This book looks at Polish music since 1937 and its interaction with political and cultural turmoil. In Part I musical developments are placed in the context of the socio-political upheavals of inter-war Poland, Nazi occupation, and the rise and fall of the Stalinist policy of socialist realism (1948–54). Part II investigates the nature of the 'thaw' between 1954 and 1959, focusing on the role of the 'Warsaw Autumn' Festival. Part III discusses how composers reacted to the onset of serialism by establishing increasingly individual voices in the 1960s. In addition to a discussion of 'sonorism' (from Penderecki to Szalonek), it considers how different generations responded to the modernist aesthetic (Bacewicz and Lutoslawski, Baird and Serocki, Górecki and Krauze). Part IV views Polish music since the 1970s, including the issue of national identity and the arrival of a talented generation and its ironic, postmodern slant on the past.

This book looks at Polish music since 1937 and its interaction with political and cultural turmoil. In Part I musical developments are placed in the context of the socio-political upheavals of inter-war Poland, Nazi occupation, and the rise and fall of the Stalinist policy of socialist realism (1948–54). Part II investigates the nature of the 'thaw' between 1954 and 1959, focusing on the role of the 'Warsaw Autumn' Festival. Part III discusses how composers reacted to the onset of serialism by establishing increasingly individual voices in the 1960s. In addition to a discussion of 'sonorism' (from Penderecki to Szalonek), it considers how different generations responded to the modernist aesthetic (Bacewicz and Lutoslawski, Baird and Serocki, Górecki and Krauze). Part IV views Polish music since the 1970s, including the issue of national identity and the arrival of a talented generation and its ironic, postmodern slant on the past.

The music of the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) has enjoyed a resurgence of interest in recent years. Despite wide recognition in his own lifetime, Szymanowski‘s works were somewhat overlooked in the decades following his death. Outside Poland, changing fashions militated against acceptance of his achievement, and subsequent generations of Polish composers regarded his music as too reactionary to provide a basis on which to found a national musical identity. In this full-scale study of Karol Szymanowski‘s life and music, Alistair Wightman explores the composer‘s position as a constant outsider in his own country, yet agood European in the ways in which he responded positively to a diverse range of musical talents, in particular as Stravinsky, Strauss, Berg, Hindemith, Prokofiev and Ravel. The book throws light on Szymanowski‘s relationship to the Polish musical establishment, the reception of his works at home and abroad, his work as an educationalist, and the essentially European dimension of his art, drawing on letters, polemical writings, verse, theatrical sketches and the memoirs of family, friends and contemporaries. All of Szymanowski‘s significant works are discussed, illustrated with nearly 140 music examples. Evaluation is made of the close links existing between the composer‘s musical and literary works from the earliest stages of his career, as well as the various ideological strands that went together to form the unique, humanistic synthesis, characteristic of his mature work.

The first comprehensive selection of Szymanowski's writings to be published in English, containing all the most important of the composer's essays and interviews. Karol Szymanowski [1882-1937] is now widely acknowledged to be the most important Polish composer since Chopin. He was also a considerable thinker on musical topics: the role of music in society, the goal of musical education, thepurpose of criticism, the nature of Romanticism, the hallmarks of national identity - indeed, he was passionately concerned with the emergence of the Polish voice in music, and the role of Chopin in particular. Szymanowski on Music is the first comprehensive selection of his writings to be published in English. It contains all the most important of the composer's essays and interviews, throws light on the trying conditions under which he was obliged to work in the 1920s and '30s, especially in education, and gives perceptive assessments of the work of some of the major composers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - Wagner, Strauss, Stravinsky, Ravel, Satie and others - and the trends they embodied. A number of pieces of a more biographical nature are also included. Overall it provides, in the words of the translator Alistair Wightman, `abundant evidence of the breadth and depthof Szymanowski's personal culture, and at the same time a telling demonstration of his search for an all-embracing humanistic synthesis'. Dr Wightman faces his pioneering translations from Szymanowski's Polish originals with an extensive introductory essay that places his literary activities in the context of his life and career. This book will be a vital element in the rediscovery of the music of one of the twentieth century's most appealing composers.

1956 was a year of transition in Poland, and an important year for Polish music. This year saw the beginning of a political thaw – sometimes called the Polish October – in communist Poland. It was also the year of the establishment of the 'Warsaw Autumn' International Festival of Contemporary Music. This was a time of great artistic ferment in Polish music, which also deeply influenced symphonic thinking. The year 1956 is thus an appropriate starting point for Beata Bolesławska’s study of the contemporary Polish symphonic tradition. Bolesławska investigates the influential Polish avant-garde, illuminating the ways in which new musical means and ideas influenced symphonic music and the genre of the symphony in the music of such important composers as Witold Lutosławski (1913–1994), Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (1933–2010) and Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933). Referring to the main elements of the European tradition, as well as examining briefly the symphonic activity in Poland before 1956, the book concentrates on the symphonic writing in the context of avant-garde trends, represented by the so-called 'Polish school of composers', as well as on its later redefinitions proposed by Polish composers up to the present day.

The music of the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) has enjoyed a resurgence of interest in recent years. Despite wide recognition in his own lifetime, Szymanowski?s works were somewhat overlooked in the decades following his death. Outside Poland, changing fashions militated against acceptance of his achievement, and subsequent generations of Polish composers regarded his music as too reactionary to provide a basis on which to found a national musical identity. In this full-scale study of Karol Szymanowski?s life and music, Alistair Wightman explores the composer?s position as a constant outsider in his own country, yet a ?good European? in the ways in which he responded positively to a diverse range of musical talents, in particular as Stravinsky, Strauss, Berg, Hindemith, Prokofiev and Ravel. The book throws light on Szymanowski?s relationship to the Polish musical establishment, the reception of his works at home and abroad, his work as an educationalist, and the essentially European dimension of his art, drawing on letters, polemical writings, verse, theatrical sketches and the memoirs of family, friends and contemporaries. All of Szymanowski?s significant works are discussed, illustrated with nearly 140 music examples. Evaluation is made of the close links existing between the composer?s musical and literary works from the earliest stages of his career, as well as the various ideological strands that went together to form the unique, humanistic synthesis, characteristic of his mature work.