studies undertaken at the Institute but still unpublished and kept at the Library of the Institute of Musicology. The authors’ aim has been to facilitate the exchange of ideas with other musicological centres conducting research

Abstract This paper describes the process of establishing rock and roll styles and genres (as defined by Allan F. Moore) in Polish musical culture. My Ph.D. research has revealed three phases in this process. Phase 1: imitation (1957-1962), phase 2: Polonisation (1962-1967) and phase 3: artistic re-interpretation (1967-1973). I present the detailed characteristics of each phase (i.e. their socio-political

Abstract The paper is a survey of research on music in territories of occupied Poland conducted by the author in recent years, as well as a review of selected existing literature on this topic. A case study illustrates a principal thesis of this essay according to which music was used by the German Nazis in the General Government as a key elements of propaganda and in appropriation of conquered territories

Abstract This paper presents the results of the most recent research concerning Witold Lutosławski’s artistic self-awareness, based on critical source editions of Lutosławski’s writings (publ. 2007–08). In the first part I discuss the edition of the composer’s ‘official’ writings contained in the collection Lutosławski on Music. These writings provide us with knowledge of the key elements of Lutosławski’s

Abstract The following dances are most commonly considered nowadays as national dances (or emblems of Polish national culture): the polonaise, the mazur, the krakowiak, the oberek and the kujawiak. These dances form the cultural canon as defined by Andrzej Szpociński (i.e. a constantly revised part of tradition which carries significance outside the domain of dance and is obligatory for all the community

Abstract Some of Fryderyk Chopin’s letters were published individually or in groups already in the 2nd half of the 19th century. With the passage of time, more letters from and to Chopin were printed in monographs dedicated to his life and work. The first editions of Chopin’s collected letters come from the 1st half of the 20th century (by Scharlitt and von Guttry in Germany, Henryk Opieński – in Poland)

Abstract The paper presents the research project coordinated by the University of Warsaw and financed by the Minister of Science and Higher Education as part of the “Tradition 1a” module of the National Programme for the Development of Humanities. The main task of this research project is the documentation of the Jesuit music repertory produced and disseminated on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian

Abstract Research on 18th-century music has been one of the key areas of interest for musicologists ever since the beginnings of musicological studies in Poland. It initially developed along two distinct lines: general music history (with publications mostly in foreign languages) and local history (mostly in Polish). In the last three decades the dominant tendency among Polish researchers has been